From: James Jordan <jbjordan4@home.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) women, memory, and stuff
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:58:55 

At 05:16 AM 2/27/2001 -0800, you wrote:

>Mr. Groce wondered why Nettle returned to Whorl, what
>with her wife-and-mother duties being over.  Well,
>unWolfeish as it sounds, maybe it was to pursue her
>career!  As a writer and editor, she sure beats either
>Horn or, apparently, Silk.  The Book of Nettle, set
>during and after the upcoming voyage-that could be
>pretty neat.  And an awfully big change for Wolfe, not
>known for overwhelming compassion towards female
>characters.  Maybe he finds it more acceptable for
>women to "find themselves" after they have worked off
>their Original Sin Duties.  (Sorry, that wasn't nice,
>but I don't think it was unwarranted.)  I found the
>contrasts in his treatment of women throughout LS and
>SS very odd, (especially Chenille and Mucor) so maybe
>he was experimenting to a purpose.  OK, maybe not...;)

         We've discussed this on Urth a while back, as I recall. I think 
the consensus was that Wolfe is about as mean to his male characters as to 
his female ones, on balance. As for Original Sin, remember that "In Adam's 
fall we sinn-ed all." Yes, Eve bit the "appil" first, but it was Adam's 
fault mainly. The notion that the woman led the man into sin part of 
low-level superstition, found here and there to be sure, but Wolfe is way 
too knowledgeable for that kind of stuff. The New Testament is clear that 
it was Adam's doing, and that the woman was tricked, while the man acted 
with full knowledge of what he was doing. The reason for this goes back to 
Genesis 2, where Adam was told not to eat the fruit before Eve was made. 
Thus, Adam had first-hand knowledge of the prohibition, while Eve's was 
second-hand. There's more, but that's enough.

Pat. Nut.


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