{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3344",
    "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": 3344,
    "subject": "Suicide & Hyacinth",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-07-13T00:57:46+00:00",
    "last": "2002-07-13T00:57:46+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0207-1341@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jason Ingram",
        "address": "j_ingram at mac.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-07-13T00:57:46+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Suicide & Hyacinth",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It has been written:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "What people are persistently failing to acknowledge, though Wolfe \nflags it\nagain and again,  is that Hyacinth was a bad woman, and disastrous for \nSilk."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hyacinth *was* what most would call a bad woman, but I think the picture \npresented of her in the Long Sun series is distorted: we have only Horn \nand Nettle's rendition of her character.  Though they may strive for \nimpartiality, they are also admittedly jealous of her hold on Silk's \nattention.  Horn dislikes the way Hyacinth can be cruel to Nettle, and \nNettle must mislike Hyacinth's interaction with Horn.\n\nWhat this amounts to, in my view, is only that we have to 'read in' to \nthe narrative what Silk sees in Hyacinth.  He sees the best in \npeople--although recent discussion of how he focuses on the flaws in \nothers rather than his own makes me rethink this claim, there seem to be \nplenty of instances where Silk bemoans his own limitations and strives \nfor humility.  He is also clearly prideful, but in my view balances the \ntwo effectively.  And his distress seems based on the gap between what \npeople could be and what they allow themselves to become--yet the \nnarrative presents readers with the worst of Hyacinth.\n\nI don't suppose Wolfe had a gnostic take on their relationship, but \nSimon magus and Helen do come to mind.  There may have been a \ndestructive element in their relationship, but \"where danger threatens, \nthere the saving power grows\" (Holderlin) or some such.\n\nbtw,\n\nhave I become the tomato that ate Kansas?\n\nSepia"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}