{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3429", "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": 3429, "subject": "Crush's Page and Quetzal", "messages": 9, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-08-27T18:13:45+00:00", "last": "2002-08-31T20:43:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-08-27T22:35:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page \n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion. I\ndefinitely don't agree with every conclusion he reaches (for example,\nI very much doubt that Incus is female, or that Hyacinth a male chem), \nbut, wow, there is some good good stuff here.\n\nA couple of things I'd like to comment on. This is totally out of\ncontext, so maybe you ought to go read the real thing first." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Quetzal, the inhuma Prolocutor, copies Dionysus' effeminate\nupbringing in that he wears make-up (he says) \"like a woman\" \nto pass as human. Calde Tussah did the same thing. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Leaving me to wonder ... Was Tussah, could Tussah have been, an\ninhumu? It would seem to fit with a lot of Crush's thematics for\nhim to be a demon/god." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Quetzal - A Venerable holy man, ends up rescuing the people\nof Viron and giving his life for the people/his prey. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Combine this with Krait's comment that people are the cattle\nof the inhumi and you get a very interesting, if dark, riff on\nthe idea of the Good Shepherd. (After all, shepherds don't take\ncare of the sheep for the sheep's sake, ultimately. They eat\nthem.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-08-27T18:13:45+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination plus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-08-28T13:52:51+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The nice comments I've received recently on my \"articlettes\" have surely\nturned my head.\n\nI do need to thank Blattid for correcting my grammar on the use of the word\n\"inhuma\". Having not read the Short Sun books yet, I see now that my usage\nwas wildly speculative. I've updated the Dionysus article and over the next\nfew days I'll search the other articles for similar mistakes (I'm probably\nstill using the word wrong). If anyone else has any technical comments, they\nwill surely receive a glad hand. :)\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]\nSent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 5:36 PM\nTo: 'urth at urth.net'\nSubject: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\n\nFor those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion. I\ndefinitely don't agree with every conclusion he reaches (for example,\nI very much doubt that Incus is female, or that Hyacinth a male chem),\nbut, wow, there is some good good stuff here.\n --Blattid" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-08-28T13:31:22+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination\nplus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n-alga" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've never met Robert Borski, although I enjoyed his recent Peace article. I\nhaven't to my knowledge met anyone on this list, although it is my desire to\ngo to WorldCon one day and put a few faces to the names here.\n:-D\n\n-----Original Message-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Alice K. Turner [mailto:aturner6 at nyc.rr.com]\nSent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 1:14 PM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nFor those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-08-29T00:12:56+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination\nplus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've never met Robert Borski, although I enjoyed his recent Peace article." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "haven't to my knowledge met anyone on this list, although it is my desire\nto\ngo to WorldCon one day and put a few faces to the names here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(Extending a right hand blithely across the aether.) How do you do, Crush!\n\nI've never met anyone on the list either, although Nigel Price and I talked\nabout getting together last spring; alas, while he was in the American\nMidwest, I was in Central Europe. That being said, however, I fear you've\nmisread alga's comments, which were intended not as a suggestion that you\nand I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is neither valid nor\nsubstantive, but rather falls into the realm of \"fan fiction.\" Like me,\nyou've apparently been \"swimming with undines,\" thus your severe\nintellectual anoxia. Thank the stars she didn't call you my \"partner in\nflakiness,\" like she did Prion (aka Sean Whalen), who promptly left the list\nafter the tirade she leveled against him. And heaven forbid your work ever\nfind acceptance elsewhere; I fear the six essays I wrote on Wolfe that have\nbeen published by The New York Review of Science Fiction have forever\nsullied its reputation (obviously Ms. Turner's essays on John Crowley were\naccepted by an editorial cadre in much more command of its critical\nfaculties). In other words expect a certain amount of ridicule, scorn, and\nderision to your Long Sun exegeses by what is, thankfully, not a large\ncontingent on the list; if you're extremely unlucky, however, as I've been,\nexpect a fair amount of shrillness from you-know-who.\n\nPersonally, I applaud your efforts. I don't agree with many of your\nconclusions, but rather than take a cheap shot at what has obviously been a\nlabor of love, with a fair amount of scholarship (\"Those who have original\nthoughts, post; those who don't, carp\"), I thought I'd ask you a few\nquestions about your Hyacinth essay. According to you she's a chem. So does\nthis mean that she fabricated the story about her father being a head clerk\nat the Juzgado? (Newt by my reckoning.) And again, is she lying (or\nimplanted with false memories) when she tells Auk that her father is a\n\"pig's arse\"? And who is the woman described as her dead mother that\nHyacinth sees at Mainframe? Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized\nelsewhere she's Lime), but wouldn't she have to be a chem--as must be her\nfather? Simply put, are there really that many chems running around outside\nthe military and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to\ntoxic parenting as your average bios? Since you're speculating about someone\nwhose life history does not end with SHORT SUN, you also need to read\nWolfe's followup series because there's an event in there that makes your\ntheory even lesss tenable. I won't spoil it for you; suffice it to say I\ndon't think rust is the causitive agent.\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-08-29T23:05:38+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Regarding essays at http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/\n\nRobert Borski said:\nI fear you've misread alga's comments, which were intended not as a\nsuggestion that you and I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is\nneither valid nor substantive...In other words expect a certain amount of\nridicule, scorn, and derision to your Long Sun exegeses...\n\nMy response:\nUnfortunately, I'm not so harassed by fraternal greetings and compliments\nthat I can afford to exegete them when they come my way. I'll presume until\ntextually proven otherwise that by \"imagination plus\" Alga meant merely\n\"...plus imagination\" rather than \"...plus something-else-not-so-wonderful.\"\nAs for receiving derision, I should HOPE to converse with someone who feels\nso strongly about the Long Sun series - that's why I published the essays on\na website. So deride away! It's up to the derider however to engage me\nenough to respond. I purpose that no shots will be \"cheap\", I'll do all I\ncan to see that they are hard won.\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\nRobert Borski said\nI thought I'd ask you a few questions about your Hyacinth essay.\n\nMy response:\nI'm working on a response to your questions, but I can't finish until can\ncheck my sources. Still I've received a couple emails offline on the\nchem-Hyacinth theory that follow the same tack, and I'd like to respond to\nthat \"tack\" first.\n\nFirst if people are responding off-list because they feel more comfortable\nfor some reason, yet *really* want to discuss some point, that's fine. But\nif someone responds off-list to keep from *humiliating* me, their concern is\nmisdirected. The purpose of this list, I would guess, is to exchange\nopinions.\n\nSecond, no matter WHAT one believes about Hyacinth, her impressive bosom is\nbursting with lies and slight-of-hands about her *true* nature. As I say in\n\"Thelxepeia's Mirrors,\" the Hyacinth citation is not really finished and\nwon't be until after I re-read the books. I currently ONLY cite the clues\nthat she IS a chem rather than explain the (IMO) mis-directions that she is\nNOT a chem. My conviction currently rests only on affirmative proofs. That's\nonly half the ballgame, I know.\n\nConsequently, while I think I allay certain general concerns like those Mr.\nBorski is asking. I can't really address specific problems like \"if Hyacinth\nis a chem, how does she cry? or \"then why is she CLAIM to be a junkie?\" or\n\"why does she stuff her face with nectarines?\"\n\nAt the end of Silk's discussion with Horn on the airship, Silk says of his\nreasons for trying to kill himself, \"Isn't it obvious [after all I've told\nyou]?\" Well it isn't \"obvious.\" It IS (to me at this point), however,\ninexorable. Still, I welcome all challenges to anything I've published on my\nsite, including this. Just understand that I can't answer\neverything.....yet.\n\nThird, as to my need to read the Short Sun, I guess I will have to read this\none if only to have the credentials to discuss Hyacinth. But I've paid\nenough attention to the Urth list discussion to know she's dies and there is\nsome ambiguity as to how. This is not a spoiler for me because:\nSince Silk and Hyacinth are Apollo and Hyacinthus -- and there is more\nreason than just her name to suggest they are - it is necessary that Silk\nwill directly cause her death - the only question is how.\n\nI'm inclined to disbelieve, though obviously without evidence, that the\nmanner of her death insists that she's bio since every person whose brought\nthis up, felt the need to supply other (less persuasive?) proofs. Unless\nthere is blood all over the walls, it's hard to imagine that it will present\nin more difficult puzzle than why does she produce snot when she cries and\nwhy is her breath warm.\n\nDoes the event in question take place in \"On Blue's Waters?\" I do have that\none already.\n\nCuriously, I kind of expected my other (I thought) controversial theory,\nthat Incus is a woman, to provoke at least as many challenges as Hyacinth's.\nI feel much on much better ground to defend it. Then again, perhaps I *have*\ndefended it better since no one has yet offered a detailed challenge on\nthat.\n\nA sole-proprietor in flakiness,\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-08-30T15:15:12+00:00", "subject": "RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "After checking my sources, here's my response to Robert Borski's questions\n(thanks again Mr. Borski):\nRobert Borski said\n\nAccording to you she's a chem. So does this mean that she fabricated the\nstory about her father being a head clerk at the Juzgado? (Newt by my\nreckoning.) And again, is she lying (or implanted with false memories) when\nshe tells Auk that her father is a \"pig's arse\"?\n\nMy response:\nNo and no. Actually Silk says that he went to meet him. I sure her father is\nNOT Newt. Newt is a commissioner at the Juzgado in charge of the Guard\nfinances. Hyacinth's father is a \"head clerk\" of the Fisc. Silk also met\nwith an \"officer\" of the Fisc while he was there. Clearly her father is well\ndown the chain of command. BTW: see the entry on Newt in \"Things of the Long\nSun\".\n\nThere's no reason that her father could not be a chemical person. And as\nSilk discovered in Nightside, a talus can be bribed. What would a talus do\nwith money? Marble explains in Exodus, \"The same thing anyone would do with\nmoney, dear\" So chems are not essentially different from bios when it comes\nto corrupt conduct. Is it so amazing that a chem parent would prostitute his\nchild for money when bios sometimes do it?\n\nActually, the well-flagged concept that chems and taluses can be corrupted\nfor money is sitting around in the story like an unfired gun in a play. I've\nfired it by tapping Hyacinth and her father as examples.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n----------\nRobert Borski said\nAnd who is the woman described as her dead mother that Hyacinth sees at\nMainframe? Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized elsewhere she's Lime)\n\nMy response:\nThe woman was Hyacinth's mother. It is easier for me to imagine how chems\nwould \"go to Mainframe\" when they die than it is for me to see how it is\ndone with bios. As for Nettle knowing her that's an interesting question,\nbut unless her mother can be clearly identified with a bio female it doesn't\nchange anything. I'm curious about your \"Lime\" theory. I don't find it\nexplained in the Urth archives. In the archives I DID see you make a\nreference to a snide comment by Wolfe regarding Hyacinth's mother in a \"LS\nquestion list\" - what is this?\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski said\nSimply put, are there really that many chems running around outside the\nmilitary and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to\ntoxic parenting as your average bios?\n\nMy response:\nWell there's not that many chems running around outside the military --\nrelatively. Marble is the only one I'm aware of in a religious order.\nNon-military chems are rare relative to when the Whorl left Urth, but they\nare not non-existent. No adults in Viron remarks on chems as if they'd never\nseen one before. I suppose if you or I were to walk the streets of Viron, we\nwould no doubt think we saw chems everywhere we looked.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n--\nRobert Borski said\nSince you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with\nSHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an\nevent in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it\nfor you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent.\n\n\nI cannot express the pleasure I get from these e-mails.\n\n -- Crush\n\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-08-30T15:35:29+00:00", "subject": "RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I intended to clip the following Boski question from my response since I\nanswered it in my other recent posting. Failing to clip it makes it look\nlike I'm being sarcastic when that was NOT my intention.\n\n\nRobert Borski said\nSince you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with\nSHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an\nevent in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it\nfor you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2002-08-31T20:43:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush responding:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm curious about your \"Lime\" theory. I don't find it\nexplained in the Urth archives. In the archives I DID see you make a\nreference to a snide comment by Wolfe regarding Hyacinth's mother in a \"LS\nquestion list\" - what is this?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Almost certain I posted this somewhere, but couldn't find it myself, so let\nme attempt a brief reprise.\n\nIn the process of describing their visit to Mainframe, where a number of\ndead ancestors are encountered, Horn (the author of LS) records the\nfollowing dialogue:\n\n----------\n\"Hyacinth's mother visited her, too.\"\nNettle looked surprised. \"I didn't think her mother was dead, Caldé.\"\n\"Neither did Hyacinth.\"\n----------\n\nNow to me--and perhaps only to me and my imagination plus--Nettle's\nsurprised look implies that (1) she possibly knows Hyacinth's mother, and\n(2) the last time she saw her she was alive. But when Wolfe was asked in the\naforesaid LS question list about this (\"Who was Hyacinth's mother? It seems\nwe should know her.\"), he responded: \"I don't know how to answer that. She\nwas not a character you have known in some other connection, if that's what\nyou mean. She was the wife of Hyacinth's father, and the mother of her\nsisters and brothers.\"\n\nSo why then is Nettle surprised? Are we to assume that Nettle and Hy are\nclose enough they've having sisterly chats about their mothers and their\ncurrent states-of-health? Nonplussed, I set the idea aside for a while.\n\nBut then on a reread of EXODUS, I came across the following passage, where\nHyacinth is talking about when she first left the family nest. Says she:\n\"Know what I had when I left h-home? Two gowns M-Mother made and her\numbrella. She didn't have a-anything else to give me, so she gave me that. A\nbig green umbrella. I kept it for years and I don't know what happened to\nit.\"\n\nCould, however, the color and emotional value of this precious umbrella be a\nhint here? [Again, is it likely that chems need and keep umbrellas?] Green,\nof course, made me immediately think of Lime, who is described as \"a lank\nwoman of forty, with ginger-colored hair that Maytera Mint had decided was\nprobably dyed.\" [Would a chem dye her hair?] When last seen alive, even\nthough she wants to fight, she's told by Mint that \"Your women are no longer\nfighters unless they've got needlers or slug guns. We need people to get our\nwounded out of the fight and take care of them.\" Lime takes off, but then\nlater, *in the presence of Nettle*, Teasel is told by Mint to \"find Lime.\nTell her where I am, and that I want to see her just as soon as she can get\naway.\" But we're never told if Teasel finds her--there is a civil war going\non, and she may, in fact, be the dead woman on Silver Street that Silk sees\nin his first enlightenment--and she's never encountered in the narrative\nagain--unless she really is the Mainframe manifestation that Hyacinth\nidentifies with her mother.\n\nBonus gratuity: although I don't belief this is true, in order to make your\ntheory work, you might try arguing that \"Lime\" is short for \"Limestone.\"\n\nBut what about Hy's father? As you declaim:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I sure her father is\nNOT Newt. Newt is a commissioner at the Juzgado in charge of the Guard\nfinances. Hyacinth's father is a \"head clerk\" of the Fisc. Silk also met\nwith an \"officer\" of the Fisc while he was there. Clearly her father is\nwell\ndown the chain of command." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Only initially by my read. For as we've been told by Chenille in LAKE, \"Her\nfather's a head clerk in the Juzgado.\" Later then, in response to the\nfollowing question about new councillor Newt, \"Where is it they find you?\"\nshe responds, \"In the Juzgado. Councillor Newt was a commissioner there, the\none who bought supplies for the Caldé's Guard, made out the payrole, and so\nforth.\" These types of duties are prefectly consistent with being a head\nclerk with a commission--one he received for a specific reason. Or as\nChenille relates:\n\n\"...One of the commissioners saw [Hyacinth] when she was maybe fourteen, and\nsaid, 'Listen, I need a maid. Send her up and she can live at my\nhouse'--they had eight or nine sprats, I guess--'and she can make a little\nmoney, too, and *you'll get a nice promotion.*' Hy's father was just a\n*regular* clerk then, probably.\"\n\n[Again, how likely is it that a pair of destitute chems are going to build\neight or nine sprats? Olive's parents seem to have a great deal of\ndifficulty bringing her into the world.]\n\nAlso, as you note, Silk has met with Hy's father, saying \"I knew Hyacinth's\nfather was a head clerk...I located him, and while we were talking about\nreforming the Fisc he said that the devil is in the details.\" But this takes\nplace before we learn that Newt has been elevated to commissioner and he may\nhave been trying to impress Caldé Silk, hoping to trade not so much on\ndaughter Hyacinth's sexual indenturement for another promotion, but his own\nmanagerial skills.\n\nNo way I can wrangle a name chemish for Newt, but as you know at least one\nof the other Councillor's is a chem.\n\nRobert Borski" } ] } ] }