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[snip] As I said earlier, I don't think RTTW is the most obscure of Wolfe's books; nor do I think any of the SS books are among the most obscure. Possibly I'm overestimating the…
20 Feb 2001, 11:39
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As i said in my earlier post, this is a good question, and I don't have a really good answer. One possibility that occurred to me is that Hoof and Hide are not only reminders of t…
20 Feb 2001, 09:34
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I've worried before about the apparent impenetrability of some of Wolfe's mysteries, but I think your specific complaints here are a bit off base. In the first place, it's a bit e…
20 Feb 2001, 09:08
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I intend to respond on the "TBOTSS as fantasy" issue, but a line in your post suggeste a question to me which, to my knowledge hasn't been addressed yet. If we do consider all twe…
20 Feb 2001, 08:21
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I also found that scene very powerful. That is a good point, and I admit I'm not sure why Silk is in such a hurry to be off. (I'll post further thoughts on this separately.) But…
19 Feb 2001, 23:46
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Good question. There are actually two questions: why does Horn's spirit go away, and why does it go away when it does? Both are mysteries. I can't help thinking it must have som…
18 Feb 2001, 20:40
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IIRC, it is Silkhorn specifically who has the power to astral travel, although only in the company of an inhumu/a. Since the Neighbors probably gave him this ability, presumably t…
18 Feb 2001, 20:30
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I'm not sure how I came to be the Official Defender of Silkhorn's Silkiness. But since nobody else has yet picked up the gauntlet you've thrown down, I guess it's up to me. My fir…
18 Feb 2001, 13:20
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I think he isn't, actually. I think RTTW, and TBOTSS as a whole, are more fantasy than science fiction. Allan Lloyd already pointed out other fantasy-like aspects of the books: t…
18 Feb 2001, 10:46
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I may be missing your point completely, but it seems to me that their reactions aren't so different. In fact, I'd say that "Horn"'s behavior supports my position. He first tells …
16 Feb 2001, 20:10
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I agree with all of this; in fact, the Neighbor says he will send Horn's spirit "into someone whose own spirit is dying." I think that this means just what you say above: that Sil…
16 Feb 2001, 10:54
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True; but this is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make, which is that the representation of the "Horn" of the Whorl resembles any representation of Silk, or of the Silkifie…
15 Feb 2001, 18:54
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No doubt Horn could impersonate Silk's manner of speaking. But why would he want to do so consistently? He doesn't know, or he denies, he's in Silk's body. He is aware that ever…
15 Feb 2001, 10:44
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The suspicion had occurred to me that "Horn" was wrong in thinking that the inhumi thought that their secret could be used to destroy them (since I couldn't find any place where an…
14 Feb 2001, 22:10
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Indeed; and not only his knowledge, but the sententiousness with which he dispenses it. He does, in Chapter 12, with Olivine, an exegesis that takes several pages. Very Silkian. …
14 Feb 2001, 21:59
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vizcacha may concede on the details, but I'm not about to. It seems quite plausible to me that Silk, insane with grief, wrecked his place. Nor is it impossible that he would slas…
14 Feb 2001, 21:40
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I agree; it's both an anticlimax itself and inconsistent with some of Horn's earlier statements (I catalogued these in posts on July 25 and Aug. 2 of last year). I was also disapp…
13 Feb 2001, 13:41
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I hope you won't be offended if I ask you where this intuition comes from. I'm sure you understand the book much better than me, but I honestly don't recall anything which even sug…
13 Feb 2001, 13:07
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As opposed to a godling killing Silk by nicking him to death? Like many who attempt suicide, Silk 's courage failed him at the sticking-point and he only went through with it half…
12 Feb 2001, 10:18
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He says he killed Horn "in a sense," which is somewhat different. I took him to mean that by recovering his own identity, he destroyed the Horn-persona; or else that his reviving …
11 Feb 2001, 23:15
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Did you miss my post "Who Is He?" I discussed this there. Silkhorn's astral self partly resembles Horn on Ocean, but not on the mausoleum trip, so the change took place between t…
11 Feb 2001, 10:58
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Tartaros is indeed mentioned in the text of RTTW, on p. 18. I distinctly remember him being mentioned elsewhere, though I can't find the place now; IIRC, it was in a discussion of…
10 Feb 2001, 15:05
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In the first place, three of the editors are from an impoverished colony, and at least two are from a family that's not well off; the fourth is a servant. Under these conditions i…
10 Feb 2001, 14:21
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My first post about the identity of the protagonist of RTTW, and of much of the other two books, was written in haste. Since them I've thought about it more, and I've come to the …
09 Feb 2001, 19:07
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No: the editors write: "He [the protagonist] left us no written record of his brief sojourns in Old Viron and the West Pole, but he spoke of them often. In this volume we have re-…
08 Feb 2001, 12:33
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Not quite. The third-person sections are not written by the Homecoming-protagonist, but by the editors of BoTSS, Hoof, Hide and their wives, as stated in the Afterword. Which rai…
08 Feb 2001, 10:23
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IIRC, at one point in TBOTLS Kypris (or somebody) offers to upload Silk into Mainframe, where he would become a god and be linked somehow to Pas (I forget the details). Evidently …
07 Feb 2001, 23:33
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The person we have been thinking of as Horn in Silk's body is actually Silk with Horn's memories. Silk could not admit to himself that he was Silk because that would mean admittin…
07 Feb 2001, 23:18
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Without wishing to belabor this question, I'll just say that I don't find any of these readings more plausible than my own (that Weer's response is a sign that he is not fully in …
15 Dec 2000, 19:31
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I had missed that. The passage reads: "At one-thirty I enter the Cassionsville and Kanakessee Valley Bank Building through bronze doors, more bronze doors for the elevator, and a …
11 Dec 2000, 21:19
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I was aware of that. But that obviously isn't what the nurse meant, and I read Weer's comment as indicating that he doesn't know that's not what she meant. That happens to be tru…
11 Dec 2000, 21:10
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I wrote "Weer's narration of the start of the visit has, to me, a dreamlike quality". For the sake of completeness, I might as well state what makes me say this. 1. At the start…
10 Dec 2000, 11:36
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I never said that. What I said was that in the case of the coldhouse prank, such arguments could not be conclusive. It's possible for one reading to be so superior aesthetically …
09 Dec 2000, 12:08
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I think we pretty much agree on what elements of your model are and are not grounded in the text (I've snipped the ones you say are not). I agree Weer's death is grounded in the t…
09 Dec 2000, 10:42
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He thinks his the elm tree falling is unusual, I think; he thinks his "stroke" is unusual; he thinks coming across the Persian room is unusual. And he is definitely agitated when …
08 Dec 2000, 18:39
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Strictly speaking, this "proves" only that somebody died, not that Weer did. Of course, I agree that it was Weer; but if somebody were to deny it, I wouldn't be able to prove them…
08 Dec 2000, 18:04
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Well, there was that one in STOREYS (iirc) about the author writing his perfect story a word at a time; but I take your point. But I wasn't arguing that Wolfe is a postmodernist; …
08 Dec 2000, 17:25
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I, too, am convinced that Weer is dead, but I wouldn't say the evidence is overwhelming, especially if you don't regard Wolfe's interview statements as probative. If somebody were…
08 Dec 2000, 17:03
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By "deconstructing the act of narration," I don't mean just that Wolfe specifies the circumstances of narration, which as you point out is commonplace. I mean that he also uses th…
08 Dec 2000, 12:37
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An excellent post; I was going to defend my position, but you do it better than I would have. There are just a couple of amendments I would make. [snip] [snip] I would analyze …
08 Dec 2000, 11:17
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It's been a long time since I've read THE GOOD SOLDIER (which mainstream critics seem to regard as the ne plus ultra of unreliable narration), and I haven't read any of the critici…
07 Dec 2000, 11:49
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Without reopening the question of intent (which I may get around to posting on one of these days) I'll say that PEACE, to me, presents itself as having been carefully planned out b…
07 Dec 2000, 11:17
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Much of what you say I agree with, or need more time to digest. But here's an initial response, to keep the dialogue going while it's fresh in my mind: I'm not sure what you mean…
06 Dec 2000, 11:51
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Thanks for the thoughtful response; I'll do my best to reply in kind. I agree that Wolfe had something definite in mind; whether it was a coherent biography of Weer, or a collecti…
05 Dec 2000, 13:30
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This is something I've been meaning to post for a couple of weeks; i.e., it was conceived before the recent valuable posts by mantis and Roy taking a broader view, so it doesn't re…
03 Dec 2000, 12:35
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Warning: nitpicking ahead <g>. But it was raining; and Weer goes on to talk about "coats and hats and galoshes," so presumably that's the kind of coat Weer has in mind. --Adam…
18 Nov 2000, 12:02
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[snip] I don't think this is correct. On p. 12 (Harper & Row) Weer says: "I begin to go through my pants pockets looking for the knife; it is not there, and I remember that I hav…
17 Nov 2000, 17:45
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In my earlier post in which I pointed out that each chapter of PEACE is modelled on a different genre, I tentatively suggested "serious literary fiction" for chapter one, although …
17 Nov 2000, 17:16
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Thanks for posting this, Roy! I like references <g>. I also think it's a good thing, with so many conjectures floating around, to state the evidence (or lack of evidence) upon wh…
12 Nov 2000, 23:48
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Describing the unanticipated course of his life, Weer says: "I found myself instead a poor man at forty, and a very rich one at fifty; and never found Margaret at all." (216, Harpe…
08 Nov 2000, 11:14
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