Uh oh guys...
Like
Show more reactions
CommentShare
Comments
Weiss Lancaster
🤘😳🤘
Manage
Jordon Flato Abaia for Calde!!!!
Manage
Francis Repass Catachrest for Caldé
Manage
Write a reply...
David A Stockhoff Cthulhu comes. Praise him!
Manage
Nathan Carson After all, torturers use iron maidens.
Manage
Michael Tkach OUR TIME IS NOW!
Manage
Patrick McEvoy-Halston "Silk pretended to watch the parade as cavalry gave way to infantry, attractive young women who saluted the reviewing platform by holding their slug guns vertically at their left shoulders and marching with a stiff stride that reminded him of sibyls dancing at a sacrifice."
Sibyls dancing at a sacrifice...
Manage
Patrick McEvoy-Halston On a related note, did anyone worry that this passage by Quetzal would inspire anti-Semitic prejudice, or is it just too obvious in the text that Wolfe is antipathic to all prejudicial thinking, and in favouring intelligence, contestation, literacy, is, like the narrator of Peace, very pro-Jew? I ask because though Silk initially marks it so that the historical presumption that merchants, money-changers, are the most evil of people, is probably baseless, is gross populism, in the end he forgives all the rapists, murderers... criminals from the lower classes, lets them go free and renews their pride, but refuses the rich and proud "merchant," Blood, any forgiveness at all -- he's the root, and so not to given any quarter at all. That is, in effect he sustains the historical prejudice, which in our world, is anti-Semitic prejudice.
Anyway, the quote: “Quetzal paused, exhaling with a slight hiss. "Now, my children, a most painful matter. Word has come to me that devils in human shape are seeking our destruction. Falsely and evilly. they promise money they have not got and will not pay, for our blood. Do not believe their lies. Their lies offend the gods. Anyone who slays good men for money is worse than a devil, and anyone who slays for money he will never see is a fool. Worse than a fool, a dupe." Oosik reached for the ear, but Quetzal shook his head.”
Manage
Yorgos Nls I can not see it.
Regarding Peace, I have not reread it recently but the narrator never struck me as pro-Jew. And how you mean pro-jew exactly?
Manage
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Yorgos Nls Wolfe is playing with something quite dangerous here, though. The whole concept of snake-men infiltrating a civilization to perhaps take it over, each one, tremendously sly and manipulative... and that prey on children? Dangerous, unless it's very clear that the stereotype is being employed to defuse it somehow... which arguably may mostly be the case. And, yes, in the same book series he does this he also employs stigma against proud money men like Blood, and excuses the abuses of the ostensibly more humble lower classes.
Anyway, in "peace," two quotes: “They were supposed to be Jewish, but there was little about them to mark them as Jewish—no quick-witted, persuasive men; no curly-haired, clever, slant-eyed girls.”
“I undress, conscious that Sherry Gold is in the next cubicle, probably stripped to her bra and panties. She is a small girl, a little plump (“You seem to be putting on weight, Miss Gold. Strip to your bra and panties, please, and I’ll come in and weigh you”) pretty, a Jewish face—Jewish faces are not supposed to be pretty, but pretty anyway.”
Manage
Patrick McEvoy-Halston I felt in "peace" an inclination to want to know and love Jews, to respect them, even if neighbours might be aghast at this. Personally I think most readers figure a Weer-Sherry Gold-type dynamic... an exotica, into our readings of "In Green's Jungles" and "Return to the Whorl."... Horn and the inhumi, particularly with Jahlee.
Manage
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Yorgos Nls By the way, apparently Borski argued "Peace" as anti-Semitic... the portrayal of the Gold as of profound evil. Joan Gordon disagreed, and wrote about it here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/.../we-read-things-differently/
I'm not so focused on Peace but I am surprised that the discussion of Quetzal and the inhumi as Jewish apparently hasn't occurred. I might be wrong, but I went through some of the old Urth archives and haven't found anything, yet since at least since the Middle Ages, Jews were character-assassinated by the church, by prominent "enlightened" thinkers, by the common populace, as snakes, as vampires, that impersonate human beings, infiltrate society, and take on empowered positions there, and specifically preyed upon the young. Always of course associated with money and false promises as well. Personally, I hope this gets discussed, for Quetzal to many might seem a powerful hero of the text -- I certainly remember that HE was the one who ended child sacrifice -- even as we are meant to understand that we only see one side of him -- we're told by Potto that Quetzal is as malicious as they come... and we're meant to read it as a fair take -- and his whole split-off thing, where he is a powerful terror to young children. This profile of him... as someone who in daily life does a lot of good FOR the young -- i.e., ending child sacrifice -- but in personal life, remorselessly preys on them, fits the profile of the pedophile, even as they twin to the two to absolve themselves of guilt, not for the reason Quetzal does -- simple sanity and goodness.
In "Short Sun," it's also a simple fact that WE LIKE the inhumi that we meet, probably a lot. They seem the bridge to Horn's intellectual side, his perspicacious side, that no one else can meet.
Comments
Post a Comment