Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Let me just say my official thank yous to Neil and Martha for this
interview and the conversations that it has generated.  My deepest
gratitude to Neil for showing up in spite of being on the most grueling
book tour I could possibly imagine during the whole thing.

As always, you are most welcome to carry on.  Just wanted to signal the
official end of the interview.
  

    
My goodness, that was fast.
  

    

Ok, I'll ask the first post-interview question, in case he wants to field
it- is Chad Mulligan's middle initial "C", perchance?
And do you know why I'm asking?
  

    
Now I really feel guilty -- it happened and finished while I was
signing my way across the country...  

Well, I'll still do my best to answer (or, of course, not answer) the
various questions so far.

Kathy -- someone will probably need now to annotate topic 73 and
figure out what I was writing when...

Rani -- I missed them. Is this topic 115 stuff?

Rocky -- I hope that AG demands a few readings, yes. You don't want to
build something to give everything up first time round.

Martha -- yes, exactly. You should try it some time. YOu get to put
whatever you're learning into your book as you go.

And I knew nothing about Czernobog when I started writing the book,
except he was in A NIGHT ON BalD MOUNTAIN in the original Fantasia.

Madman - I ran into someone yesterday who used Google to read AMerican
Gods with. You could look for Hinzelmann there.

Streak -- actually, that's the punchline. It's a very old joke,
although possibly not quite as old as I imply in MEN OF GOOD FORTUNE.
But then again, it might...

And now I have to leave the cybercafe in Canterbury to go and meet
Dave McKean and then on to the signing...
  

    

Thanks, a good idea. And, the first thing Google turns up is:
http://www.belinus.co.uk/folklore/FMythHinzelmann.htm
How can I resist something that is at a server called "belinus"?
  

    
Re Wicca:

Huh, you learn something new every day.  I didn't know that Wicca is a
relatively new religion.  However, I did say that I have no personal
experience with it.

I also missed the fact that the waitress was supposed to be a Wiccan.  I
thought that she was a Goth.  The Wiccans that I know are middle-aged and
older men and women.  They make ME feel young!  ;-)
  

    
Some claim it's older, but there was a skeptical article about the
historical roots of Wicca in the Atlantic Monthly:

http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/o/issues/2001/01/allen.htm
  

    
Neil - Regarding Rani's 115 reference (Bowie Love Child): I *told* you
to catch up on 115. At least look at posts #445 - #453.

It's not our fault, *Linda* started it.

And take a look at the message board at NG.com I mentioned. Trust me
on this. ;)

Hmm, I can't think of any way to make this truly on topic, unless
answering one of Neil's questions counts? 
  

    
Neil -- I agree with JaNell. It's definately not our fault. :)

JaNell -- I admit it. I'm stumped. The only Soma reference I know of
is from  "Brave New World." Sigh. I knew I should have paid more
attention in that Joseph Campbell class I took ten years ago. 
  

    
How's this, Rani?

Soma - Hindu god of the moon. Soma was a divine elixir and the moon
was thought to be its storehouse.

For later permutations, you can try:

http://www.virtualscape.com/rbedrosian/soma.htm
  

    

I'm not sure I would dismiss the notion that Shadow is
a Christ figure.  (And maybe this is why the scene with
Jesus didn't work.)  Shadow is obvious *not* Jesus.  Different
pantheons.  But different pantheons and different mythologies
across the world and throughout time (especially in the West)
are characterized by similar themes, similar "characters".

Remember Jung.  Archetypes.  And Campbell, who simply
wonderfully wondered at the reptition of themes and
characters with little changes from culture to culture.

Shadow was the son of the all-father, he died on a tree,
he was pierced by a spear in his side, he rose again, and
completed his work.  This is not Jesus of Nazareth (who might
actually have to be a contemporary god in this story), but
Shadow is definitely a Christ-like character.  In this case,
a little less self-aware as a god-spawn, but still, quite
self-aware, quite estimable.  If I knew more about Nordic
myths, I suspect I could identify the Jesus-analog.  My
bet is, that would be Shadow.
  

    
        You know, I wrote a comic book once where a character has to cross a
desert with nothing to help him but a long pointy bit of metal, and he
ties his shirt around his head so the sun will kill him slower.  I got
email discussing the interesting religious tones I was bringing to bear
on the story, making my main character resemble Christ like that
(because, you know, Jesus got kidnapped by aliens).  In a world where
Jesus will happily show up on refrigerators and tortillas, (both
actually reported) I don't think we need to hunt too hard for more
sightings.
        Incidentally, isn't Balder the resurrecting-sacrifice in the Norse
gang?  I know Odin hung himself on a tree and sacrificed an eye, but I
think that's more of a Jesus-on-a-tortilla type parallel.
  

    

As I mentioned earlier, Baldur being the resurrected one is as I recall it.
And if he is, as was stated earlier, the God of Light and Love, then it
makes a fair amount of sense.
All this being why I thought Shadow might be Baldur, when I was hunting for
family connections.

There's a short story, where an investigator hears about a murder, and
investigates for a time, and eventually discovers that it was a God that had
been killed, and that they knew exactly who had done it, and that the God
was killed every night, and came back every morning, and that's just what
they do.
The death, of course, involved mistletoe, if I recall correctly.

I have a feeling that this was a Zelazny short, because I read a bunch of
him recently, but I'm not sure.
  

    
        It was an issue of Alan Moore's _Top 10_, when I saw it last year.
  

    

I've never heard of Alan Moore's _Top 10_, so I'll just continue to be
mystified, if that's all right.
  

    
streak makes an excellent point.
  

    

Well, okay.

It seems like a dismissive and narrow-minded one to me, but

knock yourself out.
  

    
I don't think it's dismissive to point out that Jesus (and his mom) has an
amazing talent for showing up on tortillas, windowpanes, and just about
anything else handy.  It also doesn't mean that Jesus isn't deliberately
worked into a ton of literature.
  

    

This book was about gods, and a son of a god.

Give me a break.  That's the context.
  

    
Sure, absolutely.
  

    
I must admit that I missed the Christ-like connection between Baldur
and Shadow completely.  In trying to figure out Shadow's identity,
Baldur first came to mind and then Mithra who was also a sacrificed and
resurrected sun god, but all those references to Norse and Native
American mythology kept throwing me off. So, outside of being the son
of an "All Father."  Dying a death that somehow involves some sort of
wood [cross-mistletoe-tree].  And most importantly, being required to
die and be resurrected for the good of the whole, there really isn't
any connection at all. And can anyone explain why most of these
Jesus-on-a-tortilla or Virgin-on-a-windowpane sightings tend to happen
in New Jersey?  ;)

Madman -  Alan Moore's _Top 10_ is absolutely brilliant! There are two
trade paperbacks out with the collected stories.  The one streak
mentioned about Baldur's death is a very funny murder mystery. 



 
  

    

Okay, Balder was a son of Wotan.  Balder was killed by
a spear of mistletoe made by Loki.  But was Balder already
dying on a tree at the time?

I am absolutely not trying to make Shadow into Jesus.  But I
am fascinated by the similarities.  The one that is the most
distracting to me is this:  When Jesus was dying on the cross,
the Roman soldier was not sure whether he was dead or still
alive.  The soldier stabbed Jesus in the side with his spear.

Compare:

"Town wondered if the man [Shadow hanging on the tree] was
still alive:  his chest did not rise or fall....  And then he
jabbed the stick in the air toward the hanging man, in a 
stabbing motion... He imagined that he was holding a spear
and twisting it into Shadow's gut."

And after Town leaves, "On the tree, Shadow's body began
to bleed.  The wound was in his side.  The blood that
came from it was slow and thick and molasses-black."
  

    
Ah, yes, but I assumed that had a lot to do with Odin getting the
spear in his side as well when he was hanging on a tree, which was
mentioned at least a couple of times earlier in the text.  It was like
his fortune said: "Like father, like son."  I'm not denying that I
thought of the similarities between Shadow and Jesus, but I decided in
the end that he was Definitely not Jesus...and that I don't even think
it was a Jesus refrence...just a similar story.  I think Baldur is a
much better fit.

Angelina.
  

    

Yeah- really, rather than noting that Shadow and Jesus's stories are
similar, we should be noting that Jesus and Odin's stories are similar.

I had spaced on the fortune Shadow got, but it had been part of my
conclusion that there might be the Baldur connection.

In a way, the story of Jesus is a fairly traditional Sun God story.

Personally, while I'm curious about the missing Jesus chapter (now there's a
sentence not to take out of context), I think leaving it out was the right
thing to do- Jesus, while being a 2000 year old character, still feels too
current to fit in quite with the old ones.
Although, seeing the current crop of gods get pissy at him for still having
worshippers could have been rather amusing indeed.
  

    
Or confronted with stealing all the other deities' holy days, stories,
and icons...