{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5725", "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": 5725, "subject": "Grand Unified Theory", "messages": 138, "voices": 14, "first": "2010-08-19T20:09:56+00:00", "last": "2010-09-13T20:56:59+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-19T20:09:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'll try to present my Grand Unified Theory or spill my GUT as it were.\nIt isn't that profound or unique and I doubt it will serve anyone else as an\nepiphany. But perhaps it can be slightly helpful to someone.\n \nIn trying to figure out BotNS, and its accessories I eventually came to think that the \nmysteries might be too impenetrable on their own and it might be more productive to try to \nunderstand Gene Wolfe and how he works. I think I have read ever bio and interview available, \nmost of them several times. I think his personal history is an important bit of information \nin understanding some of the things in his books. His current family situation is important \nfor understanding certain things in his later books.\n \nAnyway, what I was really looking for was not my own Grand Unified Theory but Gene Wolfe's. \nIf I could understand how he viewed the world then his books might make more sense. He seems \nto be a person who has an amazingly broad knowledge in the physical sciences, anthropology, \nWestern literature, mythology, religion and is a very religious person himself.\n \nIf he were to attempt to form his own GUT which would tie all his knowledge and beliefs of\nthe world together what would it look like? From his interviews I think it is something\nlike this:\n \nQ. Why is there so much congruence and convergence in the themes of ancient religions and\nearly Judeo-Christianity? Multiple gods with animalistic natures, giants, shapechangers, etc.\n \nA. People in the olden days were just as smart and insightful as we are. Chances are they \nwere all seeing something real which gave rise to the similarities in early religions. The \ngods, monsters and magic of the olden days was based on something people saw then which we \nare not seeing today.\n \nQ. Why do we not see the same mythological inspirations that our ancestors saw?\n \nA. They have been cleansed (though perhaps not fully) from the world by two Judeo-Christian\nevents, Judeo= Flood. Christian= Savior.\n \nThe Garden of Eden seems to depict forest-dwelling human beings who don't use fire or tools or \nwear clothing. Anthropology tells us we have ancestors who fit that description. The Original\nSin story seems to suggest that these simple human beings were brought out of their idyllic\nexistence through the actions and temptations of non-human intelligence.\n \nTrying to retain a scientific view, there were no other extant intelligent species on earth\nso the source of this non-human intelligence must be extra-terrestrial. Aliens. That's what we'd \ncall them anyway. Back then they were called gods, angels, monsters, demons, fallen angels, \ngiants, vampires nephilim, etc. etc.\n \nSome were relatively good to the simple primates species they found on earth, introducing them to \nvarious forms of knowledge and technology. Others were bad, seeking to dominate and enslave us \nand even interbreed with us.\n \nInterbreeding with humans is a common theme in mythology (even in the Bible) but it doesn't sound \nscientifically possible. But, a very common theme in ancient mythologies is that the gods/demons\nare shapechangers. If such a shape change was accompanied by a DNA change then interbreeding \nbecomes possible- with the proviso, as noted in 5HoC, that a shapechanger would not be identical to\nits model as it would want to retain the ability to change shape. Thus the DNA of a shapechanging\nalien imitating a human would not be purely human but contain impurities.\n \nI suppose there are more details, but that's basically it. I get the sense that this is Gene Wolfe's \nview of what happened in the ancient world. And I find that by keeping it in mind I can make sense\nof pretty much everything, including dreams and stories and plays, in BotNS. It helps with Long and \nShort Sun also and others also.\n \nThus I find the question of origin easy to answer when it is observed that there seems to be megatherian\ncreatures on Blue and on Urth. Urth is a human planet, which has been invaded and corrupted by aliens. So\nmegatherians originated on Blue and, most likely, other planets.\n \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C719E1C.2020101@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-22T22:01:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Lee,\n\nPerhaps this works for you in The Book of the New Sun, but how do you \nincorporate it into The Book of the Long Sun?\n\nSome see Silk as a clone of Typhon. Others think he is the son of Typhon \nand the original Kypris. I think both is true. But that would put a big \nquestion mark on the nature of Silk and Typhon's daughter as well. On \nthat matter, when we see her in soul-form, she is a young girl. \nShouldn't she have been, I don't know, a little more alien?\n\nu+16b9" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/19/2010 3:09 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\nWell, I'll try to present my Grand Unified Theory or spill my GUT as it were.\nIt isn't that profound or unique and I doubt it will serve anyone else as an\nepiphany. But perhaps it can be slightly helpful to someone.\n\nIn trying to figure out BotNS, and its accessories I eventually came to think that the\nmysteries might be too impenetrable on their own and it might be more productive to try to\nunderstand Gene Wolfe and how he works. I think I have read ever bio and interview available,\nmost of them several times. I think his personal history is an important bit of information\nin understanding some of the things in his books. His current family situation is important\nfor understanding certain things in his later books.\n\nAnyway, what I was really looking for was not my own Grand Unified Theory but Gene Wolfe's.\nIf I could understand how he viewed the world then his books might make more sense. He seems\nto be a person who has an amazingly broad knowledge in the physical sciences, anthropology,\nWestern literature, mythology, religion and is a very religious person himself.\n\nIf he were to attempt to form his own GUT which would tie all his knowledge and beliefs of\nthe world together what would it look like? From his interviews I think it is something\nlike this:\n\nQ. Why is there so much congruence and convergence in the themes of ancient religions and\nearly Judeo-Christianity? Multiple gods with animalistic natures, giants, shapechangers, etc.\n\nA. People in the olden days were just as smart and insightful as we are. Chances are they\nwere all seeing something real which gave rise to the similarities in early religions. The\ngods, monsters and magic of the olden days was based on something people saw then which we\nare not seeing today.\n\nQ. Why do we not see the same mythological inspirations that our ancestors saw?\n\nA. They have been cleansed (though perhaps not fully) from the world by two Judeo-Christian\nevents, Judeo= Flood. Christian= Savior.\n\nThe Garden of Eden seems to depict forest-dwelling human beings who don't use fire or tools or\nwear clothing. Anthropology tells us we have ancestors who fit that description. The Original\nSin story seems to suggest that these simple human beings were brought out of their idyllic\nexistence through the actions and temptations of non-human intelligence.\n\nTrying to retain a scientific view, there were no other extant intelligent species on earth\nso the source of this non-human intelligence must be extra-terrestrial. Aliens. That's what we'd\ncall them anyway. Back then they were called gods, angels, monsters, demons, fallen angels,\ngiants, vampires nephilim, etc. etc.\n\nSome were relatively good to the simple primates species they found on earth, introducing them to\nvarious forms of knowledge and technology. Others were bad, seeking to dominate and enslave us\nand even interbreed with us.\n\nInterbreeding with humans is a common theme in mythology (even in the Bible) but it doesn't sound\nscientifically possible. But, a very common theme in ancient mythologies is that the gods/demons\nare shapechangers. If such a shape change was accompanied by a DNA change then interbreeding\nbecomes possible- with the proviso, as noted in 5HoC, that a shapechanger would not be identical to\nits model as it would want to retain the ability to change shape. Thus the DNA of a shapechanging\nalien imitating a human would not be purely human but contain impurities.\n\nI suppose there are more details, but that's basically it. I get the sense that this is Gene Wolfe's\nview of what happened in the ancient world. And I find that by keeping it in mind I can make sense\nof pretty much everything, including dreams and stories and plays, in BotNS. It helps with Long and\nShort Sun also and others also.\n\nThus I find the question of origin easy to answer when it is observed that there seems to be megatherian\ncreatures on Blue and on Urth. Urth is a human planet, which has been invaded and corrupted by aliens. So\nmegatherians originated on Blue and, most likely, other planets.\n\n \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T02:01:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C719E1C.2020101@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: Perhaps this works for you in The Book of the New Sun, but how \ndo you incorporate it into The Book of the Long Sun?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Some see Silk as a clone of Typhon. Others think he is the son of Typhon \nand the original Kypris. I think both is true. But that would put a big \nquestion mark on the nature of Silk and Typhon's daughter as well. On \nthat matter, when we see her in soul-form, she is a young girl. \nShouldn't she have been, I don't know, a little more alien?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James, I confess that understanding BotNS has always been my primary goal\nwith other stories being more accessory to it. Urth/Earth is the home of \nhumanity and it remains central as the creche of the race which is formed\nin the image of God. Weird-looking aliens are just not as important. If the\nhumaniform Hierogrammates continue to progress in each successive universe as\nI tend to think, eventually it will also be that God has been formed in the \nimage of Man. But perhaps that interpretation is heresy. Wouldn't be my first time.\n \nAnyway my GUT finds Long and Short Sun stories much less cosmologically important. \nThey are good for a continued elaboration on the Wolfean religious sequence that \nincludes the need for both purification and salvation in the history of a planet \n(or Whorl as it were).\n \nI need some clarification. I don't see how Silk can be an identical clone to Typhon\nbut also be the genetically diverse product of sexual reproduction with Kypris. Also \nI'm afraid I need my memory jogged. Can you explain \"Silk and Typhon's daughter\" and \nher being a young girl in soul-form? Is Hyacinth involved with this in some way?\n \nWith some explanation of these, I hope to be able to answer your question. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C726EF7.4040706@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T12:52:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/22/2010 9:01 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nI need some clarification. I don't see how Silk can be an identical clone to Typhon\nbut also be the genetically diverse product of sexual reproduction with Kypris. Also\nI'm afraid I need my memory jogged. Can you explain \"Silk and Typhon's daughter\" and\nher being a young girl in soul-form? Is Hyacinth involved with this in some way?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Premise 1: Pas & Kypris = Typhon & Mamelta = Spring Wind & Bird of the Woods\n(The character list in Book of the Long Sun includes \"Chico\", Mamelta's \nparrot. Mamelta never mentions a parrot and no parrot makes an \nappearance in the book, so I figure this is a clue from the author that \nMamelta is \"Bird of the Woods\").\n\nPremise 2: Silk is \"Fish\", who was raised by shepherds. (As opposed to \nFrog who was raised by wolves).\n(Incidentally, the names Silk and Fish qualify the two as \"brothers\" at \nleast as strongly as \"Silk\" and \"Sand\" and for the same reasons.)\n\nProblem: The case for Silk being a clone of Typhon is, for me, as strong \nas Silk being the son of Typhon and the original Kypris.\n\nResolution: Fish was a clone of Spring Wind implanted in Bird of the \nWoods. It's a \"Fifth Head of Cerberus\" call back, where one is a clone \nand the other is the \"natural son\".\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C727A7C.2060105@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T13:41:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/22/2010 9:01 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nCan you explain \"Silk and Typhon's daughter\" and\nher being a young girl in soul-form? Is Hyacinth involved with this in some way?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It was a typo. I meant Typhon's daughter, Cilinia/Scylla. At the end of \n\"Return to the Whorl\", Silk travels with Scylla-in-Oreb (essentially, \nthe last remnant of Scylla). She is in the form of a young girl. She \nsays she named herself Scylla after the megatherian with whom she was \nconspiring against her father (the \"other\" [ahem] Scylla conspired with \nKing Minos against her city and her father, King Nisus.)\n\nThen, big Scylla (apparently) absorbs little Scylla. So it is possible \nthat the did eventually become one (as the mythical Scylla's undoubtably \nwere as well).\n\nJames" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C727EB5.4050705@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T13:59:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C726EF7.4040706@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/23/2010 7:52 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nPremise 2: Silk is \"Fish\", who was raised by shepherds. (As opposed to \nFrog who was raised by wolves).\n(Incidentally, the names Silk and Fish qualify the two as \"brothers\" \nat least as strongly as \"Silk\" and \"Sand\" and for the same reasons.) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just to clarify. I don't mean Silk IS Fish, but that he is a clone of \nFish (with improvements).\n\nu+169b" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7285E5.30305@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T14:29:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/22/2010 9:01 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nIs Hyacinth involved with this in some way?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm the guy who once proposed (after just finishing \"Long Sun\") that \nmaybe Hyacinth was a male chem who transformed herself into Hyacinth -- \nin some way I didn't understand, but analogous to Jonas becoming Miles.\n\nAfter batting this around for a while, and having read \"The Book of the \nShort Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nThe question still out there is how does Seawrack map to Hyacinth? Is \nthe Love the only common factor?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<03B8000B-26EE-49DA-A1FE-67B1115A4664@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T15:19:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7285E5.30305@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can I ask a silly question?\n\nWhy is Lee writing directly to you, James, and you're replying-all to the list?\n\nIs only seeing one side of the debate supposed to build some sort of suspense? Like a Gene Wolfe story mayhap?\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 23, 2010, at 10:29 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nOn 8/22/2010 9:01 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is Hyacinth involved with this in some way?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm the guy who once proposed (after just finishing \"Long Sun\") that maybe Hyacinth was a male chem who transformed herself into Hyacinth -- in some way I didn't understand, but analogous to Jonas becoming Miles.\n\nAfter batting this around for a while, and having read \"The Book of the Short Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nThe question still out there is how does Seawrack map to Hyacinth? Is the Love the only common factor?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7292D7.10900@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T15:25:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<03B8000B-26EE-49DA-A1FE-67B1115A4664@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Man! That would be cool.\n\nHowever, I think your email system is probably dropping all Lee's posts \nin spam or something.\nI'm showing he's sending to the list and I see his posts on the Urth site.\n\nu+16b9" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 8/23/2010 10:19 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nCan I ask a silly question?\n\nWhy is Lee writing directly to you, James, and you're replying-all to the list?\n\nIs only seeing one side of the debate supposed to build some sort of suspense? Like a Gene Wolfe story mayhap?\n\n...ryan\n\n\nOn Aug 23, 2010, at 10:29 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 8/22/2010 9:01 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Is Hyacinth involved with this in some way?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'm the guy who once proposed (after just finishing \"Long Sun\") that maybe Hyacinth was a male chem who transformed herself into Hyacinth -- in some way I didn't understand, but analogous to Jonas becoming Miles.\n\nAfter batting this around for a while, and having read \"The Book of the Short Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nThe question still out there is how does Seawrack map to Hyacinth? Is the Love the only common factor?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T17:03:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7292D7.10900@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn- Why is Lee writing directly to you, James, and you're replying-all to the list?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAs James said, I am writing to the list. I suspect the confusion is coming from the fact that\nJames has used several posts to reply to different parts of my one earlier post." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\nThe question still out there is how does Seawrack map to Hyacinth? Is \nthe Love the only common factor?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI've little doubt that Horn's love for Nettle is an echo of Gene Wolfe's love for his wife, \nRosemary. Likewise for the relationship between Horn and his sons.\n \nI get the impression that there is a recognition of different kinds of loves in the story, some\nwholesome and plain, others passionate and...not so wholesome.\n \nSilk's love for Hyacinth is clearly not very wholesome. Likewise Horn's love for Seawrack. \n(Typhon-Echidna-Kypris? a bit too nasty and god-like for me to unravel the morality)\n \nI am convinced that Seawrack is a pinched off portion of The Mother. I do not understand how The \nMother and Inhumi and Neighbors are related (surely somehow, yes?). But perhaps your perceived \nconnection between Hyacinth-Fava-Seawrack can be helpful." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She says she named herself Scylla after the megatherian with whom she was \nconspiring against her father (the \"other\" [ahem] Scylla conspired with \nKing Minos against her city and her father, King Nisus.)\nThen, big Scylla (apparently) absorbs little Scylla. So it is possible \nthat the did eventually become one" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for the Scylla backstory! Yes, this does fall in line with my GUT. As tinkerbell Tzadkiel\nhopes to reuinte with big Tzadkiel, as (I think) Seawrack hopes to reunite with The Mother, so \nlittle, human Scylla hoped to reunite with big mama monster Scylla.\n \nMy GUT says that as humanity explores the galaxy, they encounter creatures (like Shadow Children and Inhumi) \nwhich have the ability to imitate, via shapeshifting. The imitation occurs down to the DNA level so there is\nsexual interbreeding possible. But the shapeshifting, asexual reproductive potential remains. These \nparasites are able to thus infect humanity among the stars and, of course eventually track humanity\nback to its source planet, Urth. Thus we get gods, monsters etc. I think exultants are tied to this- they\nare Urth's newest families and Thecla is wearing kraken jewelry. What might that symbolize?\n \nIf I understand correctly, Neighbors on Green were thoroughly infiltrated and corrupted by Inhumi, to \nthe point of them going back to their home planet, Blue, and sowing war, infiltration and corruption there.\nSomehow (I guess) that led to the creation of a megatherian Mother on Blue. \n \nA similar process happened on Urth. But Urth has guardian Angels looking after it as Blue does not. This is\nbecause Hierogrammates are derived from humans, not Neighbors. The Hierogrammates put the black hole in Urth's\nsun because it was being ruled by an alien monster in human form, named Typhon. Typhon says he learned that \nhuman beings follow their leader better if he has a recognizable human face. Later megatherian arrivals are, \nas Typhon recognizes, his rivals. \n \nI think a legitimate debate continues on whether Father Inire might represent a version or agent of Typhon \nworking against the new megatherian arrivals, as the Titan Prometheus was working against the Olympian usurpers \nby helping humanity. We have the Inire-Inuus-Pan-Pas-Typhon connection I think.\n \nDoes that make sense? (I realize it may not, to many) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T17:20:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry, just had to post this pic of hydra reproduction\n \nhttp://s2.hubimg.com/u/425321_f260.jpg :- ) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<000f01cb42fc$34dd47e0$ddcd4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-23T19:48:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C726EF7.4040706@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nPremise 1: Pas & Kypris = Typhon & Mamelta = Spring Wind & Bird of the\nWoods\n(The character list in Book of the Long Sun includes \"Chico\", Mamelta's\nparrot. Mamelta never mentions a parrot and no parrot makes an\nappearance in the book, so I figure this is a clue from the author that\nMamelta is \"Bird of the Woods\")." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The character list in LAKE reads:\n\n\"Chiquito, a parrot once owned by Mamelta's parents.\"\n\nNo, the word parrot is not mentioned in the book; neither does the bird make\nan appearance in it. It had belonged to Mamelta's parents, hundreds of years\nearlier back on Urth. She does mention the bird, shortly before her death.\nShe believed that when she died she would get to go back home and be with\nher family.\n\n\"When I die, I'll go home. My mother and brothers . . . Chiquito on his\nperch in the patio.\" (LAKE, chapter 13, p-315)\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<002601cb42fc$e6671c20$ddcd4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-23T19:53:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C726EF7.4040706@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wrote:\n\"(LAKE, chapter 13, p-315)\"\n\nThat should be chapter 12.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C72D983.20505@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-23T20:26:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<000f01cb42fc$34dd47e0$ddcd4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/23/2010 2:48 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nThe character list in LAKE reads:\n\n\"Chiquito, a parrot once owned by Mamelta's parents.\"\n\nNo, the word parrot is not mentioned in the book; neither does the bird make\nan appearance in it. It had belonged to Mamelta's parents, hundreds of years\nearlier back on Urth. She does mention the bird, shortly before her death.\nShe believed that when she died she would get to go back home and be with\nher family.\n\n\"When I die, I'll go home. My mother and brothers . . . Chiquito on his\nperch in the patio.\" (LAKE, chapter 13, p-315)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yep. That's the bird. Thanks Roy.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T05:24:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C72D983.20505@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nAfter batting this around for a while, and having read \"The Book of the" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Short Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\n\nI have never heard this particular character equation proposed before.\nWhat do you mean by it, and what evidence have you found for it?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C73E784.1030003@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T15:38:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " James Wynn wrote:After batting this around for a while, and having\n read \"The Book of the \n\n Short Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nDave Tallman wrote: I have never heard this particular character \nequation proposed before. What do you mean by it, and what evidence \nhave you found for it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I mean she IS Fava: the inhuma the Rajan meets in \"In Green's Jungles\".\n\nI can't gather all the references right now. I'll try to do it this weekend.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C73E8E1.6060809@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T15:44:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C73E784.1030003@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/24/2010 10:38 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " James Wynn wrote:After batting this around for a while, and\n having read \"The Book of the \n\n Short Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nDave Tallman wrote: I have never heard this particular character \nequation proposed before. What do you mean by it, and what evidence \nhave you found for it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I mean she IS Fava: the inhuma the Rajan meets in \"In Green's Jungles\".\n\nI can't gather all the references right now. I'll try to do it this \nweekend.\n\nu+16b9" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...oh, but she's a woman...she's all woman...every little bit...so don't \nfreak out." } ] }, { "message_id": "<248101.41198.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-24T17:15:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C73E784.1030003@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Do you mean Fava is Hyacinth---that she makes herself look like a luscious human woman? And that she lived on the Whorl until she moved to Green?\n\n--- On Tue, 8/24/10, James Wynn wrote:\n\nFrom: James Wynn \nSubject: Re: (urth) Grand Unified Theory\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 11:38 AM\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n \n James Wynn wrote:After batting this around for a while, and having read \"The Book of the \nShort Sun\", I'm now quite confident that Hyacinth = Fava.\n\nDave Tallman wrote:\nI have never heard this particular character equation proposed before. What do you mean by it, and what evidence have you found for it?\n \n \n\n I mean she IS Fava: the inhuma the Rajan meets in \"In Green's\n Jungles\". \n\n \n\n I can't gather all the references right now. I'll try to do it this\n weekend.\n\n \n\n u+16b9\n\n \n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T17:24:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<248101.41198.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn writes (about Hyacinth):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I mean she IS Fava: the inhuma the Rajan meets in \"In Green's Jungles\".\n\nI can't gather all the references right now. I'll try to do it this weekend." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll grant a name connection -- both hyacinth beans and fava beans are\nedible. Otherwise they don't seem to have much in common.\n\nHyacinth -- rough, crude prostitute, human, good at fighting.\nFava -- witty, clever storyteller, inhuma, physically delicate." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C74013C.8010509@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T17:28:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<248101.41198.qm@web84108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/24/2010 12:15 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nDo you mean Fava is Hyacinth---that she makes herself look like a \nluscious human woman? And that she lived on the Whorl until she moved \nto Green?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "yes. no. no.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C740512.8020000@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T17:44:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/24/2010 12:24 PM, Dave Tallman wrote:\nI'll grant a name connection -- both hyacinth beans and fava beans are \nedible. Otherwise they don't seem to have much in common.\nHyacinth -- rough, crude prostitute, human, good at fighting.\nFava -- witty, clever storyteller, inhuma, physically delicate." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Everything you say here is 100% true. Absolutely true. Everything. \nIncluding that Hy is human and Fava is an inhuma.\n\nHowever, don't be fooled by appearances. Horn said Hy *could* be crude. \nHe also says she could be sweet and nice whenever she wanted to. The \nRajan said that whatever their appearances, the inhumi retained their \n\"reptilian nature\". They were all dangerous opponents. Don't be fooled \nby Fava's appearance. Hy looked small and delicate too. And she was \nlight as a feather. Silk said Hy's fighting ability was itself something \nof a deception.\n\nThe thing is its a big explanation. Bigger than Hy.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T18:39:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C740512.8020000@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- Everything you say here is 100% true. Absolutely true. Everything. \nIncluding that Hy is human and Fava is an inhuma." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI seem to remember a girl at Orchid's being victimized by inhumi and Quetzal being\na very unlikely culprit. Does this have something to do with that?\n \nAlso, did Silk commit suicide? If so, does this have something to do with that?\n \n \nWe know that inhumi absorb some essence of their victims. Is the reverse also true?\n \nI think the deep secret of the inhumi is that willingness to harm their own kind is\na trait they absorbed from humans, yes?\n \nIs this how the Neighbors on Green became willing to harm their own kind?\n \nWell, I'm just throwing up stuff on the wall, seeing what will stick, especially\nif it relates to my GUT.\n \nKeep it up James! This is the sort of thing the lupine universe needs to evolve up\nto a higher level. (don't let the bloodsuckers drag you down ;- )) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<002801cb43c4$c3155fc0$96ce4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-24T19:44:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nI seem to remember a girl at Orchid's being victimized by inhumi and\nQuetzal being\na very unlikely culprit." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I remember no such thing. Citation, por favor.\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Keep it up James! This is the sort of thing the lupine universe needs to\nevolve up\nto a higher level. (don't let the bloodsuckers drag you down ;- ))" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If this were my theory, one of the things that would bother me is the fact\nthat Hy died on the _Whorl_ at the age of forty-three, before Silkhorn had\neven set foot on Blue. Meanwhile, Fava was alive and well on Blue and living\nin Blanko, more than a year after Hy died.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C742549.8040303@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T20:02:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<002801cb43c4$c3155fc0$96ce4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/24/2010 2:44 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nIf this were my theory, one of the things that would bother me is the fact\nthat Hy died on the_Whorl_ at the age of forty-three, before Silkhorn had\neven set foot on Blue. Meanwhile, Fava was alive and well on Blue and living\nin Blanko, more than a year after Hy died." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Surely you don't think I'm unaware of that?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-24T22:03:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C742549.8040303@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n So, I am at least going to get the textual references down before\npresent it as a whole--although I mentioned parts before. Dave Tallman\nasked me to explain it and that's why I'm explaining it. If I'm\nperforming a circus act, I'm performing on request. Wait. Then throw eggs.\n\nThat's my plan, exactly. I'll wait for this weekend, when you have time to\nlay out your citations and arguments in detail. Meanwhile, I'll look through\nthe text to see what evidence I can turn up, pro and con." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T03:13:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn: I personally like to throw an idea that I cannot decipher out to \na group of intelligent people who happen to read the same author from time to time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI agree with Ryan. The stuff here doesn't make good pub or dinner table conversation." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Craig Brewer- But one thing that I always want to know is how the details or the baroque \ntheories do more than point out some hidden plot point." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI agree with Craig. Niggling at the shape of the individual jigsaw pieces is okay, but \neventually I prefer to focus on the big picture taking shape. Thus the subject name of this \nthread." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- Premise 1: Pas & Kypris = Typhon & Mamelta = Spring Wind & Bird of the Woods" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Premise 2: Silk is \"Fish\", who was raised by shepherds. (As opposed to \nFrog who was raised by wolves).\n(Incidentally, the names Silk and Fish qualify the two as \"brothers\" at \nleast as strongly as \"Silk\" and \"Sand\" and for the same reasons.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI've been trying to consider James' premises from my own GUT perspective. I can't quite\nget to Premise 2. It isn't clear to me how the names Silk and Fish (and Sand) imply fraternity. \nAlso the Fish and Frog story is said to take place on Urth (albeit an Urth in which wolves are \nable to talk and carry swords). I can't see how Silk was ever on Urth.\n \nPremise 1 makes a bit more sense to me. Mamelta certainly does seem motherly in some ways. I \ncan sorta like Spring Wind as Typhon for a couple reasons. I think Typhon, like the others with \nmonster names on Urth, is an alien being. Spring Wind and Bird o' da Woods could be aliens\nas they are not on Urth but from \"beyond the shores of Urth\". Also, Typhon and his cognates, \nTyphon-Set, Pa(s)uzu and Vrita are mythological gods associated with wind, though it is a hot, \nsearing desert wind causing drought, rather than a \"Spring\" wind. All have dragon associations \nalso.\n \nOn the other hand, Spring Wind is quiet and obedient and with more interest in growing plants \nand stuff than conquest. A bit of a mama's boy. No dragon hints. Doesn't seem much like \nmythological or BotNS Typhon.\n \nEither way I still appreciate James' efforts. He sees things I don't (and vice versa I assume). \nThough his GUT appears to be different than mine his views help me with mine. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C752BA3.5010103@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T14:41:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn- Premise 2: Silk is \"Fish\", who was raised by shepherds.\n(As opposed to Frog who was raised by wolves).\n(Incidentally, the names Silk and Fish qualify the two as \"brothers\" at\nleast as strongly as \"Silk\" and \"Sand\" and for the same reasons.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee - I've been trying to consider James' premises from my own GUT perspective.\nI can't quite get to Premise 2. It isn't clear to me how the names Silk and Fish\n(and Sand) imply fraternity.\nAlso the Fish and Frog story is said to take place on Urth (albeit an Urth in\nwhich wolves are able to talk and carry swords).\nI can't see how Silk was ever on Urth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What I am saying is this. We know Silk is a clone-with-improvements. I \nproffer that he is a clone of Fish.\n\n From Calde of the Long Sun, Chap X:\n\n\"Silk did not hear Sand's reply; he was thinking about a great many\nthings. Among them, names. His own and Sand's were similar--\neach had four letters, each contained a single vowel, and each\nbegan with an S. They could not be related, however, because\nSand was a chem and he a bio. Yet they were related by the\nsimilarity of their names. Not inconceivably (he found it a tantalizing\nidea). Sand was a cognate, a version of himself in some whorl\nof a higher order. Many things the Outsider had shown him seemed\nto imply that there were such whorls\"\n\nLook, I'm sure there are four-letter names in the Sun Cycle with as many \nsimilarities to \"Silk\" as \"Fish\" that have no possible connection. I \ncan't think of one right now, but I'm sure they are there. But, I didn't \nget up one day and say \"Hey! Silk and Fish both have four letters!\". It \nwas an after-thought upon deciding that Kypris was Bird of the Woods and \nSilk was probably her son in some way.\n\nSilk *did* make it to Urth, sort of, in the form of the Rajan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, Typhon and his cognates,\nTyphon-Set, Pa(s)uzu and Vrita are mythological gods associated with wind,\nthough it is a hot, searing desert wind causing drought, rather than\na \"Spring\" wind. All have dragon associations also.\n\nOn the other hand, Spring Wind is quiet and obedient and with more interest in growing plants and stuff than conquest. A bit of a mama's boy. No dragon hints. Doesn't seem much like mythological or BotNS Typhon." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Spring Wind = Typhoon = Typhon\nThe word \"typhoon\" comes from \"Typhon\" -- not that it would prevent \nWolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to.\n\nSev meets Typhon close up. Consequently, he doesn't come off very well. \nPepin, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Cyrus, and King Arthur were \nprobably all not very nice men if you got too close to them (there's a \nstory about Arthur that is similar to King Herod's role in the birth of \nJesus, and the nursery rhyme \"When Good King Arthur Ruled This Land\" has \nless laudatory versions). But they have all been catasterized as heroes \nby one biographer or another. They became bigger than themselves.\nI believe Bill Ries is a \"cognate, a version\" of Typhon \"in some whorl \nof a higher order.\" The differing portrayals of Typhon and Spring Wind \nshould be understood in the way that Cassie saw William Ries and Wallace \nRusterman.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C753691.7090403@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T15:28:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C752BA3.5010103@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote (25-08-2010 15:41):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The word \"typhoon\" comes from \"Typhon\" -- not that it would prevent\nWolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's actually open to question.\n- _Typhon_ is an english spelling pronunciation of greek , which \nwould be more or less 'two FAWN' [tu'fO:n] if read 'correctly'.\n- _typhoon_ is an english transcription of [tai'fun], from some language \nspoken along the margins of the Indic ocean.\n\nEven if one posits that [tai'fun] is ultimately from the greek, one still \nwould have to explain how did greek [tu] become [tai]. The english [ai] is \nmerely from the english great vowel shift compounded with a misreading of \ngreek as [i], which it never was. Had english gotten the word by natural \nborrowing, rather than in misread written form centuries after, it wouldn't \nhave [ai].\n\nNot impossible, but unlikely." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C753BBA.2060902@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T15:50:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C753691.7090403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Wynn - The word \"typhoon\" comes from \"Typhon\" -- not that it would \nprevent\nWolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marques - That's actually open to question.\n- _Typhon_ is an english spelling pronunciation of greek , \nwhich would be more or less 'two FAWN' [tu'fO:n] if read 'correctly'.\n- _typhoon_ is an english transcription of [tai'fun], from some \nlanguage spoken along the margins of the Indic ocean.\n\nEven if one posits that [tai'fun] is ultimately from the greek, one \nstill would have to explain how did greek [tu] become [tai]. The \nenglish [ai] is merely from the english great vowel shift compounded \nwith a misreading of greek as [i], which it never was. Had english \ngotten the word by natural borrowing, rather than in misread written \nform centuries after, it wouldn't have [ai].\n\nNot impossible, but unlikely." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'm not a linguist so I can't begin to break it down. But each \nlanguage has it's own special tendencies to change over time. And the \nvowels change the fastest. The most common etymology I have read is that \n\"typhon\" came to Hindi through Parsi in order to become \"typhoon\". So \nthere's a lot of room for mischief in there. But I'm sure you are right \nthat there are alternate assertions by people who know a lot more about \nit than me. Still, the spellings and meanings are similar enough that I \nhave no doubt Wolfe would happily associate them even if he knew for a \nfact that the words had no real etymological connection.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<872020F6-A190-4874-BF1C-F24D984358A7@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:16:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C753691.7090403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 25, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nJames Wynn wrote (25-08-2010 15:41):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The word \"typhoon\" comes from \"Typhon\" -- not that it would prevent\nWolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's actually open to question.\n- _Typhon_ is an english spelling pronunciation of greek , which would be more or less 'two FAWN' [tu'fO:n] if read 'correctly'.\n- _typhoon_ is an english transcription of [tai'fun], from some language spoken along the margins of the Indic ocean.\n\nEven if one posits that [tai'fun] is ultimately from the greek, one still would have to explain how did greek [tu] become [tai]. The english [ai] is merely from the english great vowel shift compounded with a misreading of greek as [i], which it never was. Had english gotten the word by natural borrowing, rather than in misread written form centuries after, it wouldn't have [ai].\n\nNot impossible, but unlikely." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there any question about the following:\n\n1. Typhon from BotNS is a name borrowed from Typhon of Greek myth, king of all monsters?\n2. Most modern readers will instinctively pronounce his name: TAY-fun\n3. The proper pronunciation, however, is: TOO-fahn\n\n?\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:24:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<872020F6-A190-4874-BF1C-F24D984358A7@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nIs there any question about the following:\n1. Typhon from BotNS is a name borrowed from Typhon of Greek myth, king of\nall monsters?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That seems to be a gimme." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. Most modern readers will instinctively pronounce his name: TAY-fun" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Really? I pronounced it TIE-fawn." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3. The proper pronunciation, however, is: TOO-fahn" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I deeply mistrust anyone who claims to know how the ancients -- ANY\nancients -- pronounced things. Unless the Greeks left a text\n(something like the opening movement of de Saussure's _Cours de\nLinguistique Generale_) that actually describes the mouth and throat\nmovements involved in each letter, the most we have is a high\nprobability that, say, the kappa was pronounced like the modern\nEnglish kay. Was psyche pronounced SOO-kie? I don't know." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7544ED.4070501@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:29:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<872020F6-A190-4874-BF1C-F24D984358A7@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote (25-08-2010 17:16):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "1. Typhon from BotNS is a name borrowed from Typhon of Greek myth, king\nof all monsters?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. Most modern readers will instinctively pronounce his name: *TAY-fun*" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In 'proper' transcription ['tajf at n], with english words 'TIE fun'." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3. The proper pronunciation, however, is: *TOO-fahn*" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In greek, something like [tu'fO:n], 'too FAWN'\n- the : is to indicate length\n- the [u] for y would vary according to dialect, and would be like the \nfrench u or german — in a certain classical pronunciation\n- the stress in greek wasn't like in english, rather spoken in a higher pitch\n- the ph was really an aspirated p, though it soon evolved into f\n\n\n'Typhoon' is a different case." } ] }, { "message_id": "<08A9DD4F-D244-452C-8BFE-283B0058BF42@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:31:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Aug 25, 2010, at 12:24 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n2. Most modern readers will instinctively pronounce his name: TAY-fun" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Really? I pronounced it TIE-fawn." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I meant that most readers (imo) will pronounce TYPHON as rhymes-with TYSON.\n\nMy \"Tay\" should have been like your \"Tie\", not like rhymes-with the letter K. Sorry.\n\nBut no, I don't pronounce it fawn at all. I could be alone there, but I'm sticking to my TYPHON sounds like TYSON in the heads of readers at large.\n\nAlso, isn't it hard to put the stress on the first syllable when the second one is 'fawn'? Just curious, because feels awkward when I try it.\n\n...ryan" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7546C2.2070800@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:37:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<08A9DD4F-D244-452C-8BFE-283B0058BF42@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ryan Dunn wrote (25-08-2010 17:31):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Aug 25, 2010, at 12:24 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "2. Most modern readers will instinctively pronounce his name:\nTAY-fun" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Really? I pronounced it TIE-fawn." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(...)\nAlso, isn't it hard to put the stress on the first syllable when the\nsecond one is 'fawn'? Just curious, because feels awkward when I try it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect Dan'l means his fawn vowel but shorter.\n\nPost-stress vowels tend to be reduced in english, but not always completely.\nFor instance, I think most people don't pronounce 'corridor' as 'corrider'. \n-on and -or names seem to be prone to this exceptionality." } ] }, { "message_id": "<269877.60403.qm@smtp820.mail.ird.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2010-08-25T16:42:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<08A9DD4F-D244-452C-8BFE-283B0058BF42@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 17:31 25/08/2010, Ryan wrote:\nMy \"Tay\" should have been like your \"Tie\", not like rhymes-with the \nletter K. Sorry." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This kind of conversation is doomed to misunderstanding, frustration, \nand breaches of the 5-posts-a-day limit, unless you use a standard \nphonetic representation. May I suggest the IPA:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa#Vowels\n\nbest,\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C754D7D.4020109@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T17:06:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<269877.60403.qm@smtp820.mail.ird.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mo Holkar wrote (25-08-2010 17:42):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 17:31 25/08/2010, Ryan wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "My \"Tay\" should have been like your \"Tie\", not like rhymes-with the\nletter K. Sorry." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This kind of conversation is doomed to misunderstanding, frustration,\nand breaches of the 5-posts-a-day limit, unless you use a standard\nphonetic representation. May I suggest the IPA:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa#Vowels" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And since non-ASCII symbols are an e-mail nuisanace, I suggest to take a \nlook at http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/nutshell.shtml and \nhttp://alt-usage-english.org/intrlinb.html and other resources you can find \non 'ASCII IPA'." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7552A4.30907@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-25T17:28:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C753BBA.2060902@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Webster's Third implicates Arabic as well, but confirms the Greek \nconnection.\n\nThe Greeks colonized and ruled Central Asia for hundreds of years. They \nwould have had plenty of opportunity to come up with imaginative names \nfor winds.\n\nIt must have gotten into Cantonese from India as a sort of technical \nnautical term for a strong ocean storm wind." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Wynn - The word \"typhoon\" comes from \"Typhon\" -- not that it would \nprevent\nWolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marques - That's actually open to question.\n- _Typhon_ is an english spelling pronunciation of greek , \nwhich would be more or less 'two FAWN' [tu'fO:n] if read 'correctly'.\n- _typhoon_ is an english transcription of [tai'fun], from some \nlanguage spoken along the margins of the Indic ocean.\n\nEven if one posits that [tai'fun] is ultimately from the greek, one \nstill would have to explain how did greek [tu] become [tai]. The \nenglish [ai] is merely from the english great vowel shift compounded \nwith a misreading of greek as [i], which it never was. Had \nenglish gotten the word by natural borrowing, rather than in misread \nwritten form centuries after, it wouldn't have [ai].\n\nNot impossible, but unlikely." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I'm not a linguist so I can't begin to break it down. But each \nlanguage has it's own special tendencies to change over time. And the \nvowels change the fastest. The most common etymology I have read is \nthat \"typhon\" came to Hindi through Parsi in order to become \n\"typhoon\". So there's a lot of room for mischief in there. But I'm \nsure you are right that there are alternate assertions by people who \nknow a lot more about it than me. Still, the spellings and meanings \nare similar enough that I have no doubt Wolfe would happily associate \nthem even if he knew for a fact that the words had no real \netymological connection.\n\nu+16b9\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C755416.90709@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-25T17:34:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As a regular watcher of True Blood, I find that last a tantalizing \nsuggestion.\n\nPsyche was a mortal, not a fairy or a half-fairy, but:\n\nIn Greek mythology , \nPsyche was the deification of the human soul \n. She was portrayed in ancient \nmosaics as a goddess with butterfly \n wings. The Greek word psyche \nliterally means \"spirit, breath, life or animating force\". [wiki]\n\nBut I digress." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nOn Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\n\n \nI deeply mistrust anyone who claims to know how the ancients -- ANY\nancients -- pronounced things. Unless the Greeks left a text\n(something like the opening movement of de Saussure's _Cours de\nLinguistique Generale_) that actually describes the mouth and throat\nmovements involved in each letter, the most we have is a high\nprobability that, say, the kappa was pronounced like the modern\nEnglish kay. Was psyche pronounced SOO-kie? I don't know.\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<004a01cb448a$a2851f40$a0ce4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-25T19:20:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C752BA3.5010103@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What I am saying is this. We know Silk is a clone-with-improvements." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]\n\nWe do? I don't. All I know is that Silk came from a frozen embryo that had\nbeen selectively modified for certain traits. The identities of the cell\ndonors is an open question.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C757DCE.5060709@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T20:32:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nI deeply mistrust anyone who claims to know how the ancients -- ANY\nancients -- pronounced things. Unless the Greeks left a text\n(something like the opening movement of de Saussure's _Cours de\nLinguistique Generale_) that actually describes the mouth and throat\nmovements involved in each letter," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But of course such works do exist, even if not using modern terminology \nand not always painting a complete picture. And much can be gathered \nfrom the subsequent evolution and loawords in other languages. F.i. \ngreek is borrowed into popular latin as (krypth > crupta)*.\n\n(*) Their descendents in english being crypt and grotto, the first \nborrowed from greek by people who could make sense of greek texts, the \nsecond from italian by people who could speak at least some italian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the most we have is a high probability that, say, the kappa was\npronounced like the modern English kay. Was psyche pronounced\nSOO-kie? I don't know." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But I and a lot of others do: not in any relevant dialect.\nRather psoo-GHAY, to use the notation we've all come to loathe.\n\nNobody can tell exactly how it was pronounced, if nothing else because \npronunciations varied according to region and epoch, as in any other \nlanguage. But the issue here is not how T U Ph W~ N was pronounced, it's \nhow it couldn't be. And there is no known dialect in which U could be \n[ai] as it is in english. And if it wasn't [ai], it's hard to see how it \ncould have become [ai] in the asiatic language english took typhoon \nfrom. NB it did become [ai] in english typhon, but only because it was a \nspelling pronunciation based on a mistaken value for greek . I \nhaven't seen anyone propose such an unnatural route for typhoon.\n\nThe best I've seen so far is below, though it gives no evidence at all \nfor the greek connection:\n\nhttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/typhoon\ntyphoon\nthe modern word represents a coincidence and convergence of at least two \nunrelated words of similar sound and sense. Tiphon \"violent storm, \nwhirlwind, tornado\" is recorded from 1555, from Gk. typhon \"whirlwind,\" \npersonified as a giant, father of the winds, perhaps from typhein \"to \nsmoke.\" The meaning \"cyclone, violent hurricane of India or the China \nSeas\" (1588) is first recorded in T. Hickock's translation of an account \nin Italian of a voyage to the East Indies by C?sar Frederick, a merchant \nof Venice, probably borrowed from, or infl. by, Chinese (Cantonese) tai \nfung \"a great wind,\" from tu \"big\" + feng \"wind;\" name given to \nviolent cyclonic storms in the China seas. A third possibility is tufan, \n a word in Arabic, Persian and Hindi meaning \"big cyclonic storm\" (and \nthe source of Port. tufao ), which may be from Gk. typhon but commonly \nis said to be a noun of action from Arabic tafa \"to turn round.\"\nOnline Etymology Dictionary, — 2010 Douglas Harper\n\n\nIf you ask me, the probability is for arabic tufan for the portuguese \nversion and cantonese tai fung for the english one. The english one \nhaving been folk etymologised as coming from greek tufwn, which in latin \nis typhon, thus getting its ." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T20:48:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C757DCE.5060709@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Antonio,\n\nI bow to your expertise in how words derive from one another; though I\nfind etymology endlessly fascinating I am far from expert in it. I\nnever meant to enter the argument about what was derived from which.\n\nAs regards pronunciation, though, for all I know the ancient Romans\nmay (though VERY improbably) have pronounced \"crupta\" as we pronounce\n\"blanko.\"\n\nGiven how much variation takes place in just the English of England,\nand how much it shifts in a single lifetime, I find it hard to\nconceive that we know how anything was pronounced two millenia before\nthe invention of recording technology. That Lat. \"crupta\" was very\nsimilar to Gk. \"krypth\" I have no doubt, or that (say) Gk Beta was\nmore-or-less identical to Latin B. But how that B/Beta was pronounced?\nProbably not too far from a modern \"B\", but I would be utterly\nunsurprised to learn that it was, say, unvoiced, like a modern P. Can\nwe know how, say, koine was pronounced, or do we merely build edifices\nof more-or-less probable speculations?\n\nThis may not be unrelated to my comment on grand unified theories\nearlier this week, if only through my own innate skepticism." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C758379.2010502@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-25T20:56:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C757DCE.5060709@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it possible that the supposedly Cantonese word \"typhoon\" is strictly \nan accident arising from a translation to English of a word an Italian \nheard in China under the influence of \"typhon\"?\n\nThat would make the word almost purely Western, gaining its Cantonese \nmeaning only because a Chinese word sounds like it. Pure Orientalism." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Marques wrote:\nThe best I've seen so far is below, though it gives no evidence at all \nfor the greek connection:\n\nhttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/typhoon\ntyphoon\nthe modern word represents a coincidence and convergence of at least \ntwo unrelated words of similar sound and sense. Tiphon \"violent \nstorm, whirlwind, tornado\" is recorded from 1555, from Gk. typhon \n\"whirlwind,\" personified as a giant, father of the winds, perhaps from \ntyphein \"to smoke.\" The meaning \"cyclone, violent hurricane of India \nor the China Seas\" (1588) is first recorded in T. Hickock's \ntranslation of an account in Italian of a voyage to the East Indies by \nC?sar Frederick, a merchant of Venice, probably borrowed from, or \ninfl. by, Chinese (Cantonese) tai fung \"a great wind,\" from tu \"big\" \n+ feng \"wind;\" name given to violent cyclonic storms in the China \nseas. A third possibility is tufan, a word in Arabic, Persian and \nHindi meaning \"big cyclonic storm\" (and the source of Port. tufao ), \nwhich may be from Gk. typhon but commonly is said to be a noun of \naction from Arabic tafa \"to turn round.\"\nOnline Etymology Dictionary, — 2010 Douglas Harper\n\n\nIf you ask me, the probability is for arabic tufan for the portuguese \nversion and cantonese tai fung for the english one. The english one \nhaving been folk etymologised as coming from greek tufwn, which in \nlatin is typhon, thus getting its ." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C758DE6.5000309@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T21:40:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C757DCE.5060709@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ant?nio Marques - the modern word represents a coincidence and \nconvergence of at least two unrelated words of similar sound and \nsense. Tiphon \"violent storm, whirlwind, tornado\" is recorded from \n1555, from Gk. typhon \"whirlwind,\" personified as a giant, father of \nthe winds, perhaps from typhein \"to smoke.\" The meaning \"cyclone, \nviolent hurricane of India or the China Seas\" (1588) is first recorded \nin T. Hickock's translation of an account in Italian of a voyage to \nthe East Indies by C?sar Frederick, a merchant of Venice, probably \nborrowed from, or infl. by, Chinese (Cantonese) tai fung \"a great wind,\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Have we not learned from reading Wolfe that there are no \"coincidences\" \nof this sort?\nThe Greek FATHER of Winds is the Cantonese GREAT (larger and more \ndominant personage of) Wind.\nBut if Wolfe had a Chinese man in a story speak Typhon's name in dialect \n(Typhun-gh), he would be criticized for his embarrassing, cultural \ncondescension.\n\n;-)\n\n(I used my fifth post for this, heh heh)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7594F7.5090303@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-25T22:11:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote (25-08-2010 21:48):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As regards pronunciation, though, for all I know the ancient Romans may\n(though VERY improbably) have pronounced \"crupta\" as we pronounce\n\"blanko.\"\n\nGiven how much variation takes place in just the English of England, and\nhow much it shifts in a single lifetime, I find it hard to conceive that\nwe know how anything was pronounced two millenia before the invention of\nrecording technology. (...) Can we know how, say, koine was pronounced,\nor do we merely build edifices of more-or-less probable speculations?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're quite right to be skeptic in these matters, and it is true that what \npeople who deal with history today do is to build such edifices. But there \nis a reason why linguists are confident, and that is the coherence of \nlinguistic processes. Language change, as observed scientifically during the \nlast couple of centuries, isn't random. It follows patterns ammenable to \nrational analysis and actually exhibits a huge degree of regularity. Now if \none looks to what is attested in the last millennia, exactly the same \nprocesses appear to be taking place. It stands to reason that a knowledge of \nthe modern forms and corroborating evidence from historical documents \n(either, as you asked for, the rare but existing descriptions of sounds by \ncontemporary writers, or the way other languages borrow words, or even \nsometimes the way languages are transcribed in different alphabets than \ntheir own) is a solid basis to derive guesses that are so convincing as to \nbecome the default hypothesis. It's very, very far from looking at the \nletters they used and ascribing to them a pronunciation similar to what we \nuse today for those letters or ones similar to them. In fact modern \npronunciations, when resulting from a historic development, are seldom equal \nto the hypothesized original, though they can shed light on it.\n\nSound-based writing systems such as greek's present an advantage: they are a \nreflection (seldom perfect, though usually one can see where the defects \nare) of the language's phonemical structure, unconsciously derived by native \nspeakers. Having their phonemical structure available is a bliss in terms of \nunderstanding how it may have evolved and even what kind of regional \nvariation one can reasonably expect - because we can observe how modern \nlanguages behave in that regard, what types of sounds are likely to be \npresent in a given system (e.g. if there are only N vowels, the most \nprobable hypothesis is that those don't include some given ones), and what \ntype of different pronunciations may be expected to appear without a break \nin the spelling tradition. Of course, all (or most) conjecture, but there \ncomes a point when conjecture is so much in agreement with everything else \nthat it takes very good reasons to doubt it.\n\nEnglish is perhaps a misleading example, for a variety of reasons. It looks \nalphabetical, but in fact it's full of homographs that are not homophones \nand the reverse. This is a historical artifact, and a rare one at that. \nWhere old languages may have been subject to the same phenomenon, it was \ncertainly to a much smaller extent, if any. Spelling usually *is* a guide to \npronunciation, the more so in languages which didn't carry a burden of \nmillennia of established orthographic subsystems from a handful of other \nlanguages (as english does).\nAlso, english is almost all diphthongs, which though legitimate isn't all \nthat common, language-wise. You hardly have a 'pure' vowel in english, and \nwhen you multiply that across dialects you end up with a very unusual \nsituation indeed." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-26T20:02:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7594F7.5090303@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- (I used my fifth post for this, heh heh)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nFWIW, here was Ranjit's last words on that particular subject (and\nthey were made a month or two before the exit of brunians)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "ranjit- I'm setting an informal goal of no more than approximately five\nmessages per person per day. It's ok to go over five now and then,\nbut don't feel like you need to use all five every day, either. I'm\nnot going to bother counting individual's messages, but I'm hoping\nthat we'll get slower-paced and more focused discussions. If this\ndoesn't slow the list down enough, I'll make it a technical\nrestriction, which will be much more annoying for everyone. We'll see\nhow it goes." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Lewin", "address": "mark at marklewin.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T15:14:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C719E1C.2020101@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Apologies if anyone has made this connection already, but there's a comment\nby Wolfe in the Jordan\ninterview which\nwould appear to back this up:\n\n*JJ:* I want to ask you about Laura in *There Are Doors*. Having only been\nthrough it once and scanned it yesterday, I'm still not exactly sure about\nwhat Laura is.\n\n*GW:* Laura is my idea of what a pagan goddess might be who survived into\nthe Christian world. One of the places where I probably split off from\nconventional Catholic thinking is that I* believe that the gods of paganism\nwere real*. I don't think that they are entitled to the worship that they\nreceived from the pagans. I think what many of the biblical writers are\nsaying is, \"Yes, these are real powers, but it is wrong for you to give to\nthem the honors that are due to God alone.\" And I think that that is exactly\ncorrect. Now, if Aphrodite were to survive into the contemporary world, what\nwould she be like? Well, Laura was a shot at trying to show what she might\nbe like\nBest regards,\n\nMark Lewin\nmark at marklewin.com" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Q. Why is there so much congruence and convergence in the themes of\nancient religions and\nearly Judeo-Christianity? Multiple gods with animalistic natures, giants,\nshapechangers, etc.\n\nA. People in the olden days were just as smart and insightful as we are.\nChances are they\nwere all seeing something real which gave rise to the similarities in\nearly religions. The\ngods, monsters and magic of the olden days was based on something people\nsaw then which we\nare not seeing today.\n\nQ. Why do we not see the same mythological inspirations that our ancestors\nsaw?\n\nA. They have been cleansed (though perhaps not fully) from the world by\ntwo Judeo-Christian\nevents, Judeo= Flood. Christian= Savior.\n\nThe Garden of Eden seems to depict forest-dwelling human beings who don't\nuse fire or tools or\nwear clothing. Anthropology tells us we have ancestors who fit that\ndescription. The Original\nSin story seems to suggest that these simple human beings were brought out\nof their idyllic\nexistence through the actions and temptations of non-human intelligence.\n\nTrying to retain a scientific view, there were no other extant\nintelligent species on earth\nso the source of this non-human intelligence must be extra-terrestrial.\nAliens. That's what we'd\ncall them anyway. Back then they were called gods, angels, monsters,\ndemons, fallen angels,\ngiants, vampires nephilim, etc. etc.\n\nSome were relatively good to the simple primates species they found on\nearth, introducing them to\nvarious forms of knowledge and technology. Others were bad, seeking to\ndominate and enslave us\nand even interbreed with us.\n\nInterbreeding with humans is a common theme in mythology (even in the\nBible) but it doesn't sound\nscientifically possible. But, a very common theme in ancient mythologies\nis that the gods/demons\nare shapechangers. If such a shape change was accompanied by a DNA change\nthen interbreeding\nbecomes possible- with the proviso, as noted in 5HoC, that a shapechanger\nwould not be identical to\nits model as it would want to retain the ability to change shape. Thus the\nDNA of a shapechanging\nalien imitating a human would not be purely human but contain impurities.\n\nI suppose there are more details, but that's basically it. I get the sense\nthat this is Gene Wolfe's\nview of what happened in the ancient world. And I find that by keeping it\nin mind I can make sense\nof pretty much everything, including dreams and stories and plays, in\nBotNS. It helps with Long and\nShort Sun also and others also." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T16:39:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mark Lewin- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gene Wolfe- One of the places where I probably split off from\nconventional Catholic thinking is that I* believe that the gods of paganism\nwere real*. I don't think that they are entitled to the worship that they\nreceived from the pagans. I think what many of the biblical writers are\nsaying is, \"Yes, these are real powers, but it is wrong for you to give to\nthem the honors that are due to God alone.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nYes, thanks Mark. There are other Wolfe quotes which as clearly and unequivocally \nsay the same thing about Gene Wolfe's personal religious philosophy. This is the \nmost basic tenet of my Grand Unified Theory.\n \nFor me it is a small intuitive leap to further assume that the angels and \ndemons of the Bible fit into a similar explanatory framework as gods and monsters \nof pagan mythology for Gene Wolfe. Same story, same \"beings\", different names and \ninterpretations of their behavior.\n \nThus in BotNS there are some aliens who are noble and beautiful and others who are..\nwell, not so much.\n \nI think it is easy to accept that, hey, Tzadkiel and Famulimus are good, Abaia and Erebus \nare bad.\n \nBut what about Father Inire and The Cumaean? How are we to judge their behavior? Does their\nhooded, cowled, old appearance mean anything? Are they more Yoda or Emperor Palpatine?\n \nHierodules wear masks to cover their youth and beauty while their height remains apparent. I \nget the impression that Father Inire's and The Cumaean's shortness and oldness is not a \ndisguse. So, I must guess they are not analogues to angelic beings but are rather analogues to\npagan gods or fallen angels or perhaps both. Pagan gods and fallen angels might be exactly \nthe same thing in Gene Wolfe's philosophy.\n \n(I think the issue is clouded by the fact that many of the fallen angels of Judeo-Christian\nbelief can take a form which is beautiful to humanity. But I think that form is always described\nas beautiful and seductive, appealing to our base instincts rather than beautiful and noble\nappealing to our higher, divine nature. This is only fair- God has to give us SOME means of \ndetermining which is the right choice when faced with good and evil alternatives)\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T16:40:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mark Lewin-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gene Wolfe- One of the places where I probably split off from\nconventional Catholic thinking is that I* believe that the gods of paganism\nwere real*. I don't think that they are entitled to the worship that they\nreceived from the pagans. I think what many of the biblical writers are\nsaying is, \"Yes, these are real powers, but it is wrong for you to give to\nthem the honors that are due to God alone.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, thanks Mark. There are other Wolfe quotes which as clearly and unequivocally\nsay the same thing about Gene Wolfe's personal religious philosophy. This is the\nmost basic tenet of my Grand Unified Theory.\n\nFor me it is a small intuitive leap to further assume that the angels and\ndemons of the Bible fit into a similar explanatory framework as gods and monsters\nof pagan mythology for Gene Wolfe. Same story, same \"beings\", different names and\ninterpretations of their behavior.\n\nThus in BotNS there are some aliens who are noble and beautiful and others who are..\nwell, not so much.\n\nI think it is easy to accept that, hey, Tzadkiel and Famulimus are good, Abaia and Erebus\nare bad.\n\nBut what about Father Inire and The Cumaean? How are we to judge their behavior? Does their\nhooded, cowled, old appearance mean anything? Are they more Yoda or Emperor Palpatine?\n\nHierodules wear masks to cover their youth and beauty while their height remains apparent. I\nget the impression that Father Inire's and The Cumaean's shortness and oldness is not a\ndisguse. So, I must guess they are not analogues to angelic beings but are rather analogues to\npagan gods or fallen angels or perhaps both. Pagan gods and fallen angels might be exactly\nthe same thing in Gene Wolfe's philosophy.\n\n(I think the issue is clouded by the fact that many of the fallen angels of Judeo-Christian\nbelief can take a form which is beautiful to humanity. But I think that form is always described\nas beautiful and seductive, appealing to our base instincts rather than beautiful and noble\nappealing to our higher, divine nature. This is only fair- God has to give us SOME means of\ndetermining which is the right choice when faced with good and evil alternatives) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T16:50:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\\> For me it is a small intuitive leap to further assume that the angels and" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "demons of the Bible fit into a similar explanatory framework as gods and monsters\nof pagan mythology for Gene Wolfe. Same story, same \"beings\", different names and\ninterpretations of their behavior." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think angels would be the same beings when they are in obedience to\nGod, while devils would be the same beings when in rebellion. The\npagan gods are an interesting question - they are receiving the\nworship due only to God, but perhaps they are being used to guide\nworship away from worse beings (i.e., devils)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But what about Father Inire and The Cumaean? How are we to judge their behavior? Does their\nhooded, cowled, old appearance mean anything? Are they more Yoda or Emperor Palpatine?\n\nHierodules wear masks to cover their youth and beauty while their height remains apparent. I\nget the impression that Father Inire's and The Cumaean's shortness and oldness is not a\ndisguse. So, I must guess they are not analogues to angelic beings but are rather analogues to\npagan gods or fallen angels or perhaps both. ?Pagan gods and fallen angels might be exactly\nthe same thing in Gene Wolfe's philosophy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, the question is whether they are in obedience to God (or to the\nrepresentatives of God they are given -- viz. Gabriel's comment) or\nnot. We have no real way of knowing, that I can see, whether Inire and\nthe Cumaean are or not. Certainly, though, they do not seem to demand\nworship, which would be a point in their favor." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<455433.31075.qm@web84103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-27T16:59:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That reminds me of something Severian says when he is in the mountains. He muses on various topics relating to magic and says \"What is not said is important. But what is said is more important.\"\n\nThis could be a tenet of Wolfeanism and a useful principle to apply to his fiction. We know that what his narrators do not tell us is important, but we should recall that what they tell us is more important. For example, Dave Tallman's interpretation of 7AN fills in lots of blanks, but also relies on positive information, such as (1) the forgery machine and (2) the presumptive forgery itself.\n\nI wonder if this can help us figure out what to do with Inire. Yes, he is a gap, a void, a vacuum, a cipher, and therefore a mystery. But is he a very important one? Surely Wolfe would have told us a little more if he was.\n\n--- On Fri, 8/27/10, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes \nSubject: Re: (urth) Grand Unified Theory\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, August 27, 2010, 12:50 PM\n\nOn Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\\> For me it is a small intuitive leap to further assume that the angels and" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "demons of the Bible fit into a similar explanatory framework as gods and monsters\nof pagan mythology for Gene Wolfe. Same story, same \"beings\", different names and\ninterpretations of their behavior." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think angels would be the same beings when they are in obedience to\nGod, while devils would be the same beings when in rebellion. The\npagan gods are an interesting question - they are receiving the\nworship due only to God, but perhaps they are being used to guide\nworship away from worse beings (i.e., devils)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But what about Father Inire and The Cumaean? How are we to judge their behavior? Does their\nhooded, cowled, old appearance mean anything? Are they more Yoda or Emperor Palpatine?\n\nHierodules wear masks to cover their youth and beauty while their height remains apparent. I\nget the impression that Father Inire's and The Cumaean's shortness and oldness is not a\ndisguse. So, I must guess they are not analogues to angelic beings but are rather analogues to\npagan gods or fallen angels or perhaps both. ?Pagan gods and fallen angels might be exactly\nthe same thing in Gene Wolfe's philosophy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, the question is whether they are in obedience to God (or to the\nrepresentatives of God they are given -- viz. Gabriel's comment) or\nnot. We have no real way of knowing, that I can see, whether Inire and\nthe Cumaean are or not. Certainly, though, they do not seem to demand\nworship, which would be a point in their favor." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C78140B.8000708@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T19:37:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<455433.31075.qm@web84103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \"I see my light come shining from the West down to the East\"\n\nMy jailers have not deigned to release me. Like the Student making Son, \nI must beg for more Time.\nI only hope that I am Able and not VRT.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-27T21:15:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C78140B.8000708@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l D-Oakes: Again, the question is whether they are in obedience to God (or to the\nrepresentatives of God they are given -- viz. Gabriel's comment) ornot. We have no real \nway of knowing, that I can see, whether Inire and the Cumaean are or not. Certainly, \nthough, they do not seem to demand worship, which would be a point in their favor." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nPerhaps this is the intended point..that Wolfe is not sure how to judge Zeus and Apollo\nand Osiris and Vishnu etc. within a Christian framework. Perhaps the Whorl was a way to \nbetter explore this issue. What is the relationship between the (false) gods Pas and Scylla\nand Tartaros, etc. and The Outsider? The falsies serve their purpose, as all God's creations \ndo, but are we right or wrong to worship such gods when we are not given Christian \nalternatives? Are they, as Dan'l implies, better than nothing?\n \nNonetheless, I think both do have followers. Explicitly we are told they have witches and \nsoldiers and spies following them. And I think they play a much greater role in the Commonwealth\nthan just that. Contrast them with Hierodules who take pains to not directly interfere with\nhumanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- We know that what his narrators do not tell us is important, but we should \nrecall that what they tell us is more important. I wonder if this can help us figure out what \nto do with Inire. Yes, he is a gap, a void, a vacuum, a cipher, and therefore a mystery. But is \nhe a very important one? Surely Wolfe would have told us a little more if he was." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Inire as not-very-important. Hmm, interesting to contemplate. A minority view I think even among\nthe most skeptical..perhaps I'll counter with: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Now we must go,\" Ossipago told Baldanders, and he handed him the Claw. \"Think well on all the \nthings we have not told you, and remember what you have not been shown.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nWhen it comes to Father Inire and The Cumaean it seems to be a very important point that they are \nthe oldest beings in Commonwealth. They don't (openly) appear in UotNS (except for a goodbye hug\nfrom Inire before Severian's trip). So it might seem they don't exist at Apu Punchau's time nor\nduring Typhon's rule nor Valeria's reign (and certainly not in Ushas).\n \nPerhaps it is too speculative but I take their great age within a narrow timeframe to consider them\n(especially Inire) as the architects of the Commonwealth. Thus, we get a view of their greater \nactivities simply by observing the shape and functioning of the Commonwealth itself.\n \nIn the Commonwealth I see a rigid social hierarchy with a lot of war and repression and torture and \nwitchcraft, with a lot of defeatist philosophy on why it is the best possible society. One odd aspect\nthat always puzzled me was the mysterious hints at extreme beautification. The mystery is most \nexplicitly exposed with Jolenta, of course but we have khaibits and Thecla's belladonna eyes and \nMerryn's parchment stretched facial skin and a few other things.\n \nRecently reading a description of fallen angel Azazel, cognate to Prometheus, gave me a slight \"aha\" \nmoment." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Azazel is represented in the Book of Enoch as one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time \npreceding the flood; he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of \nmail, and women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dyeing the hair, and painting the face and \nthe eyebrows, and also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, \nleading them into wickedness and impurity; until at last he was, at the Lord's command, bound hand and \nfoot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of [Ha] Duduael (= Beth “adudo), \nwhere he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(Fenrir invoked also”)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Most modern scholars, after having for some time endorsed the old view, have accepted the opinion \nmysteriously hinted at by Ibn Ezra and expressly stated by Nachmanides to Lev. xvi. 8, that Azazel belongs \nto the class of \"se'irim,\" goat-like spirits, jinn haunting the desert, to which the Israelites were \naccustomed to offering sacrifice" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(perhaps Faunus-Inuus-Inire invoked here)\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-28T05:19:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\nMy jailers have not deigned to release me. Like the Student making Son,\n\nI must beg for more Time.\n\nI only hope that I am Able and not VRT.\n\n\nDoes this mean we won't see your Hyacinth/Fava theory this weekend\nafter all? I hope you'll have time to post it. I'm also hoping you\nhave a good explanation for the coach dream on pp. 94-95 of RttW.\n\n\"Fearing that Fava might be angry, I looked behind us; she had become\na dead doll, with Chenille's knife protruding from her ribs... I\nexplained to Mora that I was taking us to Blue, but she had become\nHyacinth.\"\n\nI realize this is just a dream, but why did Mora become Hyacinth\nrather than Fava? Why did Fava become Orpine?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C78F074.40904@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-28T11:18:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman -- Does this mean we won't see your Hyacinth/Fava theory \nthis weekend after all? I hope you'll have time to post it. I'm also \nhoping you have a good explanation for the coach dream on pp. 94-95 of \nRttW.\n\"Fearing that Fava might be angry, I looked behind us; she had become \na dead doll, with Chenille's knife protruding from her ribs... I \nexplained to Mora that I was taking us to Blue, but she had become \nHyacinth.\"\nI realize this is just a dream, but why did Mora become Hyacinth \nrather than Fava? Why did Fava become Orpine?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They are not just dreams, but, no, I don't have an answer for this one, \nbecause it is tied up in the significance of Orpine -- who is a key \ncenterpiece in Silk's enlightenment. And I don't understand Orpine. I'm \npretty certain Hyacinth and Mora are not to be *directly* identified (in \nthe way I am saying Fava and Hy are). But Orpine as connected to \nHyacinth has always...well, not made *sense*...but she and Hyacinth are \nthe two women in caskets that Silk stands over. And there is a knife at \nhand as Silk stands over Hy's coffin. So I see that there is (likely) an \nintended referred connection. In a way, Hy *does* become Orpine. And \nSilk stands over Fava's corpse too.\n\nWHAT I DO UNDERSTAND (or think I do) is that this dream is connected to \nthe dream Silk has at the beginning of \"Lake of the Long Sun.\" In that \none, Orpine has Mucor's face and she is \"clawing\" at the dagger in her \nside. And there too, Hyacinth sits beside him in the deathcoach. And, \nvoila, Silk gives his old, bloodstained handkerchief --the one that \ncovered Orpine's face --- to Hyacinth \"to cover her nose and mouth\". So \nhere we again have a connection made between Hy and Orpine. But I don't \nclaim to know what it means.\n\nI'm not denying the significance of these dreams. But, I believe that, \nwhatever the true meaning we ultimately come to understand, Fava will \nstill be Hyacinth. There are just too many other expected actors and \npointers. Fava being Hyacinth doesn't answer every open important \nmystery. It doesn't explain Mother or the connection between Seawrack \nand Hyacinth either.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-28T13:53:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C78F074.40904@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman- I realize this is just a dream, but why did Mora become Hyacinth\nrather than Fava? Why did Fava become Orpine?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nWell! I bumped into the dream sequence Dave partially posted last night and had\nthe intention of starting a new thread on it but I was beaten to it! Actually I\nthink this dream addresses another of James' theories (though to me they are all\ninterrelated).\n \nIn addition to the stuff about Scylla and Fava and Mora and Orpine and Hyacinth \n(and Vadsig's hair color) this dream mentions: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"the immense boles of the trees we passed and the monstrous, hairless beasts we\nglimpsed showed that we were on Green, I knew (as one \"knows\" all such senseless\nthings in dreams) that we could never reach the sea unless I drove\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nFirst, I broadly agree with James. There is no such thing as \"just a dream\" in \nWolfe's fiction. Unlike a real dream, product of one's irrational subconsious, \nWolfean dreams are the product of a cunning, rational, very conscious intelligence. \nAs such they can often be taken as more clear and understandable than what passes \nfor the \"real world\" in a Wolfe story.\n \nThe \"monstrous hairless beasts\" on Green may hint at James' other theory regarding\nthe trees and vines of Green as Neighbors and Inhumi. So for James I think this dream \nmight be a twofer one low, low price.\n\nFor me the dream is all tied together to itself and to the other mysteries of the story. \nLike a certain painting in Rudesind's gallery. What seems to be a confusing collection of \nblobs of color will resolve itself into a recognizable picture if one will only step back \nfar enough.\n \nThis probably isn't very profound, but for me, what I see in Short Sun, is an \necological system which involves three species, humans, Neigbors and Inhumi and two \nplanets, Blue and Green (or perhaps Urth is distantly involved too). The participants \nin this ecological system are all (now) conscious and intelligent which is unusual for\nan ecosystem. But the participants do not fully understand their roles (least of all \nhumans). Identity and conscious-sharing confuse the picture greatly.\n \nThere is, as in all ecosystems, competition and symbiosis between the species. Conflict \nand violence in the story can be a way of representing this. Why did Chenille (possessed\nby Mucor?) stab Orpine (whom the dream associates with Fava). I think we can step back\nand guess that this represents a conflict between human and inhumi.\n \nWhy is there an initial animosity followed by an uneasy truce between Babbie and Seawrack\non the boat? Perhaps it represents an endless competition/conflict between Neighbors and \nInhumi, with a typically befuddled human (Horn and reader) on the sidelines wondering what \nthe hell is going on. (I do think The Mother and Seawrack are derived/evolved from Inhumi \nas the shapeshifting and predatory nature remains true.)\n \nAnd so on for other issues in Short Sun. It works for me anyway. Just keeping a relatively \nsimple, easy to underand GUT in mind helps me assemble the individual pieces which are so \nconfusing and vague and nearly impossible to understand on their own. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-28T14:02:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\nWHAT I DO UNDERSTAND (or think I do) is that this dream is connected to" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "the dream Silk has at the beginning of \"Lake of the Long Sun.\" In that\n\none, Orpine has Mucor's face and she is \"clawing\" at the dagger in her\n\nside. And there too, Hyacinth sits beside him in the deathcoach. And,\n\nvoila, Silk gives his old, bloodstained handkerchief --the one that\n\ncovered Orpine's face --- to Hyacinth \"to cover her nose and mouth\". So\n\nhere we again have a connection made between Hy and Orpine. But I" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "don't claim to know what it means." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure how significant Orpine is herself. Silk never met her while she\nwas alive. But the Orpine/Mucor connection makes a lot of sense, since\nOrpine died because she was possessed by Mucor. In my \"Dream Team\" article\non WolfeWiki, I try to explain many of the RttW dreams with astral\nprojections of Mora and Mucor, etc.\n\nThere's one more short reference to the dream on p. 158 of RttW: \"It was as\nif there were shooting stars in his hands, like the stars at the bottom of\nthe grave to which Silk and Hyacinth had driven Orpine's body in a dream he\nrecalled with uncanny clarity.\" That was on the Whorl, before Silkhorn came\nto Blue, so the dream he remembered must be the one in LotLS. I don't\nunderstand much of that dream, but it seems to be a prophetic, enlightened\none. It told him if he went deep enough in the Whorl he would see the stars\nand that he must journey there: \"Too deep\" and \"Too long.\" (At the time of\nthe dream he had not seen the stars yet for himself). Covering the face of\nHyacinth with the cloth used for Orpine seems to foretell that she would die\nbefore he reached Blue." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C79ABFD.3090100@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T00:38:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman - I'm not sure how significant Orpine is herself. Silk \nnever met her while she was alive. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh no! I'm quite certain Orpine herself is significant somehow. I \nbelieve she is Blood's daughter (thus a connection to Mucor), but I \nthink there is more than that. Her murder was prophesied in Silk's first \nenlightenment, but then she appears in his second enlightenment on his \nwedding night." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"It was as if there were shooting stars in his hands, like the stars \nat the bottom of the grave to which Silk and Hyacinth had driven \nOrpine's body in a dream he recalled with uncanny clarity.\" That was \non the Whorl, before Silkhorn came to Blue, so the dream he remembered \nmust be the one in LotLS. I don't understand much of that dream, but \nit seems to be a prophetic, enlightened one. It told him if he went \ndeep enough in the Whorl he would see the stars and that he must \njourney there: \"Too deep\" and \"Too long.\" (At the time of the dream \nhe had not seen the stars yet for himself). Covering the face of \nHyacinth with the cloth used for Orpine seems to foretell that she \nwould die before he reached Blue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'm not comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with this \nexplanation-- or in anyway suggesting I know what these dreams mean. \nWhat's worse, they might mean more than one thing. But Silk taking Hy \nand Orpine to a grave of stars could mean many things, I think. \nEssentially, it connects them anything outside the Whorl. It could \npotentally mean that Orpine and Hyacinth are _destined_ to for Blue or \nGreen. I really don't know nearly enough about Orpine. I just need more \nfacts or an overall theory that can be confirmed or disputed.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T01:26:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 23 August 2010 18:03, Lee Berman wrote:\nAs tinkerbell Tzadkiel\nhopes to reuinte with big Tzadkiel, as (I think) Seawrack hopes to reunite\nwith The Mother, so\nlittle, human Scylla hoped to reunite with big mama monster Scylla." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know whether this has been pointed out before, but it is a fact that\n'Seawrack' and 'Scylla' are almost equal as names go. Or, at least, the name\nmisheard as 'Seawrack' could easily be a derivate of the name\nmisconstrued(?) as 'Scylla'.\n\nYes, I know I've been implying that the greek pronunciation of a name such\nas Scylla would be something like ['skulla] 'SKOOL luh', but that was only\nin the context of knowing the earthly etymology of 'typhoon' - the briahtic\netymology of the name translated as Scylla is quite another matter. And it's\nnot that I possess some special expertise on the issue, either, I was just\npointing out what I think linguists would say, because Wolfe is nothing if\nnot rigorous in his choices. And here I must go further even than James - I\nthink the convoluted history of the word is a *good* reason why Wolfe would\nuse it (rather than a small nuisance he might forgive)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T01:29:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\nOh no! I'm quite certain Orpine herself is significant somehow. I\n\nbelieve she is Blood's daughter (thus a connection to Mucor), but I\n\nthink there is more than that. Her murder was prophesied in Silk's first\n\nenlightenment, but then she appears in his second enlightenment on his\n\nwedding night." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've never made the connection of Orpine's murder to the woman's body\nin the alley off Silver Street, because her body was properly buried\nand was never left in an alley. But it *could have been*: Blood was\ngoing to \"dispose of the body somehow\" until Silk intervened.\n\nSilk's manse was at the intersection of Sun and Silver streets.\nLeaving the body of a murdered prostitute near Silk's home would bring\nshame and suspicion on the palaestra, which the vindictive Blood might\nwell think of doing.\n\nAll right, I'll accept that theory. It's better than anything I've\never heard for that part of the enlightenment vision. Her being\nBlood's daughter is also plausible though not certain. Orchid was\npretty vehement that Blood not pay for any part of Orpine's funeral." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T01:30:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "2010/8/29 Ant?nio Marques " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 23 August 2010 18:03, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As tinkerbell Tzadkiel\nhopes to reuinte with big Tzadkiel, as (I think) Seawrack hopes to reunite\nwith The Mother, so\nlittle, human Scylla hoped to reunite with big mama monster Scylla." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know whether this has been pointed out before, but it is a fact\nthat 'Seawrack' and 'Scylla' are almost equal as names go. Or, at least, the\nname misheard as 'Seawrack' could easily be a derivate of the name\nmisconstrued(?) as 'Scylla'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(I mean, the names are alike to the point of -ll-, a double consonant, being\nrepresented by -wr-, and not some simpler alternative.)\n\nYes, I know I've been implying that the greek pronunciation of a name such" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "as Scylla would be something like ['skulla] 'SKOOL luh', but that was only\nin the context of knowing the earthly etymology of 'typhoon' - the briahtic\netymology of the name translated as Scylla is quite another matter. And it's\nnot that I possess some special expertise on the issue, either, I was just\npointing out what I think linguists would say, because Wolfe is nothing if\nnot rigorous in his choices. And here I must go further even than James - I\nthink the convoluted history of the word is a *good* reason why Wolfe would\nuse it (rather than a small nuisance he might forgive)." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C79BCE1.107@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T01:50:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman - Does this mean we won't see your Hyacinth/Fava theory \nthis weekend after all?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Tell you what. Now I'm feeling a little guilty. I don't want to play \npeek-a-boo. I'll give the synopsis without the textual proofs and give \nthe rest later. Actually, others will probably post most them to argue \nthe theory down.\n\nI believe Pike's Ghost is the Rajan. I think the Rajan's presence in the \ngrandmother's in \"In Green's Jungles\", the screwy time-line from Horn \nleaving Lizard Island until his return, and the ages of Sinew's sons on \nGreen, is sufficient proof that dream-travel can involve Time-travel. \nAlso, the presence of the flying Oreb when Silk's Oreb had an injured \nwing down stairs and asserted anyway that he had not been upstairs. \nUnless one credits that Pike got his own night chough in Mainframe or \nHeaven, it was the Rajan. I suspect he's probably also Silver Silk _and_ \n, maybe, he was Patera Pike. Maybe. Otherwise, we get into clone theories.\n\nI think that after the end of \"Return To the Whorl\", the Rajan went back \nto get Fava in dreamland where he left her when her body died. Then he \ntakes her back in Time to Viron so everything can happen as he remembers \nit from Silk's memory. There, Fava --who, in dream-travel looks like a \nteenage girl-- has some breast augmentation (as Chenille implies) and \nbecomes Hyacinth. As you have already pointed out, favas and hyacinths \nare both beans. The Romans believed beans contained the souls of the dead.\n\nAnyway, I think the Long Sun/Short Sun should properly be read as a \nsingle 7 volume novel. Asking what happened to the Rajan went they went \nto the Whorl is not understanding that Wolfe already told us what \nhappened to him.\n\nI further believe that Hyacinth's exceptional light weight -- to which \nthe text refers TWICE-- is evidence that she is a being in dream-travel \n(the Rajan reported this as a symptom when he was climbing the mesa). \nAlso, Hyacinth's promiscuity is pretty much the way inhuma behave when \nthey get their human bodies. It's in \"their reptilian nature\".\n\nI think the \"taint\" that Silk spoke of occurring from sex with Hyacinth \nrefers to her actually being an inhuma -- which he learned during his \nwedding night enlightenment. And I think that is why Silk was so \ndespondent on the floater. In RttW, when Jahlee comes on to Horn's son \nwhile in dream-travel, the Rajan tells him that although she is a true \nhuman woman, relations between the two of them would be wrong. I also \nthink Hy being an inhuma is the what Silk meant when he said that little \nHy defeating the guard on the floater was \"one more lie\".\n\nI think Hyacinth's \"father\" at the Juzgada was the Rajan, fulfilling the \ndream of Silk's mother that Silk go to work there (Fava was the first \ninhumi to called him her father).\nI think the belief that Hyacinth had siblings is based on a misreading \nof what Chenille says (it was the family she went to work for that had \n\"a lot of sprats\".\nI think the mother Hy met in mainframe was the mother of the girl that \nFAVA's mother fed on. She was her spiritual mother. I believe the green \numbrella and two gowns that Hy says her mother (this time her inhuma \nmother) gave her is a red herring. The green umbrella (the one she can't \nremember what happened to it) was the planet Green in Blue's sky. And \nthe two gowns were her inhumi body and her dream-travel soul. I don't \nknow if Fava has forgotten her origin (until faced with the prospect of \nreturning to Green) or if she is covering up.\n\nI believe the used cameo ring she bought with the picture of the older \nwoman --because the seller said the image looked like her-- was the \nwoman who gave her her soul (as a teenage girl). I strongly suspect that \nwoman was Silk's birth-mother. But Orpine is on the table too.\n\nOnly quotation I'll offer here:\n\"The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the\npolished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth\nand Mother, too. _First romance_, sang the Outsider with the music\nbox. _First romance_.\"\n~ Calde of the Long Sun, Ch VII.\n\nOf course, \"Mother\" could be another red herring. It could imply the \nMother on Blue. I don't know. It gets messy there.\n\nI believe there are at least two thematic purposes that Wolfe is riffing \non with Hyacinth and Silk.\nFor the first, I offer this:\nhttp://www.urth.org/whorlmap/worm.htm \"The Wolfe and the Laidley Worm\".\n-- which is something I wrote years ago when I was at the time I was \ndebating the \"Hy is a male chem\" theory.\n\nThe second is that Silk/Rajan & Hyacinth/Fava is a retelling of the \ngnostic story of Simon Magus and Helena.\nThe story goes like this. Ennoia was a female half of the Cosmos. She \nwas the first thought of Nous, whom she named \"The Father\". She became \nseparated from The Father and descended through the Aeons to the Third \nWorld, eventually becoming trapped in a human body. It was she who \nbrought the \"Spirit\" of the Father into the world so he could rule it.\nNow Simon Magus was revered The Father in the incarnation of The Son. \nOne day, in Tyre, Simon saw a prostitute, Helena, on the roof of a \nbrothel. He recognized her as the incarnation of Ennoia, and their \nmarriage began the redemption of the world. The story of Helena is \nrelated in some way to the myths of Sophia.\n\nA nice overview of Simon Magus here:\nhttp://hermetic.com/sabazius/simon.htm\nHere you will also see other little bits of the Long Sun/Short Sun story \npoking out like the tops of the heads of friends seen in a milling crowd." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C79C40A.60407@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T02:20:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C79BCE1.107@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 8/28/2010 8:50 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nI think the Rajan's presence in the grandmother's in \"In Green's Jungles\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Should be \"in the grandmother's story\"\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T03:54:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C79C40A.60407@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\nI think that after the end of \"Return To the Whorl\", the Rajan went back\n\nto get Fava in dreamland where he left her when her body died. Then he\n\ntakes her back in Time to Viron so everything can happen as he remembers\n\nit from Silk's memory. There, Fava --who, in dream-travel looks like a\n\nteenage girl-- has some breast augmentation (as Chenille implies) and\n\nbecomes Hyacinth. As you have already pointed out, favas and hyacinths\n\nare both beans. The Romans believed beans contained the souls of the dead.\n\n\nI agree that astral projection/dream travel can involve time travel,\nand that the \"Patera Pike\" who appeared to Silk was in fact the Rajan\nwith his dream Oreb (now normal size with Scylla gone).\n\nI'm less convinced about the time-looped astral form of the dead Fava\nbecoming Hyacinth. Other than her possible light weight it seems like\nthe evidence is mostly negative -- references to Hyacinth's parents\nand siblings that have to be explained away. There's an even more\nspecific one from the Ansible Cloud Chamber 77:\n\n26. *Who was Hyacinth's mother?* — I don't know how to answer that.\nShe was not a character you have known in some other connection, if\nthat's what you mean. She was the wife of Hyacinth's father, and the\nmother of her sisters and brothers.\n\nA few other objections that come to mind:\n\n1) Fava is repeatedly mentioned as being light-haired or blonde.\nHyacinth's hair is jet black.\n\n2) Dream spirits don't eat, and derive no nourishment from eating. I\nthink we see Hyacinth eat, though I would have to dig up the\nreference.\n\n3) As an already-dead dream spirit, Hyacinth would be effectively\nimmortal. There would be no death to distress Silk so that he would\nneed the help of Horn's spirit to stay alive himself." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7A5B52.7010002@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T13:06:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman - I agree that astral projection/dream travel can involve \ntime travel, and that the \"Patera Pike\" who appeared to Silk was in \nfact the Rajan with his dream Oreb (now normal size with Scylla gone)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think we should be looking for him elsewhere in the story, as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm less convinced about the time-looped astral form of the dead Fava \nbecoming Hyacinth. Other than her possible light weight it seems like \nthe evidence is mostly negative -- references to Hyacinth's parents \nand siblings that have to be explained away. There's an even more \nspecific one from the Ansible Cloud Chamber 77:\n\n26. /Who was Hyacinth's mother?/ ? I don't know how to answer that. \nShe was not a character you have known in some other connection, if \nthat's what you mean. She was the wife of Hyacinth's father, and the \nmother of her sisters and brothers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I believe this is a puckish answer. Hyacinth has at least two \"mothers\" \nmentioned in the story. Here Wolfe is referring to the human one.\n\nAs for her supposed siblings. It makes no sense. Not one of them were at \nher wedding. Not one of them is named. And after she marries the CALDE, \nnot one of them tries to reconnect, as far as we know. Any lottery \nwinner can tell you how peculiar that is. Heck, we even know the name of \n_Auk's_ brother.\n\nI think all the answers we think Wolfe didn't address in the text, he \ndid. But I believe this extra-textual answer about Hy's mom was worse \nthan no answer. And Wolfe did promise to do his best to be evasive in \nanswering these questions." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A few other objections that come to mind:\n\n1) Fava is repeatedly mentioned as being light-haired or blonde. \nHyacinth's hair is jet black." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Her wig is long and light brown. _I think_ there is only one mention of \nher hair color is in dream-travel. If there are more, you're right, it \nbecomes very problematic.\n\n\"And even Fava had changed only subtlety, for she had always seemed and \napple-cheeked child just short of puberty, with long light brown hair \nand a winning smile.\"\n~ In Green's Jungles, chap XIII\n\nIt all depends on the emphasis of the words. If you read it \"for she had \nALWAYS seemed\" then this is the way she looked and the Rajan does not \ntell us specifically how she changed. If you read it \"for she had always \nSEEMED\" then he is telling us in some way how she changed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2) Dream spirits don't eat, and derive no nourishment from eating. I \nthink we see Hyacinth eat, though I would have to dig up the reference." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[Hyacinth said] \"I don't like not walking. My thighs are getting fat, I \ncan feel it.\"\nMaytera Marble overtook them. \"They can't be, dear, you don't\neat anything. I'm worried about you.\"\nExodus, chap XVI\n\nI'm not sure that dream-travellers CAN'T eat. Only that they don't need \nto. And, anyway, as an inhuma, Hy would be quite good at pretending to \neat (just as the Rajan says he is). But Marble is not fooled it seems." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3) As an already-dead dream spirit, Hyacinth would be effectively \nimmortal. There would be no death to distress Silk so that he would \nneed the help of Horn's spirit to stay alive himself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Hy didn't die of old age. As Roy pointed recently, it had only \nbeen some 20 years after her marriage.\nDream-travellers CAN die, however. They can be killed and buried like \nanyone else. When the traveller returns however, he is mute and \namnesiac. His soul has been lost. But Hy-as-Fava would have no body to \nreturn to. How did Hyacinth die? Once again, Orpine lurks in the back of \nmy mind. Not that Hy was murdered in Viron, as far as I know. But Silk \nhas a knife at her wake--and based on the \"scratches\" on his wrist-- he \nkilled himself with it. That Silk himself murdered her is on the table \nconsidering the Rajan's murder of Jahlee (I know how revolting that \nthought is, and I only offer it as an example of how little we know).\n\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-29T14:10:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7A5B52.7010002@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nDave Tallman - I agree that astral projection/dream travel can involve" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "time travel, and that the \"Patera Pike\" who appeared to Silk was in" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "fact the Rajan with his dream Oreb (now normal size with Scylla gone)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think we should be looking for him elsewhere in the story, as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, there may be other places, but given the way astral travel is\nportrayed I don't look for years-long roles (like the entire lifetime\nof Patera Pike during the time Silk knew him). It's not necessary for\nthe known sighting -- Silk only got a glimpse of the face of his older\nself, shadowed by the culotte. If you insist on identical faces, then\nthe Typhon clone theory can be brought in, but I don't think it's\nrequired.\n\nI'm not sure about the argument from silence for the lack of relatives\nfor Hyacinth. She was probably estranged from them all, so they\nwouldn't be invited to her wedding. If some of them tried to reconnect\nand were rebuffed that might not be important enough to include in the\nstory. She was bitter about her past: \"Hyacinth had hated all men, had\nhated men in the aggregate, because of things that had been said to\nher and things she had been forced to do for money, humiliations worse\nthan spoiled fish.\"\n\nThat seems to me the worst thing about this theory -- what it does to\nthe Rajan's character. I could forgive Silk for killing Hyacinth in a\nfit of rage and despair, but to force a young woman into years of\ndegradation merely to recreate the woman he loved is so morally\nrepugnant that it would destroy the story for me. He's better than\nthat." } ] }, { "message_id": "<00c301cb47b9$8b6a1c20$37d24a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-08-29T20:34:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote:\n2) Dream spirits don't eat, and derive no nourishment from eating. I\nthink we see Hyacinth eat, though I would have to dig up the\nreference.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, she eats, as I pointed out when I was shooting down the\nHy-is-a-male-chem theory. It was *because* she was so hungry that Auk went\nto the market at the beginning of chapter 3 of EXODUS.\n\n\"I got a mort back in the Orilla I'm supposed to take care of. She's hungry,\nand she's not used to it like me. So if you want to put oranges and maybe a\ncouple potatoes in that sack, I'll thank you for 'em and take 'em to her.\"\n(61)\n--------\n\n\"I don't know what you want, but I know what I want. I want to leave this\nstuff with the dell inside. She's hungry, and some cullys in the market gave\nme this for her. If you want to see me, you've done it. If you want to hear\nme, you've done that, too. If it's something else, let me give her these and\nwe'll talk about it.\" (61-62)\n--------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From behind Hammerstone, Hyacinth inquired urgently, \"Is there food in\nthose? I want it.\" (62)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "---------\n\nThe soldier emerged into the street, evoking another awed silence. Revealed,\nHyacinth chewed and gulped, wiping her hands on her soiled gown. \"That was a\nnectarine, I think, and I think I swallowed the pit. I can't remember\nspitting it out. Maybe I chewed it up. Thelx, was it good!\" (63)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not sure about the argument from silence for the lack of relatives\nfor Hyacinth. She was probably estranged from them all, so they\nwouldn't be invited to her wedding. If some of them tried to reconnect\nand were rebuffed that might not be important enough to include in the\nstory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No one was invited to the wedding. It was done on the spur of the moment.\nNot long after the wedding, Silk and Hy were taken prisoner and put aboard\nthe airship. When they got back to Viron, there was a shooting war going on\nand the book ends. We learn very little of what happened between Silk and Hy\nin SS, during their twenty years together. How she got along with her family\nwasn't important enough to mention.\n\nBut I am rather curious how Hy's estranged husband, that dandy captain,\nServal, fits into this Fava business.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7B07E3.9010202@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T01:22:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<00c301cb47b9$8b6a1c20$37d24a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy - Yes, she eats, as I pointed out when I was shooting down the\nHy-is-a-male-chem theory. It was *because* she was so hungry that Auk went\nto the market at the beginning of chapter 3 of EXODUS.[61-63]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I told you then, I'm inclined to trust Marble's observations above \nthe motivations Hy gave to her abductors for sending them on errands." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The soldier emerged into the street, evoking another awed silence. Revealed,\nHyacinth chewed and gulped, wiping her hands on her soiled gown. \"That was a\nnectarine, I think, and I think I swallowed the pit. I can't remember\nspitting it out. Maybe I chewed it up. Thelx, was it good!\" (63)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Does it not bother you just a little bit that we don't actually SEE Hy \neat that nectarine? (if a nectarine it was) You don't see that the \nchoking and sputtering are potentially an easy distraction while \ndisposing of the food? She even has an excuse for there being no pit. \nWhat is she supposed to be? Part pelican? Who swallows a nectarine whole \nregardless of how hungry they are?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No one was invited to the wedding. It was done on the spur of the moment.\nNot long after the wedding, Silk and Hy were taken prisoner and put aboard\nthe airship. When they got back to Viron, there was a shooting war going on\nand the book ends. We learn very little of what happened between Silk and Hy\nin SS, during their twenty years together. How she got along with her family\nwasn't important enough to mention." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Silk met Hy's \"father\" at the Juzgado. Hy met her mother in Mainframe. \nHy's family members are not unimportant to the author. Those meetings \nwere significant enough that the author strangely excised them from the \nstory. Even if I'm wrong about Hy and Fava, this explanation just \ndoesn't wash." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But I am rather curious how Hy's estranged husband, that dandy captain,\nServal, fits into this Fava business." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Indeed!\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7B2198.8020207@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T03:12:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " :" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " \n\n James Wynn - I think we should be looking for him elsewhere in the\n story, as well. \n\nDave Tallman - Yes, there may be other places, but given the way \nastral travel is portrayed I don't look for years-long roles (like the \nentire lifetime of Patera Pike during the time Silk knew him). It's \nnot necessary for the known sighting -- Silk only got a glimpse of the \nface of his older self, shadowed by the culotte. If you insist on \nidentical faces, then the Typhon clone theory can be brought in, but I \ndon't think it's required." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh no! In a Wolfe story I must insist that if a misidentification \noccurs, it is accurate in some way. Yes, there is the clone theory \navailable. I used to like it a great deal. I still think it is \napplicable in several instances. But the Rajan-as-Pike is appealing too. \nI like it because it would answer what became of the Rajan -- to at \nleast some degree. It turns a very strange ending to the Book of the \nShort Sun into a very Wolfean ending. I mean it turns it into an ending \nlike that in \"Peace\" where you get to the end and say WTH? And then you \nthink about the story and realize that the answers you were expecting at \nthe end have already been answered. Knowing that the Rajan can \nTime-travel causes me to think we also should expect to find in these \nseven volumes, under other identities, Seawrack, Nettle, and Marble who \nleft with him for the Whorl." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not sure about the argument from silence for the lack of relatives for Hyacinth. She was probably estranged from them all, so they wouldn't be invited to her wedding. If some of them tried to reconnect and were rebuffed that might not be important enough to include in the story. She was bitter about her past: \"Hyacinth had hated all men, had hated men in the aggregate, because of things that had been said to her and things she had been forced to do for money, humiliations worse than spoiled fish.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, spoiled fish. It's an Oreb reference that I don't get. But let me \nmove to your next point." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That seems to me the worst thing about this theory -- what it does to \nthe Rajan's character. I could forgive Silk for killing Hyacinth in a \nfit of rage and despair, but to force a young woman into years of \ndegradation merely to recreate the woman he loved is so morally \nrepugnant that it would destroy the story for me. He's better than that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This argument I get. But it's based, I believe, on a misapprehension. I \ndo not believe that the Rajan = Silk or even \"=Silk primarily\". The \nRajan has all Horn's memories, and he has all Silk's memories and Silk's \nbody. But he is also the greenbuck Neighbor who reanimated them both. \nThree quills in a used case, as Stuart Hamm pointed out. The Rajan is \nnot acting selfishly. He views the situation more objectively. He knows \nthat it must happen such-and-such a way for a cause that is good. This \nis like the argument whether Tzadkiel is good or evil. Abaia argues that \nthe plan is evil. He certainly has a point. And I do not believe that \nHy/Fava is an unwilling participant. Hy resents what she is forced to do.\n\nRather than degrading the Rajan, this theory uplifts Hy. She is, in a \nway, a Christ-figure. I do agree that she hates men in the way the Fire \nAelf in The Wizard Knight hated humanity for their cruelty and greed. \nBut, I am arguing that she has agreed to play her part in all this for \nthe sake of the end--to be a wife to Silk. She could bail out if she \nchose. The Rajan has never seemed to be inclined to force anyone to do \nanything.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T04:54:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7B2198.8020207@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\nOh no! In a Wolfe story I must insist that if a misidentification\n\noccurs, it is accurate in some way. Yes, there is the clone theory\n\navailable. I used to like it a great deal. I still think it is\n\napplicable in several instances. But the Rajan-as-Pike is appealing too.\n\nI like it because it would answer what became of the Rajan -- to at\n\nleast some degree. It turns a very strange ending to the Book of the\n\nShort Sun into a very Wolfean ending. I mean it turns it into an ending\n\nlike that in \"Peace\" where you get to the end and say WTH? And then you\n\nthink about the story and realize that the answers you were expecting at\n\nthe end have already been answered. Knowing that the Rajan can\n\nTime-travel causes me to think we also should expect to find in these\n\nseven volumes, under other identities, Seawrack, Nettle, and Marble who\n\nleft with him for the Whorl." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I know there there are Wolfean endings that just loop back on\nthemselves, like *Peace*, *Pirate Freedom*, and perhaps *An Evil Guest\n*(my \"Mysterious Margaret\" theory). In these cases there is a sense of\nfutility in having to repeat the same steps with no real progress.\nAnother example would be *The Fifth Head of Cerberus*, which has no\ntime-travel but no progress from one generation to the next. There are\nalso stories where time-travel is used heavily but the net result is\nsignificant change, hopefully for the better: *Free Live Free* and\n*The Book of the New Sun* are examples.\n\nI see the Long and Short Sun series as the latter type. Silk/Rajan\nmakes moral progress through the books, ending so good he frightens\nhis sons sometimes. He teaches like Jesus in New Viron, then goes back\nto the Whorl to lead and teach them as they move on to new worlds. It\nends with the five-fold blessing of \"Good fishing!\" as Silk and his\ndisciples become fishers of men.\n\nOn the other hand,m I like that you have gone out on a limb and made a\nnew, testable prediction with your theory. You expect to see Seawrack,\nNettle, and Marble under new identities in these volumes, as well as\nthe Rajan. I don't see any evidence of this at the moment, but perhaps\nyou can find some. I just can't imagine that the Rajan as Hyacinth's\nfather is one of them. She calls him a \"pig's arse\" (EftLS p. 59) and\nI agree with that assessment." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T11:18:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman- He teaches like Jesus in New Viron, then goes back\nto the Whorl to lead and teach them as they move on to new worlds. It\nends with the five-fold blessing of \"Good fishing!\" as Silk and his\ndisciples become fishers of men." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is the sort interpretation I was expecting to end the series all\nalong. If we trace the arc of the story back to Severian the apprentice, \nperhaps nothing else would do. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7BA5CD.4030006@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T12:36:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman - I know there there are Wolfean endings that just loop \nback on themselves, like /Peace/, /Pirate Freedom/, and perhaps /An \nEvil Guest /(my \"Mysterious Margaret\" theory). In these cases there is \na sense of futility in having to repeat the same steps with no real \nprogress. Another example would be /The Fifth Head of Cerberus/, which \nhas no time-travel but no progress from one generation to the next. \nThere are also stories where time-travel is used heavily but the net \nresult is significant change, hopefully for the better: /Free Live \nFree/ and /The Book of the New Sun/ are examples." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Really, as Wolfe originally envisioned /The Book of the New Sun/, there \nwas no real change at the end. His publishers urged him to write /Urth \nof the New Sun/. It was a bit of a compromise from Wolfe's perspective." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I see the Long and Short Sun series as the latter type. Silk/Rajan makes moral progress through the books, ending so good he frightens his sons sometimes. He teaches like Jesus in New Viron, then goes back to the Whorl to lead and teach them as they move on to new worlds. It ends with the five-fold blessing of \"Good fishing!\" as Silk and his disciples become fishers of men." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At risk of spoiling the meaning of the story for you, I think Dan'l is \nright that the \"good fishing\" reference is to R Heinlein's /Orphans of \nthe Sky/. The common greeting on their ship, and one of the \nlast lines of the book, is \"Good eating!\" It's a generation ship \nreference. Not a religious one. (Another referenced \"generation ship\" \nbook Wolfe tapped is Lan Wright's \"The Last Hope of the Earth\"--aka /The \nCreeping Shroud/--and, vaguely, his /The Pictures of Pavanne/.) Yeah, \ntrue, often his references have more than one meaning." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the other hand,m I like that you have gone out on a limb and made a \nnew, testable prediction with your theory. You expect to see Seawrack, \nNettle, and Marble under new identities in these volumes, as well as \nthe Rajan. I don't see any evidence of this at the moment, but perhaps \nyou can find some." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We already have some suggestions to help us along that route. Direct \nassociations between characters, between multiple characters. Some \nyou've pointed out. Some character associations in Silk's \nenlightenments. Some in his other dreams. And some by analogy. I expect \nit to be tricky, because with Time-travel and personality copying, \nsoul-stealing, Wolfe has left himself a lot of room to work with behind \nthe scenes. And then there's the clones." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I just can't imagine that the Rajan as Hyacinth's father is one of \nthem. She calls him a \"pig's arse\" (EftLS p. 59) and I agree with that \nassessment." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm...Pig.\n\nWell, I didn't under-sell it when I said this theory would be \nphilosophically repugnant.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7BB07C.9030304@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-08-30T13:22:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I think the theme of fallen bits of the Increate always climbing \nupward to try to reunite with it is a constant one for Wolfe, and always \na good one to test out. In this case, at the lower levels of \nmateriality, you have a small bit merging with a larger bit that may \nappear monstrous. That appearance may or may not affect its status in \nterms of relative or absolute proximity to the Increate.\n\nI don't recall the theological terms or underpinnings. But I'm sure \nsomeone else does." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "She says she named herself Scylla after the megatherian with whom she was\nconspiring against her father (the \"other\" [ahem] Scylla conspired with\nKing Minos against her city and her father, King Nisus.)\nThen, big Scylla (apparently) absorbs little Scylla. So it is possible\nthat the did eventually become one\nThanks for the Scylla backstory! Yes, this does fall in line with my GUT. As tinkerbell Tzadkiel\nhopes to reuinte with big Tzadkiel, as (I think) Seawrack hopes to reunite with The Mother, so\nlittle, human Scylla hoped to reunite with big mama monster Scylla." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T15:33:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7BA5CD.4030006@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 5:36 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nAt risk of spoiling the meaning of the story for you, I think Dan'l is right\nthat the \"good fishing\" reference is to R Heinlein's /Orphans of the Sky/." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that precludes the idea of a Biblical reference. Wolfe\npacks meanings into his words like sardines into a tin." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7BD7AC.6000004@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-30T16:09:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn - At risk of spoiling the meaning of the story for you, I think Dan'l is right that the \"good fishing\" reference is to R Heinlein's /Orphans of the Sky/." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l - I don't think that precludes the idea of a Biblical reference. Wolfe\npacks meanings into his words like sardines into a tin." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I could not agree more. Literally. I do not believe more agreement than \nI am currently pulling off is humanly achievable. Any more, and I risk \nflipping all the way around into opposition.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-08-31T18:06:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7BD7AC.6000004@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nReally, as Wolfe originally envisioned /The Book of the New Sun/, there\nwas no real change at the end. His publishers urged him to write /Urth\nof the New Sun/. It was a bit of a compromise from Wolfe's perspective." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No real change implies Severian failed at bringing the New Sun in the\noriginal BotNS and this was rewritten for UotNS? I think his success is\nforeshadowed and implied in the original books. Without success, he couldn't\nhave become either the Conciliator or Apu Punchau.\n\nI think we need to dig up the references in support of your Hyacinth theory\nat this point: Hyacinth's lightness, the context in which Siikhorn says her\nvictory over the soldier was a trick, etc. Do you have those references now?\n\nThere's another reported fight where Hyacinth at least held her own against\nChenille. And Chenille (as the daughter of Tussah) has at least a portion of\nSIlk's super-reflexes. She can throw a knife with amazing accuracy, for\nexample." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7D490C.1000505@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-31T18:25:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote (31-08-2010 19:06):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's another reported fight where Hyacinth at least held her own\nagainst Chenille. And Chenille (as the daughter of Tussah) has at least\na portion of SIlk's super-reflexes. She can throw a knife with amazing\naccuracy, for example." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ahhh, Chenille.\n\nWasn't Chenille possessed by Kypris during the knife episode?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7D52C8.3010701@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-31T19:06:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " James Wynn- Really, as Wolfe originally envisioned /The Book of the New Sun/,\n there was no real change at the end. His publishers urged him to write /Urth\n of the New Sun/. It was a bit of a compromise from Wolfe's perspective.\n\n\nDave Tallman - No real change implies Severian failed at bringing the \nNew Sun in the original BotNS and this was rewritten for UotNS?I think \nhis success is foreshadowed and implied in the original books. Without \nsuccess, he couldn't have become either the Conciliator or Apu Punchau." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's funny. If I were going to give a theme to the Long Sun/Short Sun \nnovel, I would say it is /Transformation/. Rose into Marble. Marble into \nall the things I say she became. Mint into the General and then the \nCalde. Quetzel into a holy augur laying down his life to get the \npilgrims through the tunnels. Sinew into inhumi into the Rajan's son. \nKypris into the Outsider. Typhon's family digitized and then becoming \nflesh again through possession. Cilinia into Scylla into Oreb into \ndream-Cilinia into Urth Scylla. The Ayuntamiento into chems, the lowest \nranking citizens among the cargo. And then there's the Rajan...Horn, \nNeighbor-man, Silk, Rajan, Incanto, Pike's ghost. I mean just because \nthe the novel ended in a literary sense in the last chapter of RttW but \nnarratively goes on into The Book of the Long Sun, doesn't mean it isn't \nabout Change. It's just that Wolfe has tricked us about where the story \nbegan. This is major character development." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think we need to dig up the references in support of your Hyacinth \ntheory at this point: Hyacinth's lightness, the context in which \nSiikhorn says her victory over the soldier was a trick, etc. Do you \nhave those references now?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll have look up the references for her lightness. Those were the major \nreferences I knew I needed to look up. I know it is referenced twice. \nBoth times, I'm pretty sure, when Silk lifts her. As for Hy subduing \nthe pilot, that's easy. The reference is when Silk is having his \ndespondent conversation with Horn on the floater. I think it is \nimportant to note that at the time he says this his thoughts are \nconsistently morbid.\n\n----------------------\nSilk nodded. \"'Though he is not the son of my body, my son will\nsucceed me.'\"\n\"Chenille's his real daughter, Nettle told me that too. And you're\nthe next calde. So if she's your sister--\"\n\"We will go no further with this, Horn. It has nothing to do with\nour topic.\"\n\"All right. I won't tell anybody.\"\n**\"There are so many lies in the whorl that it's not likely anyone would \ncredit you if you did. May I instance one more? Hyacinth subdued our \npilot, Hyacinth alone. I mentioned it.\"**\n\"Yes, Calde.\"\n\"I've been trying to think of an enlightening analogy for you, but\nI can't. Suppose I were to say that it was like seeing Patera Incus\noverpower Auk. The analogy would be flawed because I've never\nsupposed that Patera Incus could not fight, only that he would fight\nbadly. I had imagined Hyacinth would be helpless in the face of\nviolence; she spoke of taking fencing from Master Xiphias once, yet\nI never...\"\n\"I can't hear you. Can't you turn around this way?\"\n\"No. Come closer.\" Silk found Horn's hand and drew him nearer\nthe edge.\n~ Exodus, Chapter 15\n--------------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's another reported fight where Hyacinth at least held her own \nagainst Chenille. And Chenille (as the daughter of Tussah) has at \nleast a portion of SIlk's super-reflexes. She can throw a knife with \namazing accuracy, for example." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure we can make to much of the knife-throwing. She was \npossessed by Kypris at the time. However, she is a *big* girl. \"Mannish\" \nis a good word for it, I'd say. The Trivigaunte leader calls her a \n\"virago\", a word that implies etymologically a masculine woman. Horn \nsays she does not really look like Silk (who is beefy himself), but if \nshe were a man she would look like Auk. So little Hyacinth taking her on \nis still significant.\n\nAdditionally, I had the sense when reading The Book of the Long Sun, the \nfirst time, that Hy and Chenille were sharing some kind of secret which \nI presumed had to do with the way in which Hy seemed \"off\". When I read \nof Fava and Mora, I saw their relationship as analogous to Hy and \nChenille's even before I associated Hy with Fava.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7D5872.9000904@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-31T19:30:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7D52C8.3010701@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn - I had imagined Hyacinth would be helpless in the face of\nviolence; she spoke of taking fencing from Master Xiphias once, yet\nI never...\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't want any confusion about this. Although Hy said she wanted to \ntake lessons from Xiphias I don't recall any that she actually *did* it. \nAlso, Hy didn't just best the pilot, she nearly blinded her. She tried \nto gouge her eyes out, right?\n\n\"Auk took the seat nearest him. \"If you want me to, I can get\nsomebody else to do this. Even that pilot. I'd have one of ours sit\nhere to watch her.\"\n\"She's blind,\" Silk told him. He threw a lever on the instrument\npanel. \"Hyacinth blinded her. I saw it.\"\n~ Exodus, chap 15\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<007c01cb498f$4a40c1e0$00d34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T04:36:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote:\nThere's another reported fight where Hyacinth at least held her own\nagainst\nChenille. And Chenille (as the daughter of Tussah) has at least a portion\nof\nSIlk's super-reflexes. She can throw a knife with amazing accuracy, for\nexample." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do with\nSilk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy Silk saw in\nhis vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister only in the sense\nthat Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster father and her unacknowledged\nnatural father.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T07:07:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<007c01cb498f$4a40c1e0$00d34a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n\nWhat does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do\nwith Silk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy\nSilk saw in his vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister\nonly in the sensethat Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster father\nand her unacknowledged natural father.\n\n\nI am assuming not only that Tussah had enhanced Typhon genes, but that\nhe also had as a family legacy a secret stash of frozen Typhon\nembryos. It wouldn't make much sense for him to be sure he would get a\ngood heir just by rooting around in the underground tunnels and\nfinding some random embryo from the freezer. He knew he wanted the son\nnot of his body to be his heir.\n\nAs for Chenille, I'm far from convinced that mere possession by Kypris\nwould make her that good a knife-thrower. It might increase her\nconfidence, but the raw physical ability had to be there. General Mint\ngained confidence through her Kypris possession and became a strong\nleader, but it didn't suddenly make her an crack shot with a slug gun\nor needler." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T07:17:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n\nWhat does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do\nwith Silk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy\nSilk saw in his vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister\nonly in the sense that Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster\nfather and her unacknowledged natural father.\n\n\nI'm assuming that Tussah had Typhon-clone genes and that he also had\nhis own stash of frozen Typhon embryos, so that he could be sure of a\nstrong heir. Chenille and Silk should have a genetic relationship in\nthis case.\n\nI'm far from convinced that mere possession by Kypris was enough to\nmake Chenille into an expert knife-thrower, though it may have\nincreased her confidence. I think she had to have superhuman reflexes\nbuilt in. We don't see General Mint suddenly becoming an expert shot\nwith a needler or slug gun after her possession." } ] }, { "message_id": "<014801cb49af$b40015c0$00d34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T08:28:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:\nWhat does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do\nwith Silk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy\nSilk saw in his vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister\nonly in the sensethat Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster father\nand her unacknowledged natural father.\n\n\nI am assuming not only that Tussah had enhanced Typhon genes," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah! I do not make that assumption." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but that\nhe also had as a family legacy a secret stash of frozen Typhon\nembryos. It wouldn't make much sense for him to be sure he would get a\ngood heir just by rooting around in the underground tunnels and\nfinding some random embryo from the freezer. He knew he wanted the son\nnot of his body to be his heir." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The embryo Silk came from was special, no doubt about it, but how Tussah\ncame to know of it I don't know.\n\nI've long wondered why, if Typhon could have cloned himself, he didn't do it\non Urth to preserve his self-cherished face, rather than go to the absurd\nlength of having his own head cut off and put on another man's body." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As for Chenille, I'm far from convinced that mere possession by Kypris\nwould make her that good a knife-thrower. It might increase her\nconfidence, but the raw physical ability had to be there. General Mint\ngained confidence through her Kypris possession and became a strong\nleader, but it didn't suddenly make her an crack shot with a slug gun\nor needler." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Possession does things like that. Auk went from an ignorant thief to an\nexpert black mechanic, overnight.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7E41AB.5000209@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T12:06:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dave Tallman wrote (31-08-2010 19:06):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think we need to dig up the references in support of your Hyacinth\ntheory at this point (...)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In James's defense, he said he needed some time to put it together and would\npresent it afterwards; since then, people haven't stopped asking him for\ndetails and explanations. It's hardly surprising the picture we got is not \nthat coherent." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T12:09:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7E41AB.5000209@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: I've long wondered why, if Typhon could have cloned himself, he didn't do \nit on Urth to preserve his self-cherished face, rather than go to the absurd length of \nhaving his own head cut off and put on another man's body." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think Wolfe chose the name \"Typhon\" because he wanted this character to embody the\nessence of the greek myth, the epitome of all monsters and maybe also to represent\nthe last, greatest gasp of a Titan race which had been supplanted on Urth by an\nOlympian race of \"gods\". Multi-headedness was perhaps the most distinguishing feature\nof mythological Typhon. So the reason for the heads is more allusional than plot-driven.*\n \nRegarding cloning himself on Urth, I think he surely did. Typhon was snake-like in his\nlower half but part-man, part-dragon in his upper half. This automatically seems to\ndraw a connection to the Mandragora. What other purpose to the story could this little guy \nserve? The fact that he shares telepathy and clairvoyance with Typhon leaves little doubt \nof the connection for me. \n \nAnother similarity is that both Typhon and the Mandragora come to life though their bodies \nhave been kept for centuries in unmaintained preservative conditions. I'm not sure if their\nre-animation is meant to refer to Severian's power or an element of immortality among the gods. \nI lean toward the latter as Severian's power seems to be reserved for true humans.\n\nA mandragora is sort of related to the idea of a homunculus. And Dr. Talos is referred to as\nsuch. There does not seem to be any greek mythological relationship between Typhon and Talos.\nHowever, in 1958 the RIM-8 Talos missile was replaced by the SAM-N-8 Typhon missle. That's a\nprobably a long shot (heh) but perhaps an ex-Cold War soldier like Gene Wolfe was alluding to\nthese weapons.\n \n \n \n*What I find more inconsistent is that the two-headedness/grafting of Typhon was supposed to be \na huge secret on Urth. Piaton's head was going to be cut off later. Yet on the Whorl, Pas being\ntwo-headed is open and acknowledged. Why did Typhon's philosophy about ruling using his (one)\nface not apply to his uploaded version? I assume it was an auctorial decision to favor \ncontinuity over plot consistency. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7E46F5.3060800@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T12:28:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote (01-09-2010 13:09):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "*What I find more inconsistent is that the two-headedness/grafting of\nTyphon was supposed to be a huge secret on Urth. Piaton's head was going\nto be cut off later. Yet on the Whorl, Pas being two-headed is open and\nacknowledged. Why did Typhon's philosophy about ruling using his (one)\nface not apply to his uploaded version?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "- Maybe Typhon isn't being honest\n- The conditions on the Whorl have nothing to do with those on Urth\n- Is the second head of Pas Piaton's?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7E4B16.80105@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T12:46:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Lee\n\nIsn't it a part of your theory that Typhon is a Megatherian, thus an \namorphous monster from space inhabiting a human body? This would explain \nhis lack of attachment to a particular body or planet (though that needs \nlittle explanation), as well as his powers and, especially, his \nremarkable disdain for Erebus and Abaia as creatures he would enslave. \nHe's a megalomaniac, but not far out of proportion to his psychic \nabilities. Or is he?\n\nCloning is not that hard to do and must be regarded as a skill available \nto Typhon's scientists, but genetics itself can't explain Typhon. Who \ncreated Typhon, if he is a genetic monster? Did he perform genetic \nmodification on himself? If so, where did he come from to rule several \nworlds and gain that power of self-enhancement in the first place?\n\nIf he is a sport like the Asimov's Mule (another kind of monster), how \ndid a sport suddenly appear with such godlike powers? If Typhon is so \nsmart, why does he rely on his scientists so much? How much of his \ntechnology was available and how much was created by/for him? How was he \nso completely fooled by his officers?\n\nA question parallel to Roy's is, If Typhon can scan himself into Pas, \nwhy not scan himself into another body?\n\nOn a related note, although the backstory of the Whorl has been well \nworked out, I have never entirely grasped how it fits with Severian's \nencounter with Typhon. Why was Typhon, with all his powers, so helpless \nwhen his slaves fled with his ships? Why couldn't he break out of his \nmountain? What disaster were they fleeing anyway? Did agriculture \ncollapse with the darkening of the sun, or was it something else? He \ndoesn't mention the Whorl, of course.\n\nThis world, the most ancient of all, I made my capital. That was an \nerror, because I lingered too long when disaster came. By the time I \nwould have escaped, escape was no longer open to me those to whom I had \ngiven control of such ships as could reach the stars had fled in them, \nand I was besieged on this mountain." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/1/2010 8:09 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: I've long wondered why, if Typhon could have cloned himself, he didn't do\nit on Urth to preserve his self-cherished face, rather than go to the absurd length of\nhaving his own head cut off and put on another man's body." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe chose the name \"Typhon\" because he wanted this character to embody the\nessence of the greek myth, the epitome of all monsters and maybe also to represent\nthe last, greatest gasp of a Titan race which had been supplanted on Urth by an\nOlympian race of \"gods\". Multi-headedness was perhaps the most distinguishing feature\nof mythological Typhon. So the reason for the heads is more allusional than plot-driven.*\n\nRegarding cloning himself on Urth, I think he surely did. Typhon was snake-like in his\nlower half but part-man, part-dragon in his upper half. This automatically seems to\ndraw a connection to the Mandragora. What other purpose to the story could this little guy\nserve? The fact that he shares telepathy and clairvoyance with Typhon leaves little doubt\nof the connection for me.\n\nAnother similarity is that both Typhon and the Mandragora come to life though their bodies\nhave been kept for centuries in unmaintained preservative conditions. I'm not sure if their\nre-animation is meant to refer to Severian's power or an element of immortality among the gods.\nI lean toward the latter as Severian's power seems to be reserved for true humans.\n\nA mandragora is sort of related to the idea of a homunculus. And Dr. Talos is referred to as\nsuch. There does not seem to be any greek mythological relationship between Typhon and Talos.\nHowever, in 1958 the RIM-8 Talos missile was replaced by the SAM-N-8 Typhon missle. That's a\nprobably a long shot (heh) but perhaps an ex-Cold War soldier like Gene Wolfe was alluding to\nthese weapons.\n\n\n\n*What I find more inconsistent is that the two-headedness/grafting of Typhon was supposed to be\na huge secret on Urth. Piaton's head was going to be cut off later. Yet on the Whorl, Pas being\ntwo-headed is open and acknowledged. Why did Typhon's philosophy about ruling using his (one)\nface not apply to his uploaded version? I assume it was an auctorial decision to favor\ncontinuity over plot consistency. \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<006301cb49f5$b01d0c60$a9d04a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T16:49:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:\nWhat does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do\nwith Silk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy\nSilk saw in his vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister\nonly in the sense that Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster\nfather and her unacknowledged natural father.\n\n\nI'm assuming that Tussah had Typhon-clone genes and that he also had\nhis own stash of frozen Typhon embryos, so that he could be sure of a\nstrong heir. Chenille and Silk should have a genetic relationship in\nthis case." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is straying from the subject of this thread, but I want to follow up on\nwhat I said in my reply to the earlier iteration of this post.\n\nLoris said that Chenille's mother, the gardener's wife, had been a virago.\nQuetzal agreed and said that \"She was the type he [Tussah] admired, and he\nwas the type she did.\" (EXODUS, 269) That's where Chenille got her body\ntype.\n\nIf Tussah was a clone of Typhon, where did he get his penchant for viragos?\nTyphon's mistress, personified on the _Whorl_ as the computer entity Kypris,\nis a veritable Aphrodite, the very essence of things womanly and not in the\nleast a virago.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7E894F.9070604@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T17:11:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<006301cb49f5$b01d0c60$a9d04a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote (01-09-2010 17:49):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What does Chenille being the natural daughter of Tussah have to do\nwith Silk's reflexes? Silk's biological father was the blue-eyed guy\nSilk saw in his vision of Mainframe heaven. Chenille is Silk's sister\nonly in the sense that Tussah was both his unacknowledged foster\nfather and her unacknowledged natural father.\n\n\nI'm assuming that Tussah had Typhon-clone genes and that he also had\nhis own stash of frozen Typhon embryos, so that he could be sure of a\nstrong heir. Chenille and Silk should have a genetic relationship in\nthis case." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is straying from the subject of this thread, but I want to follow up on\nwhat I said in my reply to the earlier iteration of this post.\n\nLoris said that Chenille's mother, the gardener's wife, had been a virago.\nQuetzal agreed and said that \"She was the type he [Tussah] admired, and he\nwas the type she did.\" (EXODUS, 269) That's where Chenille got her body\ntype.\n\nIf Tussah was a clone of Typhon, where did he get his penchant for viragos?\nTyphon's mistress, personified on the _Whorl_ as the computer entity Kypris,\nis a veritable Aphrodite, the very essence of things womanly and not in the\nleast a virago." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're reading 'manliness' in Chenille's description where I think the text \nonly means size. Don't forget Chenille was the kind of woman Horn and his \nmates would have loved to see naked.\n(Granted, petiteness is sometimes associated with womanliness, but not synonym.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<002901cb4a04$44008340$b5cd4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T18:34:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7E894F.9070604@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques quoted and wrote:\nIf Tussah was a clone of Typhon, where did he get his penchant for\nviragos?\nTyphon's mistress, personified on the _Whorl_ as the computer entity\nKypris,\nis a veritable Aphrodite, the very essence of things womanly and not in\nthe\nleast a virago." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You're reading 'manliness' in Chenille's description where I think the\ntext\nonly means size. Don't forget Chenille was the kind of woman Horn and his\nmates would have loved to see naked.\n(Granted, petiteness is sometimes associated with womanliness, but not\nsynonym.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm willing to abide by dictionary definitions of the word, and I don't need\na lecture on the etymology of the word -- I know it. It was James who\nbrought up the word yesterday in connection with Chenille being a \"masculine\nwoman\" (his words). The word is also used near the beginning of Chapter 4 of\nEXODUS to indicate a lack of womanliness: \"As a precociously pious boy, he\n[Silk] had considered Sphigx the least attractive goddess, a tawny-maned\nvirago, more lioness than woman.\" (p-71)\n\nAs used in the text, virago is not about size.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7E9D55.9010902@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T18:37:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<006301cb49f5$b01d0c60$a9d04a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy - Loris said that Chenille's mother, the gardener's wife, had been a virago.\nQuetzal agreed and said that \"She was the type he [Tussah] admired, and he\nwas the type she did.\" (EXODUS, 269) That's where Chenille got her body\ntype.\n\nIf Tussah was a clone of Typhon, where did he get his penchant for viragos?\nTyphon's mistress, personified on the_Whorl_ as the computer entity Kypris,\nis a veritable Aphrodite, the very essence of things womanly and not in the\nleast a virago." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure I see how this is evidence of anything. There are any \nnumber of causes and reasons that Tussah -- who grew up under conditions \nfar different from Typhon -- would have a preference for viragos -- \npresuming a body type for sexual purposes was what is meant by \n\"admired\". This is a hint of something, yes, but I doubt it is intended \nto negate his potential as a clone of Typhon. This line is a total \nthrow-away for the subject Quetzal is talking about. One would /presume/ \nthat if Tussah was carrying on with a married woman, she would be of a \ntype he liked. What Quetzal was getting at regarding the type Tussah \nadmired and the type Chenille's mother did, I have no I idea. That is \nthe really interesting question.\n\n///////\nIncidentally, I was looking for a reference late last night, and came \nupon Silk's encounter with Remora and Xiphias at Thelxiepeia's Mirror. \nHe is having an in depth conversation with the two of them when suddenly \nHyacinth shows up. Suddenly, it's as though Remora and Xiphias vanished \ninto smoke.\n\n\"Where did they go?\" he asked.\n\"Was--somebody--else here?\" She gasped for breath and smiled,\ngiving him sweeter pain than he had ever known.\n\"His Eminence and a fencing master.\" Silk felt that he should look\naround him, but would not take his eyes from hers.\n\"They must have done the polite thing,\" she kissed him again, \"and\nleft quietly.\"\nHe nodded, unable to speak.\n(Calde, chap 7, p 278)\n\nAnyone have a theory about what happened here? Does anyone believe that \nR and X were so sensitive to sweet moment of a trist between a whore and \nan augur/revolutionary that they would just quietly melt into the weeds \nbefore she saw them?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T18:41:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7E9D55.9010902@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Antonio Marques: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maybe Typhon isn't being honest" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nTyphon makes it clear he considers Severian and perhaps all humanity too far beneath \nhim to warrant lying. He says \"It is courtesy that is truthful. When the plebeian kneels\nto the monarch, he is offering his neck.He offers it because he knows his ruler can take \nit if he wishes....it is precisely truth that I love, an open acknowledgment of fact.\"\nOf course it is Typhon's arrogant truthfulness to Severian about Piaton their body's \nautonomic functions which lead to his end." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The conditions on the Whorl have nothing to do with those on Urth" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThe conditions which lead to a ruler's face being important to his/her authority would \nseem to be human psychology not location." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is the second head of Pas Piaton's?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not as familiar with Long/Short Sun books but I don't think Piaton is mentioned in them.\nThere is a painting of two-headed Pas showing a sexual orgy in front of his throne. This \njibes with BotNS Typhon's sexual proclivities. But contradicts the secrecy by which Typhon\nwas grafted upon Piaton.\n \nDavid Stockhoff:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Isn't it a part of your theory that Typhon is a Megatherian, thus an amorphous monster from \nspace inhabiting a human body?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nA shape-shifting monster, yes. But not amorphous, and large; not until they went beneath the waves \nand grew so titan-ic. I think they arrived on Urth in human form, as passengers on spaceships. But \nsome literal black bean seed form is not out of the question." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If he is a sport like the Asimov's Mule (another kind of monster), how did a sport suddenly appear \nwith such godlike powers? If Typhon is so smart, why does he rely on his scientists so much?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThe Mule was a sterile human mutant. I think Typhon and his ilk are the opposite. They are not human\nbut can reproduce quite well, both asexually and sexually. They started as simple shapeshifters (okay, \nwe might as well guess they were Inhumi) and, as parasites, were able to gain abilities, including \nintelligence, telepathy and clairvoyance, by imitating other species. The megalomania and urge to\nconquer and control..well, I think we can guess which imitated species he got that from.\n \nTyphon, like the Mother on Blue and like Abaia on Urth (and like The Mule). can't really do much on his \nown. Parasites are masters at manipulating their hosts to make them do what they want (Biology is full \nof many unplesant examples of this). Kinda like Krait with Horn. Or Quetzal on the Whorl. Or Shadow \nChildren riding around on shoulders, abos who can't use tools etc. Typhon himself is not strong. His \nnatural parasitic inclination is not to get doctors to clone him or steroid him into a strong man but \nto graft him onto a strong man whom he can completely control. I think we often see Typhonic arrogance \nwhen Inhumi speak to humans." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Typhon can scan himself into Pas, why not scan himself into another body?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nPerhaps an unfair question. BotNS was written in an archaic period of computer history. An era of mainframes\nand terminals and big spools of magnetic tape for memory and paper punch cards for programming. Mr. Million \nhad to be killed to be copied. The more modern era of free multiple copies and ease in uploading and \ndownloading was the milieu in which Long/Short Sun were written." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why was Typhon, with all his powers, so helpless when his slaves fled with his ships? Why couldn't he break \nout of his mountain? What disaster were they fleeing anyway?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAfter the sun's too rapid decay, Typhon says \"Crops failed and there were famines and riots. I should have \nleft then.\". So maybe it was just the uprising of the populace on Urth. But if there is anything to the \nmythological reference, Typhon and his Titan family would also be struggling with a new group of Olympian \ngod types trying to take over Urth.\n \nTyphon is helpless because, like Abaia, he has no power of his own without slaves to manipulate. Intelligence \nand clairvoyance and telepathy without any power of self-action leaves one as impotent as the Mandragora. \nTyphon's political problems coincided with a time period in which he was incapacitated. Piaton's body had to \nbe strapped down until Typhon's mind was able to fully control it. Typhon says that Piaton proved to hold \nonto his self-control much longer than anticipated. His people took advantage of their freedom and took off. \n(it seems like there was some loyal servant still there because Severian notes that the straps have been \nunbuckled from the dessicated, two-headed body he finds.\n \n(I don't know if Typhon was aware of Tzadkiel or not. But if Tzadkiel put the black hole in the heart of Urth's\nsun, his/her timing was impeccable with regard to Typhon). \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EA2D9.8060509@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T19:00:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<002901cb4a04$44008340$b5cd4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy - As used in the text, virago is not about size." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why do you say that? Chenille is certainly a big woman.\n\n\"Ignoring him, Blood pointed to the still form beneath the sheet. \n\"Somebody get that out of sight. You there. Chenille. You're\nplenty big enough. Pick her up and carry her to her room.\"\n[snip]\n\"Eventually, I'd like a talk with Chenille as well. She's the tall woman \nwith the fiery hair, isn't it? Chenille?\"\"\nNightside, chap 10\n\nAnd Horn says,\n\"Like Chenille. She's got that red hair, but\nit's dyed. Underneath her hair's dark, I think. Your eyes are blue, but\nhers are brown, and like you said she's real big and strong. You're\ntall and pretty strong, but...\"\n\"You need not proceed, Horn, if it embarrasses you.\"\n\"What I mean is she'd be a lot like Auk if she was a man. You'd\nbe a better runner, but--but...\"\nExodus, chap 15\n\nBased on what Horn says, about her not having a runner's body, I presume \nChenille is not a \"thin\" tall woman.\nIt seems to suggest that perhaps Silk looks skinny next to her. Mannish \nwould be the right word, I think.\nAuk's men would like to see her naked, I think, because she has very \nlarge breasts.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EA552.1030300@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T19:11:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " There's certainly plenty of shapeshifting going on---there always \nis---but it doesn't always point to the inhumi. There is Tzadkiel, for \nexample. But by \"amorphous\" I meant at least the ability to possess a \nbody. This ability too we know can occur.\n\nI agree about Typhon's parasitic nature. However, I assume he mentally \nenslaved people in the first place. Thus my question---why not enslave \nmore? Was it just that everyone left when he was on the operating table, \nand those who remained knew enough to stay away from the \nmountain---which anyway was remote? This might account for it even \nthough his mind can range great distances.\n\nRegardless, two big points remain that affect the cloning vs \"something \nelse\" debate:\n\n---If Typhon is a shapeshifter, his DNA is not human; if he is a \npossessor of bodies, his DNA won't carry his powers. UNLESS, of course, \nthe ability to mimic is on the genetic level, which ought to be a clue.\n\nBut if Typhon is an inhumi, he is somehow managing to mimic both humans \nAND a superhuman species, which seems to set us right back at square \none. He can't mimic two species at the molecular level. Inhumi don't \nhave super mental powers.\n\n---If he's not either of these, his powers are inexplicable.\n\nThat's a fair point about scanning, btw.\n\nFinally: who would be the new group of gods? The Hiero-thingies?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/1/2010 2:41 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Isn't it a part of your theory that Typhon is a Megatherian, thus an amorphous monster from\nspace inhabiting a human body?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " A shape-shifting monster, yes. But not amorphous, and large; not until they went beneath the waves\nand grew so titan-ic. I think they arrived on Urth in human form, as passengers on spaceships. But\nsome literal black bean seed form is not out of the question." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If he is a sport like the Asimov's Mule (another kind of monster), how did a sport suddenly appear\nwith such godlike powers? If Typhon is so smart, why does he rely on his scientists so much?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Mule was a sterile human mutant. I think Typhon and his ilk are the opposite. They are not human\nbut can reproduce quite well, both asexually and sexually. They started as simple shapeshifters (okay,\nwe might as well guess they were Inhumi) and, as parasites, were able to gain abilities, including\nintelligence, telepathy and clairvoyance, by imitating other species. The megalomania and urge to\nconquer and control..well, I think we can guess which imitated species he got that from.\n\nTyphon, like the Mother on Blue and like Abaia on Urth (and like The Mule). can't really do much on his\nown. Parasites are masters at manipulating their hosts to make them do what they want (Biology is full\nof many unplesant examples of this). Kinda like Krait with Horn. Or Quetzal on the Whorl. Or Shadow\nChildren riding around on shoulders, abos who can't use tools etc. Typhon himself is not strong. His\nnatural parasitic inclination is not to get doctors to clone him or steroid him into a strong man but\nto graft him onto a strong man whom he can completely control. I think we often see Typhonic arrogance\nwhen Inhumi speak to humans." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If Typhon can scan himself into Pas, why not scan himself into another body?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps an unfair question. BotNS was written in an archaic period of computer history. An era of mainframes\nand terminals and big spools of magnetic tape for memory and paper punch cards for programming. Mr. Million\nhad to be killed to be copied. The more modern era of free multiple copies and ease in uploading and\ndownloading was the milieu in which Long/Short Sun were written." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Why was Typhon, with all his powers, so helpless when his slaves fled with his ships? Why couldn't he break\nout of his mountain? What disaster were they fleeing anyway?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After the sun's too rapid decay, Typhon says \"Crops failed and there were famines and riots. I should have\nleft then.\". So maybe it was just the uprising of the populace on Urth. But if there is anything to the\nmythological reference, Typhon and his Titan family would also be struggling with a new group of Olympian\ngod types trying to take over Urth.\n\nTyphon is helpless because, like Abaia, he has no power of his own without slaves to manipulate. Intelligence\nand clairvoyance and telepathy without any power of self-action leaves one as impotent as the Mandragora.\nTyphon's political problems coincided with a time period in which he was incapacitated. Piaton's body had to\nbe strapped down until Typhon's mind was able to fully control it. Typhon says that Piaton proved to hold\nonto his self-control much longer than anticipated. His people took advantage of their freedom and took off.\n(it seems like there was some loyal servant still there because Severian notes that the straps have been\nunbuckled from the dessicated, two-headed body he finds.\n\n(I don't know if Typhon was aware of Tzadkiel or not. But if Tzadkiel put the black hole in the heart of Urth's\nsun, his/her timing was impeccable with regard to Typhon). \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EA63E.9090009@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T19:15:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7EA2D9.8060509@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I don't see why \"mannish\" fits. A lioness is not mannish. But I think \nof her as having a warrior's body, not quite a runner's and not quite a \nwrestler's.\n\nThe warrior mermaid of Warsaw is not \"mannish.\" (speaking of breasts, \nheh heh)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/1/2010 3:00 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy - As used in the text, virago is not about size." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why do you say that? Chenille is certainly a big woman.\n\n\"Ignoring him, Blood pointed to the still form beneath the sheet. \n\"Somebody get that out of sight. You there. Chenille. You're\nplenty big enough. Pick her up and carry her to her room.\"\n[snip]\n\"Eventually, I'd like a talk with Chenille as well. She's the tall \nwoman with the fiery hair, isn't it? Chenille?\"\"\nNightside, chap 10\n\nAnd Horn says,\n\"Like Chenille. She's got that red hair, but\nit's dyed. Underneath her hair's dark, I think. Your eyes are blue, but\nhers are brown, and like you said she's real big and strong. You're\ntall and pretty strong, but...\"\n\"You need not proceed, Horn, if it embarrasses you.\"\n\"What I mean is she'd be a lot like Auk if she was a man. You'd\nbe a better runner, but--but...\"\nExodus, chap 15\n\nBased on what Horn says, about her not having a runner's body, I \npresume Chenille is not a \"thin\" tall woman.\nIt seems to suggest that perhaps Silk looks skinny next to her. \nMannish would be the right word, I think.\nAuk's men would like to see her naked, I think, because she has very \nlarge breasts.\n\nu+16b9\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EA8F7.9080009@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T19:26:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\n\nAntonio Marques:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Maybe Typhon isn't being honest" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Typhon makes it clear he considers Severian and perhaps all humanity\ntoo far beneath him to warrant lying (...)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maybe Typhon isn't being honest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The conditions on the Whorl have nothing to do with those on Urth" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The conditions which lead to a ruler's face being important to\nhis/her authority would seem to be human psychology not location." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Istr he says the importance of it is that his subjects were used to it.\nIn the Whorl the cargo could get used to anything, they even got used to\nconsidering him a god." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course it is Typhon's arrogant truthfulness to Severian about\nPiaton their body's autonomic functions which lead to his end." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wonder how a shapeshifter able to do pretty much anything\nbiologically-wise fits into the whole having a head of his grafted onto\na man's body, not being able to control it fully and then dying because\nsomeone stabs the man's head." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EBD1D.4070009@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T20:52:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7EA8F7.9080009@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " On 9/1/2010 2:26 PM, wrote:\nAnt?nio Marques- Istr he says the importance of it is that his \nsubjects were used to it.\nIn the Whorl the cargo could get used to anything, they even got used to\nconsidering him a god. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm guessing this was accomplished with memory wipes such as the \nSleepers underwent. The original cargo had no memory of Typhon as a \nflesh-and-blood Calde'. Only as a god.\n\nIt seems to me that Lemur says the faces used by the gods was a joke on \nTyphon's part.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7EBDB5.1070300@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T20:55:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7EA8F7.9080009@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Bingo." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/1/2010 3:26 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\nLee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio Marques:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wonder how a shapeshifter able to do pretty much anything\nbiologically-wise fits into the whole having a head of his grafted onto\na man's body, not being able to control it fully and then dying because\nsomeone stabs the man's head.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-01T21:57:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7EBDB5.1070300@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Marques- I wonder how a shapeshifter able to do pretty much anything\nbiologically-wise fits into the whole having a head of his grafted onto\na man's body, not being able to control it fully and then dying because\nsomeone stabs the man's head." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff-Bingo." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nWho says a shapeshifter can do pretty much anything, biologically-wise? Take the\nInhumi. Quite limited in many ways, biologically. They can do things we cannot do, \nbut vice versa is also true. But, they are good manipulators and can get us to do\nthings for them which they cannot do themselves. \n \nAre you sure Typhon's head is dead, down there under the mountain? (the mythological \nTyphon remains immortally trapped under a mountain to this day). ;- ).\n \nAnyway, my theory explains why Typhon does not have a saint name, why he has \nclairvoyance and telepathy, why he is so powerless when his slaves have deserted him\nwhat the mandragora is and why Abaia etc. are defeated with the creation of Ushas. \n \nIf you have a better theory on Typhon which explains these things or other things I am \ninterested in hearing it. Perhaps it will include the cellular biology my theory is \nmissing.\n \n \nBingo? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7ED506.5060003@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-01T22:34:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I'd propose a body-possessor rather than a shapeshifter. A \nbody-possessor can be killed if its body is killed.\n\nHowever, I'd still want to know why Typhon couldn't move to another \nbody. So it's not a perfect theory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/1/2010 5:57 PM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Antonio Marques- I wonder how a shapeshifter able to do pretty much anything\nbiologically-wise fits into the whole having a head of his grafted onto\na man's body, not being able to control it fully and then dying because\nsomeone stabs the man's head.\nDavid Stockhoff-Bingo." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Who says a shapeshifter can do pretty much anything, biologically-wise? Take the\nInhumi. Quite limited in many ways, biologically. They can do things we cannot do,\nbut vice versa is also true. But, they are good manipulators and can get us to do\nthings for them which they cannot do themselves.\n\nAre you sure Typhon's head is dead, down there under the mountain? (the mythological\nTyphon remains immortally trapped under a mountain to this day). ;- ).\n\nAnyway, my theory explains why Typhon does not have a saint name, why he has\nclairvoyance and telepathy, why he is so powerless when his slaves have deserted him\nwhat the mandragora is and why Abaia etc. are defeated with the creation of Ushas.\n\nIf you have a better theory on Typhon which explains these things or other things I am\ninterested in hearing it. Perhaps it will include the cellular biology my theory is\nmissing.\n\n\nBingo? \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001301cb4a47$4fa8ff40$4ed34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-02T02:33:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7E9D55.9010902@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n///////\nIncidentally, I was looking for a reference late last night, and came\nupon Silk's encounter with Remora and Xiphias at Thelxiepeia's Mirror.\nHe is having an in depth conversation with the two of them when suddenly\nHyacinth shows up. Suddenly, it's as though Remora and Xiphias vanished\ninto smoke." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rather, he had just told both men they must all leave before the Guard got\nthere.\n\n\"You, Master Xiphias, must return home. You're a fine swordsman, but you\ncan't possibly protect me from a squad of troopers with slug guns. You, Your\nEminence, must go to Maytera Mint. Don't bother filling your belly. If - \"\n(277)\n\nHe was interrupted at that point by Oreb announcing that a girl was coming,\nquickly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Where did they go?\" he asked.\n\"Was--somebody--else here?\" She gasped for breath and smiled,\ngiving him sweeter pain than he had ever known.\n\"His Eminence and a fencing master.\" Silk felt that he should look\naround him, but would not take his eyes from hers.\n\"They must have done the polite thing,\" she kissed him again, \"and\nleft quietly.\"\nHe nodded, unable to speak.\n(Calde, chap 7, p 278)\n\nAnyone have a theory about what happened here? Does anyone believe that\nR and X were so sensitive to sweet moment of a trist between a whore and\nan augur/revolutionary that they would just quietly melt into the weeds\nbefore she saw them?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Scared Remora split right away, but Xiphias only ducked out of sight, as he\nowned up to about twenty pages later (296). He had wanted to give Silk the\nswordcane. Hy had seen him when Silk was being carried up to her room (297).\n\nAnyway, there is no mystery there.\n\nWhat I don't understand is why no one picked up on the obvious fact the old\nman is clearly Inire. Xiphias is an obvious anagram for Apish XI, the\neleventh simian iteration of Inire.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7F2489.8020907@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T04:14:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<001301cb4a47$4fa8ff40$4ed34a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy - Rather, he had just told both men they must all leave before the Guard got\nthere.\n\"You, Master Xiphias, must return home. You're a fine swordsman, but you\ncan't possibly protect me from a squad of troopers with slug guns. You, Your\nEminence, must go to Maytera Mint. Don't bother filling your belly. If - \"\n(277)\nHe was interrupted at that point by Oreb announcing that a girl was coming,\nquickly." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course! They thought Hy was at the head of an invasion of the Guard!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Scared Remora split right away, but Xiphias only ducked out of sight, as he\nowned up to about twenty pages later (296). He had wanted to give Silk the\nswordcane. Hy had seen him when Silk was being carried up to her room (297). Anyway, there is no mystery there." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh. So Xiphias was just doing as he was told. Except he wasn't told to \nwatch out for small prostitutes. And he then he didn't do it. I didn't \npresume they were beamed on to the Enterprise. I just think their sudden \nexit is peculiar. But now I know there's no mystery there. See? It's as \neasy as saying it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What I don't understand is why no one picked up on the obvious fact the old\nman is clearly Inire. Xiphias is an obvious anagram for Apish XI, the\neleventh simian iteration of Inire." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Those idiots make me laugh. The way they ascribe clues in a Wolfe novel \nfrom the names of people and things. What possible evidence does anyone \nhave for that? I certainly don't see it.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T05:35:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7F2489.8020907@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote\"\n\nIf Tussah was a clone of Typhon, where did he get his penchant for\nviragos. Typhon's mistress, personified on the _Whorl_ as the computer\nentity Kypris is a veritable Aphrodite, the very essence of things\nwomanly and not in the least a virago.\n\n\nWho says one's taste in women is 100% determined by genetics? Silk\nseems to be attracted to women who resemble his mother. Maybe the\nfoster mother of Tussah was a virago? In any case, he selected a\nKypris-like woman to raise his heir, even though he preferred\nChenille's mother as a mistress." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7F3B9B.7050004@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T05:52:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7F2489.8020907@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "hat I don't understand is why no one picked up on the obvious fact \nthe old\nman is clearly Inire. Xiphias is an obvious anagram for Apish XI, the\neleventh simian iteration of Inire." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Those idiots make me laugh. The way they ascribe clues in a Wolfe \nnovel from the names of people and things. What possible evidence does \nanyone have for that? I certainly don't see it. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Xiphias, Pike, Fish\n\nWhat's that? I thought I heard the sound of someone's head exploding. \nNever mind, I'm sure it's nothing.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T12:17:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7F3B9B.7050004@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- Xiphias, Pike, Fish" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAh, thanks James. You got me to look up xiphias. Swordfish genus! Nice.\nDon't forget to include Remora in your piscine collection.\n \nI had always assumed xiphias refered to the xiphoid (Gr.swordlike) process \nat the bottom of the sternum or gladiolus (L. sword) bone. They always teach \nyou in CPR class to be careful of the xiphoid process." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Those idiots make me laugh. The way they ascribe clues in a Wolfe \nnovel from the names of people and things. What possible evidence does \nanyone have for that? I certainly don't see it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThe Latin verb \"inire\" in its sexual penetration meaning, gave rise to the\nRoman god name Inuus. Inuus is an older species name, used by Darwin \nand Linnaeus, for the tail-less Barbary macaque monkey.\n \nBut now you tell me that names have no meaning in Wolfe's work. What a waste\nof time it was for me to have found the monkey-inire connection. Crap. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C7FC385.60704@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T15:32:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote (02-09-2010 13:17):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn- Xiphias, Pike, Fish" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ah, thanks James. You got me to look up xiphias. Swordfish genus! Nice.\nDon't forget to include Remora in your piscine collection." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I laugh hard at 'Remora' ever since the first time I saw it." } ] }, { "message_id": "<001201cb4ad3$e34b2a20$1bd34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-02T19:20:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C7F3B9B.7050004@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nXiphias, Pike, Fish\n\nWhat's that? I thought I heard the sound of someone's head exploding.\nNever mind, I'm sure it's nothing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Xiphias is a swordsman and his name means swordfish. So what? Every name\nmeans something. There are several other characters named after fish. Are\nthey all therefore related? Is the bouncer at Orchid's related to Pike, just\nbecause his name is Bass? Is Pork, the owner of the restaurant where Auk\nbought Silk dinner, related to Pig? I could go on and on with this, but it's\npointless. Where does presumed kinship between characters based on name\nassociations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide which are\nrelevant and which are not?\n\nSurely you don't mean to suggest that Xiphias is a related to Pike, and\ntherefore to all the other characters you believe Pike to somehow be. Do you\nreally want to take it that far?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-02T19:39:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<001201cb4ad3$e34b2a20$1bd34a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey- Where does presumed kinship between characters based on name\nassociations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide which are\nrelevant and which are not?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Seems to be an individual decision. I find Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide sufficiently\nassociated as inedible beef products and family members to find significance in \ntheir names.\n \nLikewise for the prosimian members of the Ayuntamiento, Lemur, Loris, Potto, Tarsier...\nhm..did I forget one? I think there are no Aye Ayes or Sifakas in there...oh isn't there \na Galago? (thank you internet).\n \nSo those are the easy ones. Are there some harder ones? The names Silk and Chenille are\nrelated. I think Pig is probably related to Phaea just by name. I'd have to look into Pork \na bit further. Maybe there is something there. Perhaps something connects characters with \nfish names also. There are so many, many plant and animal names to choose from. Why did\nWolfe pick the ones he picked for the relatively few Vironese characters? Seems silly \nto dismiss all possibility of a connection just because you don't see it right away.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<958251.64020.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-02T20:46:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's not easy to decide where to draw the line. Wolfe explains his naming system as little as he possibly can.\n\nOn one hand, Hide, Sinew, and Horn are related names---names you might expect from a tribe of cattle herders, for example, because all are cattle parts. They are also related by being materials rather than animals. But not all names follow this pattern, so the familial nature of this group might not be applicable to all names. They may form a system that is limited to them alone.\n\nThe simian names are all animals. Fish names are all animals. Both are potentially symbolic. Silk and Chenille are both materials, but one is from cotton and the other is not. \n\nThese names might form a system, but it's hard to see how family relationship is one of them.\n\n\n\n--- On Thu, 9/2/10, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Lee Berman \nSubject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory\nTo: urth at lists.urth.net\nDate: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 3:39 PM\nRoy C. Lackey- Where does presumed kinship between characters based on name\nassociations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide which are\nrelevant and which are not?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Seems to be an individual decision. I find Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide sufficiently\nassociated as inedible beef products and family members to find significance in \ntheir names.\n \nLikewise for the prosimian members of the Ayuntamiento, Lemur, Loris, Potto, Tarsier...\nhm..did I forget one? I think there are no Aye Ayes or Sifakas in there...oh isn't there \na Galago? (thank you internet).\n \nSo those are the easy ones. Are there some harder ones? The names Silk and Chenille are\nrelated. I think Pig is probably related to Phaea just by name. I'd have to look into Pork \na bit further. Maybe there is something there. Perhaps something connects characters with \nfish names also. There are so many, many plant and animal names to choose from. Why did\nWolfe pick the ones he picked for the relatively few Vironese characters? Seems silly \nto dismiss all possibility of a connection just because you don't see it right away.\n? ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T01:29:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<958251.64020.qm@web84105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's interesting that chenille can be a fabric made out of *silk* as well as\ncotton yarn.\n\nche?nille? ?[shuh-neel]\n?noun\n1.\na velvety cord or yarn of silk or worsted, for embroidery, fringes, etc.\n2.\nfabric made with a fringed silken thread used as the weft in combination\nwith wool or cotton.\n3.\nany fabric with a protruding pile, as in certain rayon bedspreads." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 4:46 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nIt's not easy to decide where to draw the line. Wolfe explains his naming\nsystem as little as he possibly can.\n\nOn one hand, Hide, Sinew, and Horn are related names---names you might\nexpect from a tribe of cattle herders, for example, because all are cattle\nparts. They are also related by being materials rather than animals. But not\nall names follow this pattern, so the familial nature of this group might\nnot be applicable to all names. They may form a system that is limited to\nthem alone.\n\nThe simian names are all animals. Fish names are all animals. Both are\npotentially symbolic. Silk and Chenille are both materials, but one is from\ncotton and the other is not.\n\nThese names might form a system, but it's hard to see how family\nrelationship is one of them.\n\n\n\n--- On *Thu, 9/2/10, Lee Berman * wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Lee Berman \nSubject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory\nTo: urth at lists.urth.net\nDate: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 3:39 PM" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy C. Lackey- Where does presumed kinship between characters based on\nname\nassociations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide which are\nrelevant and which are not?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Seems to be an individual decision. I find Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide\nsufficiently\nassociated as inedible beef products and family members to find\nsignificance in\ntheir names.\n\nLikewise for the prosimian members of the Ayuntamiento, Lemur, Loris,\nPotto, Tarsier...\nhm..did I forget one? I think there are no Aye Ayes or Sifakas in\nthere...oh isn't there\na Galago? (thank you internet).\n\nSo those are the easy ones. Are there some harder ones? The names Silk and\nChenille are\nrelated. I think Pig is probably related to Phaea just by name. I'd have to\nlook into Pork\na bit further. Maybe there is something there. Perhaps something connects\ncharacters with\nfish names also. There are so many, many plant and animal names to choose\nfrom. Why did\nWolfe pick the ones he picked for the relatively few Vironese characters?\nSeems silly\nto dismiss all possibility of a connection just because you don't see it\nright away.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C805C16.8080100@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-03T02:23:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Well done. Are there any characters named Spider?\n\nBut since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a \nfabric derived from it. It has to be cotton that she is named for, not \nsilk or wool. And I'm sure it's been noticed that corn has silk too, but \nplants are female, so that meaning is ruled out for Silk. I suppose that \na chem could be named Chenille too---the rayon kind.\n\nChenille is a robot!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/2/2010 9:29 PM, Jack Smith wrote:\n\nIt's interesting that chenille can be a fabric made out of *silk* as \nwell as cotton yarn.\n\nche?nille? ?[shuh-neel]\n?noun\n1.\na velvety cord or yarn of silk or worsted, for embroidery, fringes, etc.\n2.\nfabric made with a fringed silken thread used as the weft in \ncombination with wool or cotton.\n3.\nany fabric with a protruding pile, as in certain rayon bedspreads.\n\n\n\n\nOn Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 4:46 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF \n> wrote:\n\n It's not easy to decide where to draw the line. Wolfe explains his\n naming system as little as he possibly can.\n\n On one hand, Hide, Sinew, and Horn are related names---names you\n might expect from a tribe of cattle herders, for example, because\n all are cattle parts. They are also related by being materials\n rather than animals. But not all names follow this pattern, so the\n familial nature of this group might not be applicable to all\n names. They may form a system that is limited to them alone.\n\n The simian names are all animals. Fish names are all animals. Both\n are potentially symbolic. Silk and Chenille are both materials,\n but one is from cotton and the other is not.\n\n These names might form a system, but it's hard to see how family\n relationship is one of them.\n\n\n\n --- On *Thu, 9/2/10, Lee Berman />/* wrote:\n\n\n From: Lee Berman >\n Subject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory\n To: urth at lists.urth.net \n Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 3:39 PM\n\n\n\n\n >Roy C. Lackey- Where does presumed kinship between characters\n based on name\n >associations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide\n which are\n >relevant and which are not?\n\n Seems to be an individual decision. I find Horn, Sinew, Hoof\n and Hide sufficiently\n associated as inedible beef products and family members to\n find significance in\n their names.\n\n Likewise for the prosimian members of the Ayuntamiento, Lemur,\n Loris, Potto, Tarsier...\n hm..did I forget one? I think there are no Aye Ayes or Sifakas\n in there...oh isn't there\n a Galago? (thank you internet).\n\n So those are the easy ones. Are there some harder ones? The\n names Silk and Chenille are\n related. I think Pig is probably related to Phaea just by\n name. I'd have to look into Pork\n a bit further. Maybe there is something there. Perhaps\n something connects characters with\n fish names also. There are so many, many plant and animal\n names to choose from. Why did\n Wolfe pick the ones he picked for the relatively few Vironese\n characters? Seems silly\n to dismiss all possibility of a connection just because you\n don't see it right away.\n\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T04:57:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C805C16.8080100@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Stockhoff writes:\n\nWell done. Are there any characters named Spider?\n\n\nThere is indeed. He's a spy-catcher for Potto and he has a big role in\nEftLS. He even has a guest/ghost appearance in a dream in RttW. There might\nbe a significant connection to Silk somehow.\n\nBut since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a\nfabric derived from it. It has to be cotton that she is named for, not\nsilk or wool. And I'm sure it's been noticed that corn has silk too,\nbut plants are female, so that meaning is ruled out for Silk. I\nsuppose that a chem could be named Chenille too---the rayon kind.\n\n\nIt seems to be a family decision in some cases to give children names\nthat fit with their relatives. To me, Tussah (silkworm), Silk, and\nChenille are too well matched to be coincidence. This was probably a\nparental decision." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T13:19:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff- But since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a \nfabric derived from it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nChenille is French for caterpillar. There is the fabric named chenille which has little \ncaterpillar-like piles to it. We might assume Chenille's name comes from the cotton version\nrather than the silk version but there is also a chenille plant which has drooping fuzzy\nflowers which look like caterpillars. Tussah is the name of a silkworm (a type of caterpillar)\nand also the name of a type of silk fabric.\n \n1. We could guess Silk, Chenille and Tussah are related, judging simply by their names \nalone, without the need of the other text connections.\n \n2. Silk is sort of a metrosexual mama's boy who has an animal name with somewhat feminine \nconnotations. Chenille is a big, coarse woman with a plant name that has animal associations.\n \nIt is just a drop in the bucket...one small part of the story, but to me, Wolfe's use of these \nthree names to connote both personal attributes of characters and connnections between them is \nbloody freaking brilliant. I just couldn't imagine off-handedly dismissing any perceived \nconnection between characters based on naming.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T13:27:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "p.s. I hope I'm not being too obvious by observing that Wolfe and his wife \nRosemary are the likely inspiration for the animal/plant naming convention \nof Viron. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C80F8FA.5030101@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-03T13:32:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I never heard of that plant. It fits the stated naming rules better \nthan the fabric, although those associations are not invalidated by it \nbut strengthened.\n\nHere's an image: http://www.plantcare.com/encyclopedia/chenille-plant-8.aspx\n\nNote that tussah silk is \"wild\" silkworm silk: \nhttp://www.fabrics.net/silk.asp\n\nYes, the caterpillar connection is impressive---even more so than the \nfabric connection!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2010 9:19 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff- But since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a\nfabric derived from it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chenille is French for caterpillar. There is the fabric named chenille which has little\ncaterpillar-like piles to it. We might assume Chenille's name comes from the cotton version\nrather than the silk version but there is also a chenille plant which has drooping fuzzy\nflowers which look like caterpillars. Tussah is the name of a silkworm (a type of caterpillar)\nand also the name of a type of silk fabric.\n\n1. We could guess Silk, Chenille and Tussah are related, judging simply by their names\nalone, without the need of the other text connections.\n\n2. Silk is sort of a metrosexual mama's boy who has an animal name with somewhat feminine\nconnotations. Chenille is a big, coarse woman with a plant name that has animal associations.\n\nIt is just a drop in the bucket...one small part of the story, but to me, Wolfe's use of these\nthree names to connote both personal attributes of characters and connnections between them is\nbloody freaking brilliant. I just couldn't imagine off-handedly dismissing any perceived\nconnection between characters based on naming.\n \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C80FA12.6080607@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-03T13:37:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Which they apparently did not implement in naming their own children \n... perhaps fortunately." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2010 9:27 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\np.s. I hope I'm not being too obvious by observing that Wolfe and his wife\nRosemary are the likely inspiration for the animal/plant naming convention\nof Viron. \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth.net\nSubscription/information: http://www.urth.net\n\n\n---\navast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.\nVirus Database (VPS): 100903-0, 09/03/2010\nTested on: 9/3/2010 9:27:43 AM\navast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software.\nhttp://www.avast.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "<002401cb4b91$36419580$64d34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-03T17:55:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Lee Berman quoted and wrote:\nWhere does presumed kinship between characters based on name\nassociations stop? Where does it start, and how do you decide which are\nrelevant and which are not?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Seems to be an individual decision. I find Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide\nsufficiently\nassociated as inedible beef products and family members to find\nsignificance in\ntheir names." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good for you. Beef? Last time I checked, Santa's reindeer had horns, sinews,\nhooves and hides. Then there are so many more animals, like goats and\nbuffalo and I guess I should be thankful, right down to the Marrow in my\nbones, that Bison couldn't fly, whether or not he has a Smoothbone. Hey,\nmaybe Horn's mother was Marrow's mistress and Horn was really his son, not\nSmoothbone's, which would of course put the symbolic horns of a cuckold on\nSmoothbone, so everything works out okay and they are all connected. After\nall, Smoothbone fathered a son by his second wife, and the son was named,\nyou guessed it, Stag. Perfect! Should I stop now? Just imagine where I could\ntake this if my imagination wern't so impoverished.\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Seems silly\nto dismiss all possibility of a connection just because you don't see it\nright away." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And it's worse than silly to cherry-pick the connections you like and ignore\nthose you don't.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T19:05:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<002401cb4b91$36419580$64d34a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey\nGood for you. Beef? Last time I checked, Santa's reindeer had horns, sinews,\nhooves and hides. Then there are so many more animals, like goats and\nbuffalo and I guess I should be thankful, right down to the Marrow in my\nbones, that Bison couldn't fly, whether or not he has a Smoothbone. Hey,\nmaybe Horn's mother was Marrow's mistress and Horn was really his son, not\nSmoothbone's, which would of course put the symbolic horns of a cuckold on\nSmoothbone, so everything works out okay and they are all connected. After\nall, Smoothbone fathered a son by his second wife, and the son was named,\nyou guessed it, Stag. Perfect! Should I stop now? Just imagine where I could\ntake this if my imagination wern't so impoverished." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nAw now Roy! That is just downright mean-spirited! Why the venom? Now, if the \nwhorl characters were Laplanders, your reindeer theory might have some substance. \nBut if the \"beef\" reference bothers you so much then feel free to change it to \n\"ungulate\". \n \nAnyway you aren't quite getting it. As whole animals, reindeer, goats, buffalo, \nbison and stags do not fit in with hoof, hide, etc. And cuckold, being \nderived from bird behavior, isn't even in the same ballpark. Smoothbone and \nMarrow are rather more in line with the concept." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And it's worse than silly to cherry-pick the connections you like and ignore\nthose you don't." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nNow there is as good an example of a \"pot meet kettle\" moment as you'll find \naround here. If I am guilty of scouring the tree for the sweet red cherries, \nRoy C. Lackey is at least my equal in choosing only to comment on what he \nconsiders sour, rotten cherries. \n \nFor example no comment on the prosimians of the Ayuntamiento. Nor the caterpillar, \nSilk, Chenille, Tussah connection (btw, I must give credit to Mantis for getting \nme started on that connection). To be honest, I have been pounding my forehead \ntrying to think of a way that the names Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide are not related. \nWhy does that connection suck?\n \nAnyway, I must disagree about which sort of cherry picking is worse as I consider \nwhat is left in my basket at the end of the day. And what is left in Roy's. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<001b01cb4bb6$e80d2de0$17d34a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-03T22:25:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman wrote:\nAw now Roy! That is just downright mean-spirited! Why the venom? Now, if\nthe\nwhorl characters were Laplanders, your reindeer theory might have some\nsubstance." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reindeer theory? You amaze me." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But if the \"beef\" reference bothers you so much then feel free to change\nit to\n\"ungulate\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And that wouldn't change a thing now, would it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway you aren't quite getting it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In a Pig's arse." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As whole animals, reindeer, goats, buffalo,\nbison and stags do not fit in with hoof, hide, etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They fit in just as much as beef." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And cuckold, being\nderived from bird behavior, isn't even in the same ballpark." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I keep overestimating people. And I even spelled it out." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Smoothbone and\nMarrow are rather more in line with the concept." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And it's worse than silly to cherry-pick the connections you like and\nignore\nthose you don't." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now there is as good an example of a \"pot meet kettle\" moment as you'll\nfind\naround here. If I am guilty of scouring the tree for the sweet red\ncherries,\nRoy C. Lackey is at least my equal in choosing only to comment on what he\nconsiders sour, rotten cherries." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That, at least, didn't come as a surprise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For example no comment on the prosimians of the Ayuntamiento. Nor the\ncaterpillar,\nSilk, Chenille, Tussah connection (btw, I must give credit to Mantis for\ngetting\nme started on that connection). To be honest, I have been pounding my\nforehead\ntrying to think of a way that the names Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide are not\nrelated.\nWhy does that connection suck?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You brought those things up, not me. And I cannot and will not be\n\"manipulated\" is the word you used a while back when bitching about \"mean\"\nposters (meaning mostly me) into playing your game by your rules. The\nprosimian and caterpillar associations have been bandied about on the List\nand elsewhere for years." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, I must disagree about which sort of cherry picking is worse as I\nconsider\nwhat is left in my basket at the end of the day. And what is left in\nRoy's." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, I am not surprised.\n\nMaybe I did stop too soon. Probably. But it's obviously not worth the\neffort.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C8188F1.9050107@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-09-03T23:46:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2010 2:05 PM, Lee Berman wrote:\nNow there is as good an example of a \"pot meet kettle\" moment as you'll find\naround here. If I am guilty of scouring the tree for the sweet red cherries,\nRoy C. Lackey is at least my equal in choosing only to comment on what he\nconsiders sour, rotten cherries." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is not how technical criticism works. By touting your hypothesis as \na theory, you are implicitly declaring that it has the requisite \naxiomatic, logical, and empirical support necessary to become an \naccepted part of the body of thought on the relevant subject. A person \nwho disagrees with you need only produce minimal contradictory evidence \nto consign your idea to the proper station among hypotheses, \nconjectures, and assertions, whichever that may be." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-04T01:44:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "<4C8188F1.9050107@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy: And I cannot and will not be \"manipulated\" is the word you used a while \nback when bitching about \"mean\" posters (meaning mostly me) into playing your \ngame by your rules." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nRoy, my apologies. I freely admit that, for me, what is being discussed in this forum \nare interesting stories and fun puzzles and all that I say about them is spoken in a\nlight-hearted, less-than-serious tone. I am realizing the topic has a great deal\nmore importance and seriousness to you and I apologize for offending you in regard\nto the subject. I will be more considerate of your feelings in the future. Again,\napologies. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C854E53.1050101@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-06T20:25:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Is it possible that paternal/family names are animals, and \nchildren's/first names are usually parts or products of those animals?\n\nIt just occurred to me that someone said Blood was Pike's son. That \nwould be a third case, after the Horn/Sinew/etc. system and the Silk \nfrom Tussah system. If Blood had a brother, it might be Scale or Fin.\n\nNo?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/3/2010 9:19 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff- But since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a\nfabric derived from it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chenille is French for caterpillar. There is the fabric named chenille which has little\ncaterpillar-like piles to it. We might assume Chenille's name comes from the cotton version\nrather than the silk version but there is also a chenille plant which has drooping fuzzy\nflowers which look like caterpillars. Tussah is the name of a silkworm (a type of caterpillar)\nand also the name of a type of silk fabric.\n\n1. We could guess Silk, Chenille and Tussah are related, judging simply by their names\nalone, without the need of the other text connections.\n\n2. Silk is sort of a metrosexual mama's boy who has an animal name with somewhat feminine\nconnotations. Chenille is a big, coarse woman with a plant name that has animal associations.\n\nIt is just a drop in the bucket...one small part of the story, but to me, Wolfe's use of these\nthree names to connote both personal attributes of characters and connnections between them is\nbloody freaking brilliant. I just couldn't imagine off-handedly dismissing any perceived\nconnection between characters based on naming.\n \t\t \t \t\t\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<823343.85599.qm@smtp818.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2010-09-06T20:45:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C854E53.1050101@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 21:25 06/09/2010, David Stockhoff wrote:\n Is it possible that paternal/family names are animals, and \nchildren's/first names are usually parts or products of those animals?\n\nIt just occurred to me that someone said Blood was Pike's son. That \nwould be a third case, after the Horn/Sinew/etc. system and the Silk \nfrom Tussah system. If Blood had a brother, it might be Scale or Fin.\n\nNo?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Horn's children are named after co-parts of a similar animal, not \nafter parts of a horn.\n\nAnd what might Blood's sons be called -- Corpuscle? Platelet? You'd \nreally be grasping after a couple more generations.\n\nWhile some fathers may name their sons according to a part/product \nsystem, clearly others don't, so it would probably be rash to try and \ndeduce non-obvious family relationships on such a basis.\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C856004.5010301@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-06T21:41:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<823343.85599.qm@smtp818.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I meant the family name would remain, but would be unspoken, not that \nthe son's name would become the new family name. As I said, family = \nanimals, children = parts. Or more like, patriarch = animal.\n\nBlood would be Blood (Pike), and his children Scale and Fin (Pike). It's \na system that would only work if everyone honored it, obviously. But why \nelse are some people animals and others animal parts? Why are strangers \nanimals, but those characters whose families are intimately known always \nparts? Horn is presented as a child, not a man/patriarch. Do we know his \nfather?\n\nYou're right that Horn's animal \"source\" is never named. But that isn't \nreally a problem. Just another mystery.\n\nAnother problem is female names. But since male/female names are \nparallel, they don't need to be related. Rosemary's daughters could be \nThyme and Sage, regardless of their father's identity. Icelanders do \nsomething similar.\n\nObviously I have not gone through the books to check this against every \ncharacter." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/6/2010 4:45 PM, Mo Holkar wrote:\nAt 21:25 06/09/2010, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " Is it possible that paternal/family names are animals, and \nchildren's/first names are usually parts or products of those animals?\n\nIt just occurred to me that someone said Blood was Pike's son. That \nwould be a third case, after the Horn/Sinew/etc. system and the Silk \nfrom Tussah system. If Blood had a brother, it might be Scale or Fin.\n\nNo?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Horn's children are named after co-parts of a similar animal, not \nafter parts of a horn.\n\nAnd what might Blood's sons be called -- Corpuscle? Platelet? You'd \nreally be grasping after a couple more generations.\n\nWhile some fathers may name their sons according to a part/product \nsystem, clearly others don't, so it would probably be rash to try and \ndeduce non-obvious family relationships on such a basis.\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<002901cb4e45$d458f220$6bcd4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-07T04:33:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C856004.5010301@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote:\n I meant the family name would remain, but would be unspoken, not that\nthe son's name would become the new family name. As I said, family =\nanimals, children = parts. Or more like, patriarch = animal." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not even that works. Horn's full-brothers were named Calf, Tallow and\nTongue; his full-sisters Cowslip and Oxlip. Horn's half-brothers (same\nfather) are Antler and Stag. Cricket was the name of Cowslip's son." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Blood would be Blood (Pike), and his children Scale and Fin (Pike). It's\na system that would only work if everyone honored it, obviously. But why\nelse are some people animals and others animal parts? Why are strangers\nanimals, but those characters whose families are intimately known always\nparts? Horn is presented as a child, not a man/patriarch. Do we know his\nfather?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I mentioned recently, Horn's father is Smoothbone. There is no real\npattern; Horn and Calf had the same parents.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C8634AE.7090005@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-07T12:48:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<002901cb4e45$d458f220$6bcd4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Thanks for the names, Roy. However, they generally don't test the \nhypothesis.\n\nLet me restate my hypothesis so it can be tested: every (human) \ncharacter has two names; one name is (let's say) an in-group name and \nthe other a (parental) out-group name. But only one is ever presented, \nbecause the narrator has a unique, potentially changeable relation to \nthe character.\n\nAdmittedly, this is hard to test. If every (human) character has two \nnames and only one is ever presented, then what matters is not the \ncharacter's presented name but the character's relationship to the \nnarrator. The family is the basic in-group. If Horn says, \"I once knew a \nperson named Swallowtail---\" then all we know is that the person was \nmale and was not in his family. We knew that anyway.\n\nThis isn't to argue for the idea, simply to explain that presenting \nlists of character names and the family relationship of characters to \none another does not test the idea. For example, to Horn, his father was \nSmoothbone, but if he had held a public position he might have been \ncalled (say) General Moose.\n\nIf Horn is estranged from Stag, that might work, although that gets \ndodgy. The only real problem below is Cricket. Unless Cricket's \nidentification as Cowslip's son rather than his father's son changes \nthings, that doesn't work. Who was Cricket's father? Does his name give \naway his identity?\n\nI leave this to those of you who are more familiar with the Long Sun." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/7/2010 12:33 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " I meant the family name would remain, but would be unspoken, not that\nthe son's name would become the new family name. As I said, family =\nanimals, children = parts. Or more like, patriarch = animal." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not even that works. Horn's full-brothers were named Calf, Tallow and\nTongue; his full-sisters Cowslip and Oxlip. Horn's half-brothers (same\nfather) are Antler and Stag. Cricket was the name of Cowslip's son." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Blood would be Blood (Pike), and his children Scale and Fin (Pike). It's\na system that would only work if everyone honored it, obviously. But why\nelse are some people animals and others animal parts? Why are strangers\nanimals, but those characters whose families are intimately known always\nparts? Horn is presented as a child, not a man/patriarch. Do we know his\nfather?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I mentioned recently, Horn's father is Smoothbone. There is no real\npattern; Horn and Calf had the same parents.\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-07T15:39:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C8634AE.7090005@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote:\nIt just occurred to me that someone said Blood was Pike's son. That\nwould be a third case, after the Horn/Sinew/etc. system and the Silk\nfrom Tussah system. If Blood had a brother, it might be Scale or Fin." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Blood is not a good example. We happen to know the exact circumstances\nof his naming, and Maytera Rose broke the regular convention by\ncalling him \"Bloody\" after her difficult (perhaps C-section)\nchildbirth. Since that was an adjective and not a noun it was soon\nconverted to Blood by everyone except Rose herself.\n\nIt looks like the mother has the most say about the name. Another\nexample is Nettle, named so by her mother out of dislike for her\nchild." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mr Thalassocrat", "address": "thalassocrat08 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-07T15:51:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:09 AM, Dave Tallman wrote:\n\nBlood is not a good example. We happen to know the exact circumstances of his naming, and Maytera Rose broke the regular convention by calling him \"Bloody\" after her difficult (perhaps C-section) childbirth. Since that was an adjective and not a noun it was soon converted to Blood by everyone except Rose herself.\n\nIt looks like the mother has the most say about the name. Another example is Nettle, named so by her mother out of dislike for her child.\n\n\n_______________________________________________" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Did she actually call him \"Bloody\"? I thought that was just her pet name for\nhim.\n\nOn a tangent, I wonder why Viron has this naming system, while all the other\ntowns don't?\nModulo the issue of what's being translated as against reported, the other\ntowns have naming conventions which look like they come from Urth.\n(Including white-bread Anglo names, in the case of two of the mercenaries in\nSS.)\nAre we to assume that Urth had a region with the Vironese conventions? Is\nthere anywhere like that in the real world?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<004301cb4eb5$c9bdd720$e3d14a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-09-07T17:54:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C8634AE.7090005@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff wrote:\nLet me restate my hypothesis so it can be tested: every (human)\ncharacter has two names; one name is (let's say) an in-group name and\nthe other a (parental) out-group name. But only one is ever presented,\nbecause the narrator has a unique, potentially changeable relation to\nthe character.\n\nAdmittedly, this is hard to test. If every (human) character has two\nnames and only one is ever presented, then what matters is not the\ncharacter's presented name but the character's relationship to the\nnarrator. The family is the basic in-group. If Horn says, \"I once knew a\nperson named Swallowtail---\" then all we know is that the person was\nmale and was not in his family. We knew that anyway.\n\nThis isn't to argue for the idea, simply to explain that presenting\nlists of character names and the family relationship of characters to\none another does not test the idea. For example, to Horn, his father was\nSmoothbone, but if he had held a public position he might have been\ncalled (say) General Moose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think there are any characters with two names in LS, regardless of\ntheir relationship to the narrator. Had there been, for example, when\nChenille used the glass in Siyuf's suite to try to find Auk, she could have\nused your out-group name to narrow the monitor's search for a particular\nAuk, rather than having to resort to giving his general location in the city\nand his physical description (RTTW, 226). She went about it the same way\nwhen she asked the monitor to find Orchid (227), because the monitor said\nOrchid was \"also a widely employed appellation.\"\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C86BCA3.3090702@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-07T22:28:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Which were the Anglo names? Were they trades, like Baker or Chandler?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/7/2010 11:51 AM, Mr Thalassocrat wrote:\n\n\nOn Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:09 AM, Dave Tallman > wrote:\n\n Blood is not a good example. We happen to know the exact circumstances of his naming, and Maytera Rose broke the regular convention by calling him \"Bloody\" after her difficult (perhaps C-section) childbirth. Since that was an adjective and not a noun it was soon converted to Blood by everyone except Rose herself.\n\n\n\n It looks like the mother has the most say about the name. Another example is Nettle, named so by her mother out of dislike for her child.\n\n\n\n _______________________________________________\n\nDid she actually call him \"Bloody\"? I thought that was just her pet \nname for him.\nOn a tangent, I wonder why Viron has this naming system, while all the \nother towns don't?\nModulo the issue of what's being translated as against reported, the \nother towns have naming conventions which look like they come from Urth.\n(Including white-bread Anglo names, in the case of two of the \nmercenaries in SS.)\nAre we to assume that Urth had a region with the Vironese conventions? \nIs there anywhere like that in the real world?\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C86BD65.2000602@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-07T22:32:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<004301cb4eb5$c9bdd720$e3d14a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Excellent argument. Even if Orchid's other name was somehow latent \nrather than a straightforward surname, the glass can't have an in-group \nrelation with anyone." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/7/2010 1:54 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nDavid Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Let me restate my hypothesis so it can be tested: every (human)\ncharacter has two names; one name is (let's say) an in-group name and\nthe other a (parental) out-group name. But only one is ever presented,\nbecause the narrator has a unique, potentially changeable relation to\nthe character.\n\nAdmittedly, this is hard to test. If every (human) character has two\nnames and only one is ever presented, then what matters is not the\ncharacter's presented name but the character's relationship to the\nnarrator. The family is the basic in-group. If Horn says, \"I once knew a\nperson named Swallowtail---\" then all we know is that the person was\nmale and was not in his family. We knew that anyway.\n\nThis isn't to argue for the idea, simply to explain that presenting\nlists of character names and the family relationship of characters to\none another does not test the idea. For example, to Horn, his father was\nSmoothbone, but if he had held a public position he might have been\ncalled (say) General Moose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think there are any characters with two names in LS, regardless of\ntheir relationship to the narrator. Had there been, for example, when\nChenille used the glass in Siyuf's suite to try to find Auk, she could have\nused your out-group name to narrow the monitor's search for a particular\nAuk, rather than having to resort to giving his general location in the city\nand his physical description (RTTW, 226). She went about it the same way\nwhen she asked the monitor to find Orchid (227), because the monitor said\nOrchid was \"also a widely employed appellation.\"\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mr Thalassocrat", "address": "thalassocrat08 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-08T09:53:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C86BCA3.3090702@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 7:58 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\n Which were the Anglo names? Were they trades, like Baker or Chandler?\n\nIGJ, Ch 13: Lieutenant Warren and Lieutenant Wight. \"They're from the same\ntown.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-09-08T10:33:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message ----- \nOn Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:09 AM, Dave Tallman wrote:\n\n Did she actually call him \"Bloody\"? I thought that was just her pet name for him.\n\nHe grew up with the name Blood, and it's hard to see where else he couild have got it.\n On a tangent, I wonder why Viron has this naming system, while all the other towns don't? \n Modulo the issue of what's being translated as against reported, the other towns have naming conventions which look like they come from Urth.\n (Including white-bread Anglo names, in the case of two of the mercenaries in SS.)\n Are we to assume that Urth had a region with the Vironese conventions? Is there anywhere like that in the real world? \nThere are other regions with unique conventions, though - for example the Fliers have Gaelic names - and several clearly relate to function: Sciathan (a wing), Aer (air), Iolar (an eagle). Maybe more, I don't recall others offhand.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C877A09.8000302@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-08T11:56:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Of course, no \"Anglo\" name has a simple history. But these are plainly \nBritish:*\n*\n---Warren (/woh-renn/), of old Germanic \n origin, is a common English \nlanguage masculine \n given name \n,or a surname \n meaning \"enclosure\".\n1\n/chiefly British/ /a/ *:* a place legally authorized for keeping small \ngame (as hare or pheasant) /b/ *:* the privilege of hunting game in such \na warren\n\n\n---\"Wight\" is Scottish, either from pale/fair-haired or nimble/strong.\n\n\nMy thought was that these names could be found in any language, like a \nname derived from a particular trade. But they are pretty unique, \nwhichever derivation you choose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/8/2010 5:53 AM, Mr Thalassocrat wrote:\n\n\nOn Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 7:58 AM, David Stockhoff \n> wrote:\n\n Which were the Anglo names? Were they trades, like Baker or Chandler?\n\nIGJ, Ch 13: Lieutenant Warren and Lieutenant Wight. \"They're from the \nsame town.\"\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-09-08T14:02:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C877A09.8000302@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry Quin wrote:\n\nHe grew up with the name Blood, and it's hard to see where else he\ncouild have got it.\n\n\nRose/Marble always calls him this, even in formal situations like\nintroducing him to the crowd when he came with a sacrifice. I think\nthat's the real name she gave him. The description of the bloody\nC-section birth is on p. 111 of CotLS. When she saw the baby all\nbloody from the operation she gave him that name." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On a tangent, I wonder why Viron has this naming system, while all the other towns don't?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In EftLS, p. 380, Silk points out the natural barriers between towns\nand suggests they were put there to keep the people from uniting\nagainst the Mainframe. I think the different town cultures and naming\nquirks were artificially established for the same reason. It's a bit\nlike the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C89B6FC.70007@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-09-10T04:41:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C877A09.8000302@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/8/2010 6:56 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nOf course, no \"Anglo\" name has a simple history. But these are plainly\nBritish:*\n*\n---Warren (/woh-renn/), of old Germanic\n origin, is a common English\nlanguage masculine\n given name\n,or a surname\n meaning \"enclosure\".\n1\n/chiefly British/ /a/ *:* a place legally authorized for keeping small\ngame (as hare or pheasant) /b/ *:* the privilege of hunting game in such\na warren\n\n\n---\"Wight\" is Scottish, either from pale/fair-haired or nimble/strong.\n\n\nMy thought was that these names could be found in any language, like a\nname derived from a particular trade. But they are pretty unique,\nwhichever derivation you choose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Wight\" is also a person or a less-than-a-person, and it's roots' \nassociation with underground dwellings is ancient, though perhaps not as \nprominent as Tolkein's use of the 19th century \"barrow wight\".\n\nI'm still trying to get started on the first Whorl book, but could \nWarren and Wight be from the neighborhood of one of those perpetually \nshaded places in the Whorl, where one might fear to enter a tunnel \nwarren lest one encounter the wights who inhabit it?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C8A1C57.9070001@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-09-10T11:53:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Names on the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "<4C89B6FC.70007@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Yes! I knew there must be some reason Wolfe chose them, other than \npointing to an Earthly past.\n\nI wonder if Typhon's intent was to erase all memory of Urth in peoples' \nnames. Naming themselves after objects in their environment, and their \nenvironment itself, must be a good way to do that.\n\nIt also makes the Whorlians seem more autochthonous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 9/10/2010 12:41 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\n\n\"Wight\" is also a person or a less-than-a-person, and it's roots' \nassociation with underground dwellings is ancient, though perhaps not \nas prominent as Tolkein's use of the 19th century \"barrow wight\".\n\nI'm still trying to get started on the first Whorl book, but could \nWarren and Wight be from the neighborhood of one of those perpetually \nshaded places in the Whorl, where one might fear to enter a tunnel \nwarren lest one encounter the wights who inhabit it?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C8E6FE0.2050806@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-13T18:39:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy C. Lackey\nGood for you. Beef? Last time I checked, Santa's reindeer had horns, sinews,\nhooves and hides. Then there are so many more animals, like goats and\nbuffalo and *I guess I should be thankful, right down to the Marrow* in my\nbones, that Bison couldn't fly, whether or not he has a Smoothbone. Hey,\nmaybe Horn's mother was Marrow's mistress and Horn was really his son, not\nSmoothbone's, which would of course put the symbolic horns of a cuckold on\nSmoothbone, so everything works out okay and they are all connected. After\nall, Smoothbone fathered a son by his second wife, and the son was named,\nyou guessed it, Stag. Perfect! Should I stop now? Just imagine where I could\ntake this if my imagination wern't so impoverished." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway you aren't quite getting it. As whole animals, reindeer, goats, buffalo,\nbison and stags do not fit in with hoof, hide, etc. And cuckold, being\nderived from bird behavior, isn't even in the same ballpark.\n*Smoothbone and Marrow are rather more in line with the concept*.\n[snip] To be honest, I have been pounding my forehead trying to think of a way\nthat the names Horn, Sinew, Hoof and Hide are not related.\nWhy does that connection suck?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They suck because they do. Compared to Hoof and Hide, the name \nconnection of Horn to Sinew is almost an insult. It's like saying \n\"Technically, you're my son but...\"\nOn the other hand, if Sinew were named in homage to Silk it would be \nsomething of an honor I suppose, but Horn never says that was the case. \nAnd he certainly doesn't seem inclined to bestow any special blessings \non Sinew. Horn's hostility and paranoia toward Sinew borders on deranged.\n\nBut on the issue of the names of Marrow and Sinew and Smoothbone:\n\nAs Horn leaves Lizard Island, Sinew tosses his hunting knife into the \nboat. Apparently it was an impressive throw. [OBW page 43 (paperback)]\n\nOn page 126-127:\nMarrow sees Horn off on his way to Pajarocu. Horn says \"we embraced and \nhe called me his son\". Then \"Just as Mucor had waited until I was well \nunder way and could not easily return her gift before presenting me \nwith Babbie, and as Sinew had waited before throwing me his precious \nknife, so Marrow waited before presenting me with his third and final \ngift. It was his stick, which he flung aboard in imitation of Sinew (I \nhad told him about it) when I was well away from the pier. I shouted \nthanks, and I believe I picked it up and flourished it, too, though I \ncould not help thinking about Blood's giving Patera Silk his lion-headed \nstick.\"\n\nThere are more associations in that little paragraph than one can \"shake \na stick at\", so to speak. It is packed with irony considering Horn's \nparanoia about Sinew wanting to kill him, Silk actually killing Blood, \nand, yeah, Sinew sort of killing Horn eventually. In a story, this sort \nof blatant parallel behavior (Marrow & Sinew tossing items into Horns \nboat from the pier) does _not_ mean nothing. There is enough there, that \nI would rightfully seem pig-headed if I were to be cockily derisive \nabout people supposing whether Wolfe was intending something more in the \nquite _genuine_ nominative connections between Sinew, Marrow, and Blood.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C8E901B.7040008@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-09-13T20:56:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Grand Unified Theory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee - 2. Silk is sort of a metrosexual mama's boy who has an animal name with somewhat feminine connotations." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I disagree. He has loving memories of his mother but, heck, she was his \nonly living relative and she only died a few years previously. As for \nbeing metrosexual, I don't see it. Remora's concept of his physique is \nthat he is something of a jock in appearance. In demeanor, he's a \nbespectacled intellectual (a nerd is not the right word), not a metrosexual.\n\nu+16b9" } ] } ] }