From: John Bishop <jbishop@alexus.zko.dec.com>
Subject: (urth) Re: "their own crude writing" [Digest urth.v006.n028]
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 07:45:39 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

With respect to rats writing, I read that as saying
that rats fouled the books with their waste and left
footprints, etc.  These tracks and evidences are a
kind of writing in that one can "read" them, gleaning
details of the rat's life.

In this sense, a footprint means "I (a rat) was here".

Check out semiotics for careful definitions of the
difference between a footprint and a drawing of a
footprint and so on.

      -John