{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3330", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3330, "subject": "Rereading the Short Sun", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-07-02T02:46:08+00:00", "last": "2002-07-09T19:48:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Stephen Case", "address": "scase at olivet.edu" }, "date": "2002-07-02T02:46:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Rereading the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I got a summer job at the planetarium here in town, and it's given me a lot of time to read. Over the course of the past couple weeks, I've been rereading the Short Sun books for the first time. I'm almost done with Return to the Whorl, and I know they've probably been discussed to death on the list; but I didn't really get involved in the discussion much, and I thought I'd voice my thoughts now. If you feel this has already been covered, don't respond. Or direct me to the proper places in the (intimidatingly immense) archives.\n First of all, with all the talk that went back and forth around here a while back as to the merits of the books themselves, a rereading has firmly convinced me of my opinion. Whether or not the books bring up questions that should be answered and are not or are answered ridiculously vaguely, a rereading reminded me that I really love these books. The characters, the conversations, the way Wolfe shows us what they feel in the way they speak. One scene in particular that illustrates what I like so much about these books: Hound, Horn, and Pig are sitting in the ruins of Blood's villa. Not only is the atmosphere soaked in the memories that we have from the Long Sun, but just listening to the characters talk to each other-- I love it. Hound is so solid, a simple, good man. Silk is showing through in everything Horn says. And even Pig's dialect doesn't bother me. It's a riddle trying to figure out what he says, but it adds weight somehow. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but I didn't come out and say it as firmly as I should have earlier when all the discussion as to good/bad book was going around. The Short Sun, IMO, deserves to stand in the ranks with Long Sun and New Sun.\n Okay, I KNOW this has been covered before, but again, just voicing my own thoughts. Fel free to skip this whole paragraph. When did Horn become Silk? I think it was determined pretty surely that of course Horn is dead in the lander on Green and somehow his spirit is in Silk in the Whorl, sort of. But it really struck me how Wolfe shows this transition in his writing, something that I think I missed in my first reading. In In Green's Jungles and Return to the Whorl, I LIKE the narrator. I really like him. On Blue's Waters, I didn't. Horn bugged me. He was whiny and unfaithful and hated his son for what I still don't think was any good reason. (This is still one of my biggest unanswered questions in the books: why does Horn hate Sinew so much?) But after a bit through In Green's Jungles, I like the narrator. He's a good guy. He doesn't just whine about trying to be a good guy; he is. (And yes, this is the same good guy that's in Gaon in OBW, but I don't think we spend enough time with him there to really know him) Even though he thinks he's Horn, anyone that's read the Long Sun and admires Silk as much as I do, sees the change. Okay, this is probably very elementary to all you, but I caught it the second time though and enjoyed it. Maybe that's what makes the difference. The first time, I read each book as it came out. The second time I read them all together, and they seem to flow much better. Go figure. \n Anyway, this is my longest post to the list so far and I'm sure everything I've said is old news to you guys. But there it is. \n\n-Steve " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-07-08T17:45:32+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Rereading the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm a bit behind where Stephen is -- partly because I have so much\nelse to read (yes, Kevin, the reviews are coming, and soon); I'm \nabout halfway through rereading IGJ and would strongly confirm &\nagree with his opinion that these are really very good books, \nespecially when read as a whole rather than spaced several months \napart.\n\nAlso I have to agree with Stephen that there is a strong and \nrecognizeable break in the personality of the Narrator from OBW to \nIGJ -- the former took me almost two weeks to reread; the latter I \nam almost racing through (well, for me these days) & have read half \nof it in four days. \n\nI'm simply not convinced of Marc's overarching tree theory at this \npoint, and doubt that I will come away convinced from the whole. \nThere's clearly something weird going on with the trees, but for\nthem to \"be\" the Neighbors, just doesn't work with what I'm seeing.\nNor does it appear to me that Horn dies in the pit: yes, Seawrack\nthinks he has, but her experience of life and death on land is \nvery narrow; something comatose in the ocean might as well be\ndead, because it will be, as she puts it, food. The bigger \ncarnivores just won't wait for brain activity to stop, you know?\n\nWhile I'm not 100% sure of (Marc's?) \"Horn goes into Babbie at \nthe end of OBW\" theory, it does explain a great deal, and I'm \ndefinitely wanting to favor it. Right from the beginning of IGJ, \nthe Narrator starts talking with a lot more of Silk's speech \npatterns (which, though not as, ah, _blatant_ as Pig's, are \nnonetheless recognizeable and distinctive). I see no other \nspecific point at which this very clear change is likely to have \ntaken place.\n\nThe question is -- who writes the passage where the transition \nactually seems to take place? I offer this semi-analysis.\n\nSilk, grieving for Hyacinth, is \"dying in spirit.\" Despite the\nrepeated attempts to say he is committing suicide, I find this\nuntenable; the Neighbor makes it clear that they are moving Horn\ninto a healthy body, and it's well-established that gashing your\narms with a knife is standard mourning practice in Viron. Silk \nis either replaced or totally submerged by Horn. Later, the bit \nof Silk which came from Silk-in-Pas and resides in Pig is \ntransferred to the Silk body that contains Horn. This is small\nand weak, so to say, but it's there and begins to affect the\nNarrator's behavior to the extent that he can make _some_ Silk-\nlike decisions while he is the Rajan of Gaon.\n\nNow, the Outsider, for His own reasons which we need not know \n(\"That's ineffability for you,\" observes Crowley), decides to \nstraighten out the mess, and removes Horn -- probably to Babbie's \nbody, which explains a great deal about Babbie's appearance and\nbehavior on Urth. Note that every other case of something that\nis not human but becomes [more] human during the \"astral travel\"\nsequences is in fact carrying human soul: Oreb carrying (a piece\nof) Scylla, the various inhumi carrying (bits of) soul taken from \ntheir human victims. I think there's a strong implication that\nBabbie, too, has somehow acquired human soul. OTOH, this leaves\nbegging Seawrack's comments that he is already a \"person\" near the\nend of OBW ...\n\nThe rather confused state of the final paragraphs of OBW, then,\nseem to me to reflect the state of the Silk persona, which has\nbeen pretty much submerged up to this point, just influencing the\nNarrator but allowing Horn to remain in control. This has just\nchanged. The Silk persona really does not know what has happened \n(though he recognizes it as something 'good') and is trying to \nreassemble himself with his formerly-dominant personality gone. \nHe stumbles through the kinder, gentler forest of Blue and comes\nupon Brother and Sister, spends some time with them, and when he\nis more \"together\" moves on, meeting Cugino and getting the staff.\n\nThe mystery now is, why he still denies that he is Silk. Is it \nbecause the only way he can understand the removal of the Horn\npersona is that it has died? That he cannot accept the guilt of\nliving at the expense of Horn's death? Perhaps. Or perhaps he,\nsubmerged in Horn so long, is in the habit of thinking he is Horn; \nor perhaps, simply, that to acknowledge that he is Silk means \nacknowledging that Hyacinth is gone. \n\nOr something else I haven't thought of. (I'll be watching the\ntransition from IGJ to RTTW very carefully. I suspect that\nthere is another major developmental step in that interstice.)\n\nSome other bits...\n\nRe: Stephen's \"Why does Horn hate Sinew so much?\" That's a darn \ngood question. It does, however, provide more fodder for the idea \nthat Silk becomes the dominant personality of the Narrator \nsomewhere around the break between the two volumes. In OBW, when \nthe Narrator speaks of the relationship between himself and Sinew, \nhe is almost venomous; he makes it clear that he's done all he can \nand the trouble between them is Sinew's fault. This element seems \nto me entirely missing from the second volume. \n\nRe: the Narrator as inhumu. While the \"Oreb alarm\" seems to \nmilitate against it, there are two factors to consider that make\nthis bit of evidence somewhat more ambiguous. First, there is \nOreb's long disappearance after the Narrator is brought back to \nBlue by the Gaonese, leading me to think that he is in some way \ndisturbed by whatever the Narrator is or has become ... though\nof course this probably has more to do with the scrambled souls\nthan anything else. When he returns, he seems to have decided \nthat, yes, this is Silk after all.\n\nSecond, Oreb seems capable of recognizing that (say) Fava has \nbecome a 'good girl' rather than a 'bad thing, thing fly.' An \ninhumu with Silk's personality might well be a 'good Silk' to \nhim. (Of course, all of this ignores the question of what effect \nScylla has on Oreb's ability to detect the presence of 'bad things.')\n\nNonetheless and notwithstanding ... I don't really think that the\nNarrator is an inhumu. The strongest bit of evidence, his general\nlack of appetite, is established fairly clearly in Silk in _Long\nSun_; he only seems to get really hungry when he hasn't eaten in \na day or longer. This tendency would likely increase with age.\n(I suspect that his genegineered body simply has a tremendously\nefficient metabolism.)\n\nsad experience teaches me" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-07-09T12:37:04+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Rereading the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 08/07/2002 18:45:32 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nNonetheless and notwithstanding ... I don't really think that the\nNarrator is an inhumu. The strongest bit of evidence, his general\nlack of appetite, is established fairly clearly in Silk in _Long\nSun_; he only seems to get really hungry when he hasn't eaten in\na day or longer. This tendency would likely increase with age.\n(I suspect that his genegineered body simply has a tremendously\nefficient metabolism.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Quite possible - added extras along with the inspirational ability. But\nit's unnecessary. \"Hunger\" for those of us in the developed world is more\na matter of habit. It's not that difficult to become acustomed to a far\nsmall intake and operate quite well on it.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-07-09T19:48:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Rereading the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The bug-eyed one having writ:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Silk, grieving for Hyacinth, is \"dying in spirit.\" Despite the\nrepeated attempts to say he is committing suicide, I find this\nuntenable; the Neighbor makes it clear that they are moving Horn\ninto a healthy body, and it's well-established that gashing your\narms with a knife is standard mourning practice in Viron. Silk\nis either replaced or totally submerged by Horn." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't like the suicide theory either (can't see Silk committing\nselbstmord, it being too heinous a sin in Wolfe's Catholicism), but like\nthe-slash-and-gash-boohoo-theory even less. This is because, if memory\nserves me right, there's no mention of the practice anywhere in the Short\nSun books. Thus the mystery of Silk's death--the how and the why and under\nwhat circumstances he receives his lethal wounds--cannot be resolved by\nsimply reading SS alone. This seems most churlish and meanspirited of the\nauthor, and hardly likely to win him new readers, especially if Soleil Bref\nis their first encounter with the Sun books; whereas if the answer can be\ngleaned without resort to a completely different series (as I believe all\nthe central questions of SS can and must be), it's a much tidier,\nwell-crafted, and aesthetically-pleasing book.\n\nRobert Borski" } ] } ] }