Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 13:55:26 -0700
From: Don Palumbo 
Subject: Re: (urth) Sev's skull and spring constellations


Of course, Wolfe is crass enough to copy, but he does it with such
incredible style and intelligence, and never without giving it a twist of
his own.  BNS has Joseph Campbell's monomyth coming out its mouth,
ears, nose, throat, and all its pores (and then just does it all over
again in URS); but BNS is likely the most compelling and clever (and
easily the most elaborate) reworking of this formula in SF, which is
saying a lot, because some of the other SF reworkings (all six original
DUNE books, THE STARS MY DESTINATION, and FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON among
them) are among the best SF novels ever written.  [btw, is this a
coincidence? I don't think so.]



I am about to begin writing a long scholarly article on this--and
probably won't be done writing it until the end of September or
later.  While it will be published in print, is there some way to
eventually post it on this site (which I just joined recently) for anyone
on this list who is interested to look at (and, hopefully, add their 2
cents worth to)?



--Don Palumbo



At 11:48 PM 7/7/03 -0400, Alice K. Turner wrote:



> huh?

>

> BTW? Can someone please recap what the Miracle of Apu-Punchau
was?



The miracle of Apu-Punchau was an eclipse. Or a supposed eclipse;
actually,

as Wolfe makes (almost) clear in his afterword, it was the very
large

starship Sanru passing across the sun. This "miracle" echoes
the one in Mark

Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--which was a
genuine

eclipse. Wolfe is not so crass as to copy.



-alga







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