{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4003", "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": 4003, "subject": "New Poster: Nettle theory", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2003-05-13T04:57:04+00:00", "last": "2003-05-30T22:19:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alan Lewis", "address": "alanarc at frontiernet.net" }, "date": "2003-05-13T04:57:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) New Poster: Nettle theory", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello one and all,\n\nI have long been a fan of Gene Wolfe, but happened upon this list only recently when I decided to see what the net had to offer on the best living sf writer. As it happens, I've only recently completed the Short Sun Series, as I decided to wait until they were all written until I bought them. And then once I had them all I still hesitated, one of the reasons being the cover art which I found embarassing (and having read them, it's doubly embarassing to have them contain such stupid inaccuracies as well, but that's a whole other discussion). Now I have spent many many hours reading the archives of this list to \"catch up\" somewhat, and though I did not read all the postings or even half, I'm ready to jump in. First let me say congratulations on the friendly and fascinating exchange that takes place here -- as others have commented, I feel I know much about many of you.\n\nI have a bunch I wish to discuss about Short Sun, but I want to start with a simple point, which I wonder if I will get anyone to agree with me on. Almost everyone has wondered why in the Outsider's name Nettle would go if into the Long Sunset with Silkhorn and Seawrack. My solution is simply this: she didn't.\n\nOf course, part of why I believe this is I found it so hard to believe myself that she would go on this trip. But there's more. Here is the quotation from Whorl:\n\n\"They are in it, I hope, he and his eerie young woman, Nettle, the old sybyl, and their bird. . . .\"\n\nNow of course the standard reading of this line is that the commas separate the different items on a list, and thus Nettle is a passenger. However, when the Narrator has been writing this book he has been doing so in a certain style, for an audience of one much of the time, that being Nettle. It becomes a convention of style, like the Victorian always referring to Dear Reader. Many times in this series the Narrator will say something like: And then this happened, Nettle, and then that. Even though we may presume this particular section was written by Daisey, and even though none of the other 3rd person sections have this quality that I recall, I propose that at the end of the book the question of just who is speaking has become confused, like identity in so many other places in this series (and to me is the major theme of Short Sun, as I hope to eluciadate at greater length later). Thus the style of the Narrator who addresses his words to Nettle has creeped in. Under this theory the line is read as the equivalent of: \"these are the people who went, Nettle.\" In other words, the line is addressed to Nettle, though she is not part of the list. In support of this is the fact that hers is the only name given, which otherwise seems odd. \n\nThis actually was the way I made sense of this line on my first reading of it, although I did re-read it a few times and see that Wolfe had been very mischevious and ambigiuous -- qualities which he exhibits quite a bit, no?\n\nAs to possible objections to this theory (other than it calling for a non-standard reading of the line), one of the main ones occurs on the page before where Nettle SEEMS to be making her goodbyes to her family -- or is she? Here is the passage:\n\n\"We will sail tonight,\" he told me. \"Would you be willing to make my farewells to Hoof and Hide? Nettle is making her own, and cannot be bothered with mine.\"\n\nNow here is some room for ambiguity as well. The standard reading would probably be that Nettle is making her farewells to Hoof and Hide, so has no time (or inclination?) to pass on \"his\" farewell. However, it could be that Nettle is \"making\" her farewell to this fellow, because she's not going with him, and has no time to pass on messages. And what might she be making? How about another copy of the Book of Silk, which we know she did in the past, and that Horn treasured mightily. And/or a copy of that portion of the Short Sun as the Narrator wrote it out. Just a thought.\n\nAlan Lewis" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-05-13T16:05:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) New Poster: Nettle theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Alan Lewis wrote:\nHello one and all," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Greetings and hallucinations, welcome to the list." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "once I had [all the SS books] I still hesitated, one of the reasons being \nthe cover art which I found embarassing" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Am I the only person in the world who actually likes these covers? Oh well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(and having read them, it's doubly embarassing to have them contain such \nstupid inaccuracies as well, but that's a whole other discussion)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that's for durn sure. Even LS has some problems (i.e., the infamous\nMarble/Mint confusion). Porfreeding at Tor books seems to have gone to\nhecky-darn in a handbasket." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now I have spent many many hours reading the archives of this list to\n\"catch up\" somewhat, and though I did not read all the postings or\neven half, I'm ready to jump in." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey, read the FAQ. You are required to read the whole archives, and make\nsure you verify that nothing you post ever repeats anything that has ever\nbeen posted here before. We have no time for repetition, redundancy,\nexcess, or sarcasm.\n\n(Uh... 8*) for the humor-challenged.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First let me say congratulations on the friendly and fascinating exchange \nthat takes place here -- as others have commented, I feel I know much\nabout many of you." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good. Maybe you can tell us about ourselves some time. I'm sure I'd like\nto know who I am." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have a bunch I wish to discuss about Short Sun, but I want to start\nwith a simple point, which I wonder if I will get anyone to agree with\nme on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that's another point you should have picked up in the FAQ. Everyone\nis required to jump on all new theories, especially by new posters, and tear\nthem to tiny shreds. We're totally opposed to novelty here.\n\nSee previous parenthesis." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Almost everyone has wondered why in the Outsider's name Nettle would\ngo if into the Long Sunset with Silkhorn and Seawrack. My solution is\nsimply this: she didn't." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think this works, for a variety of reasons." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, part of why I believe this is I found it so hard to believe \nmyself\nthat she would go on this trip. But there's more. Here is the quotation\nfrom Whorl:\n\n\"They are in it, I hope, he and his eerie young woman, Nettle, the old\nsybyl, and their bird. . . .\"\n\nNow of course the standard reading of this line is that the commas\nseparate the different items on a list, and thus Nettle is a passenger.\n However, when the Narrator has been writing this book he has been\ndoing so in a certain style, for an audience of one much of the time,\nthat being Nettle." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Absolutely correct.\n\nHowever, this chapter (like all the \"interstitial\" chapters in WHORL, and\ncertain inserted remarks in the earlier volumes - which in turn should lead\nus to question how heavily the Narrator's own words have been edited!),\nis NOT the Narrator writing; it is Daisy.\n\n[...]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I propose that at the end of the book the question of just who is speaking\nhas become confused, like identity in so many other places in this series \n(and\nto me is the major theme of Short Sun, as I hope to eluciadate at greater\nlength later)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The nature of identity is a major theme of all the Sun books, and indeed of \nmost\nof Wolfe's major work. However, there is no real doubt about who is writing\nthat final chapter, unless you have some mechanism to propose whereby the\nidentities of Daisy and the Narrator might become confused.." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thus the style of the Narrator who addresses his words to Nettle has \ncreeped\nin. Under this theory the line is read as the equivalent of: \"these are \nthe\npeople who went, Nettle.\" In other words, the line is addressed to Nettle, \nthough she is not part of the list. In support of this is the fact that \nhers is the only name given, which otherwise seems odd." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think this will work.\n\nAs you semi-note in a bit I deleted, there is NO sense in any of the \nprevious\n\"by the kids\" material that they are addressing Nettle; in fact, in one of \nthe\ninserted remarks, in (I believe) OBW, responding to the Narrator's wondering\nwhether or not \"you\" will ever read the ms., the kids say that *she* has.\n\nThe kids do not even try to write in the Narrator's style; if they did, they \nwould\nfake up a first-person narrative instead of the \"he\" they use in describing \nSilkHorn's\nAdventures On The Whorl." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This actually was the way I made sense of this line on my first reading of \nit,\nalthough I did re-read it a few times and see that Wolfe had been very\nmischevious and ambigiuous -- qualities which he exhibits quite a bit, no?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, he seems to claim that he doesn't, but ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[...] Nettle SEEMS to be making her goodbyes to her family -- or is\nshe? Here is the passage:\n\n\"We will sail tonight,\" he told me. \"Would you be willing to make my\nfarewells to Hoof and Hide? Nettle is making her own, and cannot be\nbothered with mine.\"\n\nNow here is some room for ambiguity as well. The standard reading\nwould probably be that Nettle is making her farewells to Hoof and Hide,\nso has no time (or inclination?) to pass on \"his\" farewell. However, it\ncould be that Nettle is \"making\" her farewell to this fellow, because she's\nnot going with him, and has no time to pass on messages." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ummm.\n\nThis is not merely a non-standard reading; it is, I think, a tortured \nreading.\nIf Nettle were \"making her farewells\" to Silk(Horn?), she would be there\nwith him. She isn't." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And what might she be making? How about another copy of the Book\nof Silk, which we know she did in the past, and that Horn treasured\nmightily. And/or a copy of that portion of the Short Sun as the Narrator\nwrote it out. Just a thought." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And an interesting one, but for \"her own\" in the cited passage NOT to\nrefer to \"goodbyes\" would require a possible referent to be at least\nimplied. There's nothing in the passage that even vaguely suggests that\nshe's making \"her own copy\" of either Book.\n\nInteresting stuff, and well worth putting forth, even if it doesn't work." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-05-13T16:30:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) New Poster: Nettle theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l wrote:\nAbsolutely correct.\n\nHowever, this chapter (like all the \"interstitial\" chapters in WHORL, and\ncertain inserted remarks in the earlier volumes - which in turn should lead\nus to question how heavily the Narrator's own words have been edited!),\nis NOT the Narrator writing; it is Daisy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to say that I was perplexed by the ending myself, but this is exactly \nthe point I was going to make. This chapter, aside from the narrator \nclaiming to be Daisy from the beginning, is also written in a distinctly \ndifferent style - as is the wedding chapter. I'd also like to throw in that \neven Silkhorn during the course of the chapters he wrote varies a bit \ndepending on his emotional state. Sometimes he addresses Nettle specifically \nand passionately; others she fades from his mind. Horn is, perhaps, not the \nmost devoted husband but I like to think these are just times when Silk is \ncoming to the fore." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As you semi-note in a bit I deleted, there is NO sense in any of the \nprevious\n\"by the kids\" material that they are addressing Nettle; in fact, in one of \nthe\ninserted remarks, in (I believe) OBW, responding to the Narrator's \nwondering\nwhether or not \"you\" will ever read the ms., the kids say that *she* has." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm now this is a place where the theory, even if incorrect, brings up more \nquestions. This passage implied to me that Nettle is with them at the time \nthey are adding their editorial notes - it's not explicit, but it seems \nclear enough to me. And if she did go, did she have time to read OBW and \ncomment on it to Hoof and Hide? If she did, then Silkhorn was certainly \nthere to see that for himself. Nonetheless (again, not explicitly) the \neditorial note seems to be directed to Horn, not to us." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"We will sail tonight,\" he told me. \"Would you be willing to make my\nfarewells to Hoof and Hide? Nettle is making her own, and cannot be\nbothered with mine.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I thought, initially, that she might be making farewells because Hoof and \nHide were moving from their home - after the wedding, this would be somewhat \nnatural. But that's a weak explanation.\n\nIf she did go back to the Whorl, the rationalization that sits best with me \nis that perhaps she simply doesn't trust Silkhorn's account or necessarily \nbelieve her husband is dead. She knows that Horn somehow reached Silk to \nsend him back, and thus presumes that Horn made it to the Whorl somehow and \nmay still be alive there.\n\nThere's also the possibility that for some complex political reason the \nending has been deliberately obscured. I don't have a likely reason for \nthat. But it certainly strikes me as muddled.\n\nChris" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2003-05-30T22:19:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) New Poster: Nettle theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 13 May 2003, Alan Lewis wrote:\n\"They are in it, I hope, he and his eerie young woman, Nettle, the old\nsybyl, and their bird. . . .\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Welcome, Alan. I like your reading of that line -- very clever. Made me\nsay, \"Hey, waitaminute...\" But I don't think I'm convinced, for the\nreasons others have mentioned. Also, the simplest reason the narrator\nwould use Nettle's name is that she is the only one known to Daisy on a\nfirst-name basis.\n\nAnd I never had a problem with Nettle going back with Silk. Her husband\nis dead (perhaps the last of him finally exorcised from Silk during that\nconversation with Remora, perhaps she, like many others, never really\nbelieved Horn was ever in there), her children grown and married. She\nfollowed Silk in her youth, and everybody wants to be around Silk. She\nquite plausibly might want to return in her old age to her hometown of\nViron; Blue is no paradise, and once Passilk gets the Whorl fixed up, it\nwill presumably be a nicer place to live than it was when Nettle was\nyoung. And maybe she did see a little bit of Horn in Silk and wants to\ncling to the only connection she has left.\n\nI don't see her as part of an alleged Silk harem any more than Marble is.\n\nThe one I didn't understand was Seawrack -- why would she be interested in\nSilk (other than that everyone wants to follow Silk)? My reading is that\nbefore Horn faded, he was the driving force in Silkhorn's desire to seek\nher out, but that for Silk it's more a matter of rescuing her from being a\ntool of the Mother (not that there would be anything wrong with him taking\nup a romantic intersest in Seawrack -- with his ubergenes he might outlive\nher.) I'm guessing she knows she's been freed from whatever hold the\nMother had over her and knows Silk is responsible.\n\n\t-- Rostrum" } ] } ] }