And—though I pale to admit it—I have my vice. It is writing, and in everyday circles that is viewed a good deal more seriously than, say, pot probably is in yours. In short, your business is my besetting weakness; your business letters are my pornography; your shop talk my dissipation.Which gives me a story idea. A nobleman, a pillar of the Jockey Club, who (on alternate Thursdays) creeps away from the Fabourg St. Germain to become (heh, heh!) a Montmarte used-lace merchant. Can't you just see him gloating fierce gloats as he speculates on Society's reaction to the news that he is secretly a petit commerçant? That's me except that I reverse it—I steal way to become a nobleman.And you know what the petite bourgeoisie think of that.— Letter from Gene Wolfe to Damon Knight, December 3, 1969Reprinted in The Best From Orbit (1976), p. 337
A reality-based blog by Stephen Saperstein Frug
"There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone."
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
In Which, as a Throwaway Notion in a Letter, the Origin of the Autarch's Social Role In THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN Can Perhaps Be Found
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