Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 12:07:53 -0700
Subject: Re: (urth) Duh! Part 2.
From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett 


On Sunday, September 7, 2003, at 01:22 PM, Don Palumbo wrote:

> Just dipping in for a moment, but Typhon and Baldanders are the same=20=

> person thematically,
> as Crush suggests, in that they are both the two clearest=20
> representatives of the Ogre-Tyrant of the status quo that it is the=20
> task of the hero as warrior to overthrow.=A0 This comes from =
Campbell's=20
> THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, of course, and The Book of the New Sun=20=

> overall (and echoed in Urth of the New Sun) is clearly Wolfe's=20
> treatment of Campbell's monomyth, the adventure of the hero, just as=20=

> the Book of the Log Sun in itself is his treatment of the generational=20=

> star ship story.
>

Don chimes in (am I the real Don, or an eidolon?):

While I don't doubt this is true - and isn't Abaia as the Naviscaput an=20=

ogre - I think it is a mistake to identify tBotNS solely as a reaction=20=

to Campbell.  I think an equal if not greater share is devoted to=20
Graves (I Claudius, King Jesus, and the White Goddess especially) and=20
there is a huge debt to Borges as well (questions of identity and=20
time).  There is also a major Rosicrucian (I think) aspect to these=20
books, and tBotLS is in some ways a cannibalization of themes and ideas=20=

explored in the Soldier novels, which themselves owe a debt to=20
Herodotus and Graves.  The generational star ship aspect is imo the=20
least significant part, a smokescreen so to speak.

This reminds me of a comment by Stephen King about his potentially=20
great but hugely dissapointing Dark Tower series.  He said that his=20
goal was to write the longest single story ever.  I say he's wasting=20
paper (in more ways than one) because in twelve volumes GW has=20
compressed twenty four to thirty six volumes of story to be puzzled out.


--