random thoughts:

I am still thinking about your fasinating idea about the trees eating and recombining with Horn in the pit. I am not convinced, quite, but I agree that Horn's time in the pit was a death-and -ressurection experience. The similarity with the bit in THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN where Severian dies and is re-embodied (on the Ship, after a disasterous fall) is significant, I think. Just starting my third rereading of RETURN TO THE WHORL hartshorn (But I'm increasingly convinced that Blue and Green are Ushas and broken-free Lune, and the the Whorl has returned home. Yes) Questions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net

From: "Andy Robertson"

Horn writes at the beginning of the chapter something about if to write this episode it should end the book. He says I believe, that, it signified the end of the best part of his life. I took this to mean that Horn was destined from that point to go to green. The similarity with the bit in THE

Severian is rescued there by friends. Zak and Gunnie were there.(Although Gunnie had tried to kill him). This isn't true of Horn. A similarity I see is that both involve a supernatural beings. Does simple form Zak (bouncing ball Zak) have the same powers as The Tzadkiel who towers like a pine? Babbie to Neighbour as Zak is to Tzadkiel? It seems Horn is touched by a neighbour, maybe in a way similar to the annointing that makes him think of strange whorls before he goes into the sewer on Green. From the pit he goes to their kitchen on Lizard, but he can't drink from the ladle. The narrator says something here that's significant. It's earlier, when he first regains consciousness. He compares it to the instance where he died on Green, but says returning to his body are the memories are the body's, not the spirit's. It's like a half resurrection, his spirit is still dead. What does that say for the touch by the neighbour, does it complete it? Joe