From: Jonathan Coxhead <jonathan@doves.demon.co.uk>
Subject: (whorl) Shape of gammadion
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 18:58:54 +0100 (BST)


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

   I've just joined this list. I don't really go for nicknames, but careful
examination of my e-mail address would reveal my Whorl name, if I had one.

   As I was reading, my mental image of the gammadion was (eventually):

               XXXXXXXXX
               XXXXXXXXX
               XXXXXXXXX
      XXXXX    XX XX
      XXXXX    XX XX
      XXXXX    XX XX
      XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
      XXX                 XX
      XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
               XX XX    XXXX
               XX XX    XXXX
               XX XX    XXXX
           XXXXXXXXX
           XXXXXXXXX
           XXXXXXXXX

(only square rather than rectangular).

   Reasons: the religion is supposed to be an evil one, constructed as a
mockery of the real religion when the Whorl left on its journey. The swastika
is the biggest symbol of evil the world has seen, and was also an early
Christian symbol (reinterpreted as an Aryan supremacist symbol by the Nazis,
but not invented /ab nihilo/ by them).

   Wolfe's narrative technique often consists of describing a scene in
neutral terms, to form an image in the reader's head that creeps up on him or
her at an unexpected moment. Examples: the description of the picture of Neil
Armstrong on the Moon in the library in the Matachin Tower (in tSotT), the
description of the tower itself as a spaceship.

   So, the reader at some point realises that the "holy" men are actually
venerating the swastika.

   The void in the centre is there to provide a justification for "the sign
of addition" replacing Christian crossing---another perversion.