From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com>
Subject: (urth) arguing JC heroic duties
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 06:56:58 


David Duffy quote and wrote:
>> BEASTS: a case might be made that many of the characters do not want to be
>
>Reynard can be seen as doing his duty as he sees it.

Eek, Reynard as the hero?  Even more horrifying than anything I saw. <g>
(Not really, I mean I saw that: just that it seems like the grimmest
reading. Judas, yes; a necessary-for-the-book Judas, certainly; but Judas
as hero?  In truth "Judas" doesn't capture the Machievellian aspect of
Reynard at all: Machievelli as hero?)  Please remind be what duty Reynard
is doing, besides his own reproduction: I can't see the manipulative masks
for the masks of manipulation.

>> ENGINE SUMMER: Rush-as-we-know-him does not do his duty, rather, he is like
>
>Rush is offered a choice at the end of his narrative (which suddenly reminds
>me of the offer to Silk).  He knows what he is getting into.  Apropos of
>the end, could his name mean Book (papyrus that speaks)?

Right, well which end of his narrative?  The human end (hi, let me make
this brain tape of you--it won't hurt at all) or the recorded end (did I
really know what I was agreeing to when I said yes)? [Where is my copy of
ES, anyway?]

Yes, definitely his name means book.  (I think it would be "Rush That
Speaks" = papyrus scroll = book).  There is also a weird link to Mount
Rushmore, with Rush's head in the Teddy Rooseveldt spot; but this is
probably just another artefact of my overactive reading.

And yes, thanks for mentioning Silk, because that is what I was going to
write in my previous post: that Silk is the closest thing to a JC-style
hero that Wolfe has written.  Or so it has seemed to me.

>> As for the sfnal rational, the stuff was brought back by an interstellar
>> probe.  Like you said before, mana from heaven.
>
>This always stuck in my a craw a little, but many substances are absorbed very
>well by the lungs, including finely powdered glucose.  Using nebulizers,
>people inhale 1-2 ml of fluid over 4-5 minutes, so I guess you could inhale
>as much as 50 calories an hour ;)

They probably just take an i-v drip in between chapters <g>.  (Shades of
Delany's NOVA, come to think of it.)  But no, I myself wouldn't try to
argue the rationale on this one.

=mantis=



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