From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria
Date: Mon,  8 Sep 97 19:22:00 GMT


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

Reply:  Item #7943197 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Gentlemen!

I don't want to sound alarmed, but I think you are both needlessly
painting yourselves into antagonistic corners.

To whit: Nutria writes "[Wolfe] has to come on-line and tell us
point-blank: the Outsider is God!"

Well no, he doesn't =have= to, unless I've missed something (and I
admit freely that I might have); he didn't even bring it up himself,
it was the question(s) posed by others that he answered.  He's not
trying to convert anyone, to the best of my understanding.  (Even
Clinton had to answer some questions from the MTV crowd regarding
underwear that he would not have otherwise blurted out in the middle
of an average press conference.)

And Rostrum replies: "we should be forced to evaluate the narrator's
experiences for ourselves."

Gosh, this conjures up visions of voluntary/involuntary dungeons!
Granted, I myself like to hear and read all sorts of different angles
and datapoints, even those that I don't particularly believe at all; and
somewhere there must be my polar opposite, an authentic self-reader
unsullied by the readings, researchings, or regurgitations of others,
hermetically sealed away in the sterile environment of a corklined room,
eschewing all intercourse with the community of Wolfe readers.

Or this seems like a desire for Wolfe to be as secretive as Pynchon
or Salinger.  "Please don't answer any questions or do any
interviews!  Please disappear!"

I trust that these extremes are just mirage-like distortions brought
on by the contortions of debate and do not represent the real beliefs
of Nutria or Rostrum.  So come on guys, play nice!

Hey, Nutria!  If you're going to get photocopies from alga (that
NYRSF piece) maybe you should offer in exchange a photocopy of Peter
Wright's essays from "Foundation No. 66"?

=mantis=