From: Dan Parmenter <dan@lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v027.n002
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 14:55:40 

From: Geoff Alex Cohen <gac@cs.duke.edu>

> Ultan has an assistant, Cyby, who is described as: "...a stocky, very 
> erect man of forty or so with a flat, pale face." and  "Cyby had a high 
> square forehead, from which his graying hair was in retreat. It made his 
> face seem small and a trifle babyish..."
> 
> Now, this is a fairly decent description of Wolfe, especially in 1980.
> Also, the symbolism of Cyby as apprentice to Ultan implying Wolfe
> seeing himself as the apprentice to Borges is too good to be an
> accident.

I've often wondered if Cyby was based on anyone.  For a while I was
convinced that he was based on Norman Thomas DiGiovanni, the
controversial Borges translator.  The one photo of him I'd seen seemed
to fit Wolfe's description of Cyby, but it's not exactly a detailed
description.  Wolfe is quite bald and was by then, but that hardly
disproves your hypothesis.

Lex Shellac


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