Cathbad Wrote:
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> Never thought of Saint Anthony! There are definite
> corollaries.
>
> And I think you may be onto something re Sabmon's
> home. Not only because the bones are white
> (equating them with purity) but because they've
> been divested of their flesh - reflecting how
> Sabmon himself has given up all interest in the
> sensual. Or maybe I'm just reaching?
As a former English major, and proud holder of an English Lit BA--which I soon found that along with 50 cents would get me a cup of coffee (this was the 70s, you see), which is why I eventually ended up in SW development--I think that it's a lot of fun looking, after the fact, at these sorts of connections, but...
Do we really suppose that CAS had any of this in mind when writing WOU? I realize that it's both possible and likely that he'd be familiar with St. Anthony, but do we think that he made the conscious connection while writing WOU?
I can recall some of the stuff we wrote in those classes, competing to find possible connections that we, on broad examination, could see, but never once considering whether the author, him/herself, ever had this connection in mind, or indeed was even aware of the situations being compared.
Remembrances of my own undergrad work sickens me, it was so trivial, and yet at the time I felt so shrewd and enlightened. Years later, on re-reading many of the works we studied, I found that I had completely missed the actual aesthetic effect of the piece, simply because I was too busy trying to be a smart-aleck, coming up with new "deep cultural linkages" in
Finnegan's Wake, etc.
For years afterward, I continued to read criticism and other commentary on literary works, that, in my opinion, relegated the work under consideration to a secondary role and vaulting the cleverness of the critic into the spotlight. It's impossible to count the number of times I've seen
Moby Dick used as fodder for showboating in this fashion.
Now, I'm not suggesting we're doing that here; to me this is a forum for expressing the personal enjoyment of weird fiction (a marginally acceptable genre for folks our age, huh?), as produced by a few talented authors, and in some cases to compare it to other weird influences. Sometimes we also speculate on the methods employed to build an effect.
So I can understand mentioning the color of his house and also that white represents purity in most western cultures, and that Sambon counseled purity as a general course of action, and bones are devoid of flesh and this suggests a detachment from the temptatins of the flesh, but this begins to sound like that part of the song, "Ya Got Trouble", from
The Music Man...
Quote:Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for POOL!
Me, I'm 'way more interested that the directly stated benefit of such purity was because an earlier wizard "...won supremacy over men and demons in elder years by defying all mortal temptation". To me, this puts a very interesting wrinkle into *why* one should remain pure--it is known within the context of the story to provide great personal power, ostensibly when combined with diligent study.
Actually, significantly more power than Ulua has...
Too, I was much more intrigued with the idea of Sambon's brooms (besoms). They were made of mummy's hair.
YEOW! No respect for the deceased, huh? Sambon, that nice old man, apparently raids tombs and at the very minimum took the scalps of the deceased and used them for the mundane and demeaning purpose of sweeping out his house.
Hmmmm.... One wonders about the old coot... ;^)
And you know what: I doubt that *any* of this I just mentioned occurred to CAS when writing WOU, either. I think that used in the way he did, the besoms add immediate color and setting--this place is not like where we live. Houses are at the edge of deserts, made of bones of various animals and fitted together in such a precise way to exclude sand grains.
Have you ever *seen* such a thing? Have you ever imagined such a thing? Not me...
And what might one use to clean such a house, one might ask? Why, a broom made of mummy's hair, what else?
"We're not in Kansas any more."
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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