From: "Alice Turner" <al@interport.net>
Subject: (urth) Silly Bus
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:38:00 


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


For the second week, I nominate Kafka's "In the Penal Colony." With all the
emphasis on Borges, I think Kafka has been somewhat overlooked as an
influence on Wolfe. In my opinion, THE CASTLE has relevance to PEACE, to
FIFTH HEAD, to "Tracking Song" and to "Seven American Nights," which also
looks to AMERIKA.

But "In the Penal Colony" with its curiously detached look at torture, its
fascination with the instruments of torture, and its examination of the
relationship between the torturer and the condemned strikes me as seminal to
Wolfe's original decision to make this Severian's profession. (I also think
it influenced "V.R.T."even more directly--the officers in the two pieces
could be clones.)

Can't decide on a second book, though that Oliver Sacks idea is evocative if
not directly relevant.

-alga-



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