Subject: (urth) silverglass

From: aramini1 at cox.net <aramini1 at cox.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 21:55:43 +0000

Hrmm - my argument that the editors had no real insight into the character of the ambiguous protagonist has been turned against me.  

Let me rephrase it - the editors are working with two things: the Silk-Horn that they knew and his account, and the tale of events reconstructed from witnesses.  However, since they are on Blue and the witnesses are on the whorl, there is very little of that.  Instead, they have the words of Silk-Horn.  But this is not the Horn that left to find Silk, nor the Silk that lived on the whorl with Hyacinth - this is someone in between.  They can place the character as they understand him to be into the events that occurred on the whorl without understanding the precise instant when he became the character they know. (And the text they have puts them in the same boat as us as far as the narrator's identity goes). But they have to use the character they have come to know in their narrative.  It is ultimately indeterminable at which point he became that character from their perspective, because Silk isn't verbally talking about it too much - and when he is, he is usually denying it.  

The Short Sun books really do create an interpretive problem - everyone has a "feeling", but the very construction makes it hard to prove anything one way or the other.  Just as there are clues that "He is Silk", there seem to be clues, including the denials coming from his own mouth, that "he is not Silk".  I can quote a hundred times when the narrator denies being Silk - but we all know it isn't true.  Bizarre, isn't it?  Why does it work that way?  At the end of the book, I feel 100% confident saying - "there is Silk", as do most of us.

Marc
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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:10:47 +0000

How about those Puss-In-Boots references?

~ Crush

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 09:41:05 +0000

Uhhhhh.....

-- 
www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
Freedom has no barcode.
     --J.G. Ballard

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 12:53:23 +0000

>> How about those Puss-In-Boots references?

Heh heh. A talking cat becomes an ambassador to a giant. His advices leads
to said giant's death -- in several senses his masters do take over his
castle.  The cat procures a over-sized boots for Toug whom he sporadically
considers his master. (Yes, I know that's the opposite from the way it
occurs in the story.)

There are probably more. I was wondering if anyone else noted them.

~ Crush

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 13:08:10 +0000

> There are probably more. I was wondering if anyone else noted them.

Maybe p297: Idnn says, "Could you do that then? Turn into an eagle or a 
bull. Or be smaller than Mani." Able says, "Who'd catch and eat me, and 
serve me right too."