Febuary 10 1998

Febuary 10 1998

"I shout for madder music, and I call for stronger wine;
But when the moons are swollen and my questing heart seeks more
The veil parts and draws me forth beyond my Earthly door
To trace your footfalls, Cabot! For the world I seek is thine.
And Enemies surround me, but my spirit will not bow
Nor falter like the weak who came before;
And I will follow, Cabot! In the best way I know how,
And keep alive the wonder that is Gor."

Tal, Goreans!

Once again this week's column is full of quotes, simply because I only received one response to my query of last week about whether or not I should ease up on the quotes on this page. That response, I add, was wholeheartedly in favor of my reduction of displayed quotes; however, seeing as it came from a fellow GDT staffer, a person to whom I have, in the past, provided numerous quotes for her own writings, I took that one with a grain of salt (it was red salt from the salt shops of Kasra, by the way).

This page will therefore maintain its current format until I receive confirmation that it is getting redundant. Since this column was the first such on the GDT to concern itself mostly with quotations from the books, and since the name of the column is "By the Book," I can see where the quotes are an important part of its format. Without the quotes themselves I would have to retitle the column "My opinions on the Books," and frankly, my own opinions on the Gor books are a lot less valuable and pertinent than what John Norman has to say about his world and those within it.

GOR according to Norman

My hearty band of researchers turned in a real grab bag of random quotes for your perusal this week. Some seem to be of great aid to maintaining the Gorean aspects of our interaction both on IRC and offline, while others are just interesting bits of Gorean trivia pertaining to various lands and cultures. Enjoy.

GOREAN BRAVERY

"`A merchant may be as brave as a warrior, young Tarnsman,' smiled Mintar."
--p.175, Tarnsman of Gor
"The braveries of barbarism are seldom of little avail against a rational, determined, prepared foe. But let those of the cities tremble that among the hordes there might one day arise one who can unify storms and harness lightning."
--p.58, Mercenaries of Gor

GOREAN FRIENDSHIP

"`How can I ever thank you?' he cried, stepping back, holding me, proudly, looking at me.
`Between friends,' I said, `thanks are neither needed, nor possible.'"
--p.116, Mercenaries of Gor

SITTING VS. KNEELING

"I loosened my robes and sat down, cross-legged, on the cushion before the table. I picked up a piece of the yellow bread.
`Oh, no, Mistress,' said the girl, putting out her hand. `That is how men sit. We are women. We kneel.'"
--p.59, Kajira of Gor (submitted by Kalun Hail)

LIFE IN THE TAHARI

"I extended my hand to Ibn Saran and he, bowing twice, brushed twice the palm of his hand against mine. 'May you always have water, may your waterbags never be empty.' "
--pg.21, Tribesmen of Gor
"A shelter trench is a narrow trench some four or five feet deep and eighteen inches wide...The trench of course is always dug with its long axis perpendicular to the path of the sun, that it provide the maximum shade for the longest period of time."
--pg.21, Tribesmen of Gor
"The 'wheel' is a search pattern. Herdsmen, guards, Kaiilatenders, leave the camp along a 'spoke' of a wheel, spacing themselves at intervals. The number of men in the caravan determines the length of the 'spoke'. No one in the caravan departs from it by more than the length of the wheel's spoke, pertinent to the individual caravan... As the 'wheel' of men turns about its axis, the camp, at intervals the men draw arrows in the dirt or sand, or, if rocks are available, make arrows pointing to the camp. When the search is discontinuede, after success or failure, these markers are destroyed, lest they be taken by travelers for water arrows, markers indicating the direction of water."
--pg.22, Tribesmen of Gor
"The short sword, now slung over my left shoulder in the common fashion, would be of little use on Kaiila back. The men of the Tahari do not fight on foot. A man on foot in the desert, in warfare, is accounted a dead man."
--pg.38, Tribesmen of Gor

A GOREAN MELON

"..korts, a large, brownish-skinned, thick-skinned, sphere-shaped vegetable, usually some six inches in width, the interior of which is yellowish, fibrous and heavily seeded."
--pg.37, Tribesmen of Gor

THE MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONSHIP

"The relation of master and slave, of course, in a psychophysical organism, of a high order of intelligence, such as the human being, is a beautiful and profound expression of the fundamental and central truth of animal nature, that of order and structure, and dominance and submission. It is merely the articulated, legalized expression, to be expected in rational organisms, of the biological context in which human sexuality developed, a context which can be betrayed but can never, because of the ingrained nature of genetic dispositions, be fully forgotten, or in the long run, successfully denied. In denying it we deny our nature. In betraying it we betray no one but ourselves. The master will never be happy until he is a master. The slave will never be happy until she is a slave. It is what we are."
--pg.159, Explorers of Gor

EARTH AND GOR: TWO WORLDS

"One of these worlds was a world poisoning itself, a pathological world insane and short-sighted, greed-driven and self-destructive. The other was a pristine world, virginal in its beauty and fertility, one not permitted by its masters, called the Sardar, or Priest-Kings, to follow the example of its tragic sister. Priest-Kings would not permit men to destroy Gor. They are not permissive. They are intolerant of geocide."
--pg.7, Beasts of Gor
"Generally men of Earth will not listen to women. Their minds are closed on the matter. Being men they think all human beings are the same as themselves. It is a natural fallacy. Masculine women, those unfortunate creatures, in their frustrations, exploit this weakness in the men of Earth. They tell them what they want to hear. This they then take as evidence confirming their preconceptions. It is sad that the true needs of women must then be sacrificed to the ignorance of men and the political and economical ambitions of hirsute frustrates."
--pg.237, Beasts of Gor

THE LACK OF RACISM ON GOR

"Race, incidentally, is not a serious matter generally for Goreans, perhaps because of the intermixtures of people. Language and city, and caste, however, are matters of great moment to them, and provide sufficient basis for the discriminations in which human beings take such great delight."
--pg.156, Beasts of Gor

THE RED HUNTERS

"I had not really thought of the red hunter as an Indian, but I supposed this was true. The men of the polar basin are usually referred to as red hunters in Gorean. Certainly they were culturally distinct from the red savages, tarn riders, of the countries north and east of the Thentis mountains, who maintained a feudal nobility over scattered agricultural communities of white slaves. Those individuals, more than the red hunters I thought of as Indians."
--pg.155, Beasts of Gor
"Red hunters are often reluctant to speak their own name. What if the name should go away? What if it, in escaping their lips, should not return to them?"
--pg.159, Beasts of Gor
"At the end of the wall Inmak wept seeing the strewn fields of slaughtered tabuk. The fur and hide if the tabuk provides the red hunters not only with clothing, but it can also be used for blankets, sleeping bags and other articles. The hides can serve for harnesses for the snow sleen and their white-skinned female beasts. Too, they may be used for buckets and tents, and for kayaks, the light, narrow hunting canoes ofskin from which sea mammals may be sought. Lashings, harpoon lines, cords and threads can be fashioned from its sinews. Carved, the bone and horn of the animal can function as arrow points, needles, thimbles, chisels, wedges, and knives. Its fat and bone marrow can be used as fuel. Too, almost all of the animal is edible. Even its eyes may be eaten and, from its stomach, the half-digested mosses on which it has been grazing."
--pg 169-170, Beasts of Gor
"He spoke sometimes to them in his own tongue, and sometimes in Gorean. He had traded furs and skins south more than once. Many of the red hunters cannot speak Gorean."
--pg.191, Beasts of Gor
"He touched her softly with his nose about the cheek and throat. It is a thing red hunters do. It is a very gentle thing, like smelling and nuzzling."
--pg.220, Beasts of Gor

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

I didn't receive any questions this week, although through a second-hand source I was advised that the word "taba," which is in common usage in several Gorean IRC channels as the supposed Gorean word for "table," could be found in the books. The person who made this statement was unable to provide the name of the book and the page number where the reference might be found, but apparently stated that the Master Assassin Pa-Kur had, in the passage, "placed his sword on a nearby taba."

Using that statement as a starting point, I researched the matter. Since the character of Pa-Kur appears only in the first book, I looked there, but had no luck in finding it. For the record, in that book, Pa-Kur actually appears in person three times: the first time in Ko-ro-ba, where he unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Tarl from tarnback, later on the bank of the Vosk river when he oversees Tarl being strapped to the Frame of Humiliation for his one-way trip to the Vosk Delta, and finally atop the Cylinder of Justice in Ar when he and Tarl engage in their climactic duel to the death. In none of those episodes is a table even present.

So, no luck. Anyone else out there have any idea where this "taba" reference might be located? For the record, I suspect that it is just an affectation of IRC. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that; we all encounter such affectations all the time, and many of them are true enough to the spirit, if not the word, of the Gor books. But if there is an actual Gorean word called "taba" I'd still like to find out where it exists in the books, to satisfy my own curiosity.

QUOTES OF INTEREST

GOREAN "VULTURES"

"Fluttering jards, covering many of the carcasses like gigantic flies, stirred, swarming upward as Inmak passed them, and then returned to their feasting."
--pg 170, Beasts of Gor

DISCIPLINE IN THE RANKS

"I drew my blade... 'I shall maintain discipline, if need be, my comrades, by the blade.'"
--pg 174, Beasts of Gor

A GOREAN GAME

"Each player, in turn, drops a bone, one of several in his supply. The bone Inmak had dropped was carved in the shape of a small tabuk. Each of the bones is carved to resemble an animal, such as an arctic gant, a northern bosk, a lart, a tabuk or sleen, and so on. The bone which remains upright is the winner. If both bones do not remain upright there is no winner on that throw. Similarily, if both bones should remain upright, they are dropped again. A bone which does not remain upright, is placed in the stock of him whose bone remained upright. The game is finished when one of the two players is cleaned out of bones."
--pg.185, Beasts of Gor

NADU

"Then to the dark haired girl, he said, sharply, 'Nadu!'
"She struggled to her knees and, as she could, her wrists braceleted behind her, assumed before him the lovely, elegant postion of the pleasure slave."
--pg.166, Explorers of Gor

Above is another reference to the use of the word "nadu" as a command or the name of a position, but again it is from the book which takes place in the jungled interior east of Schendi. I wonder if all of those commands, nadu, lesha, bara and the rest, are actual Gorean words or are just words found in the various jungle river dialects. An interesting question, since those words appear only in that book and not in any of the others.

My Quote for the Week:
"How beautiful she was. And I owned her. What man does not want to own a beautiful woman?"
--pg.9, Beasts of Gor

Okay, I said last week I'd display some interesting information for you in this week's column, so here goes. The new Gor Magazine project is off and running, and Vision should have an extensive website up to support it in the next few days, with new samples of artwork and the straight dope on subscriptions. My understanding is that the first batch of subscribers will receive a free Gor Magazine tee-shirt along with the first six issues of the magazine. I have previewed some of the art samples and they are highly accurate (they ought to be, since John Norman is the technical advisior for the project). In addition, book #26, Witness of Gor, is all ready to hit the presses. It is a "slave book," meaning it concerns itself with a kidnapped female from Earth and the rise and fall of her fortunes on Gor. I am also led to believe that book #26 just might introduce us to a whole new class of slave, one which is more akin to the geisha of Earth than to anything we have seen previously... a slave/courtesan class, or "High Slave." Though this is simply specualtion on my part based upon excerpts.

The release date of book #26, and its successor, book #27 (almost finished, I am told) will be determined by the amount of interest and the initial subscription rate of the new magazine. Norman is hard at work writing all new original Gorean short stories which will be featured in the back of each issue, and I have had the distinct pleasure of reading several excerpts from book #26, as mentioned above. It is 100% pure John Norman, believe me. Book #27, I am told, will finally clue us in to what occurs in the war between Ar and Cos.

After an absence of ten years, John Norman is returning to the literary fold with great gusto. Vision Entertainment is supporting him in this and will be responsible for bringing all new Gorean works to the public. It's been a long ten years, but, for good or ill, Norman is back.

So, what can you, the Gor fan, do about this? How can you support this endeavor? Simple. Support the magazine. If initial subscription rates are high enough, the publication rate of the new books will speed up and we'll get a new Gor book before the middle of summer `98. Each issue of the magazine is a very slick, beautiful graphic novel, with an artistic style similar to what you might view in Heavy Metal magazine. So, to all of you who are just as curious as I am about what a sleen really looks like, I suggest you join me in subscribing as soon as the necessary info is available. The faster each issue sells, the quicker we'll all get our first new look at Gor in ten years.

Until next week... I wish you well!
_Marcus_

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? If you have any of the above, have queries regarding the source books, or have a quote or brief passage from the books which you would share here, feel free to e-mail me through the link below.

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