Subject: (urth) Hyacinth and Seawrack

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:30:29 +0000

I've been reading Return to the Whorl and had a question. I think it is
for James Wynn. Wasn't it you who suggested some sort of connection or
shared identity between Hyacinth and Seawrack? I tried looking/searching 
but couldn't find the post.
 
I thought of it because I ran across a section where Horn is describing
to Vadsig how he and Maytera Mint and Patera Silk and Seawrack overthrew
the Ayuntamiento.
 
If the inclusion of Seawrack was an auctorial error I'd find that pretty 
interesting, as I am more interested than most in the autobiographical
aspects of Gene Wolfe's work.
 
More likely it is an example of unreliable narrator error I suppose. As 
such my first interpretation would be that the error occurs due to 
relationship parallels. Horn's paramour is Seawrack. Pas/Typhon's paramour is 
Kypris. Silk and Hyacinth, possessing aspects of the gods, provide the bridge 
between these two pairs, thus Seawrack and Hyacinth are confused.
 
Am I missing some some real world (within the story) way that Seawrack and 
Hyacinth can be connected in the way that Silk and Horn are connected?

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From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:15:38 +0000

> but couldn't find the post.

Iirc he said Hyacinth was dream-dead-Fava.

> If the inclusion of Seawrack was an auctorial error (...)

Short of severe confusion, which I fortunately isn't the case, I find that 
simply impossible.

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:42:45 +0000

> Lee Berman-

I'm pretty sure that is not the only time the Rajan confuses Hy with 
Seawrack. I couldn't tell you exactly where. I thought there was a time 
where he talks about Hyacinth singing.

+u16b9

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From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:20:17 +0000

James Wynn wrote (21-10-2010 16:42):
> Lee Berman-
>> Am I missing some some real world (within the story) way that Seawrack
>> and Hyacinth can be connected in the way that Silk and Horn are connected?
>

There is (but don't ask me where). Hyacinth is the woman Silk ever found 
more attractive, and Seawrack is the woman Horn ever found more attractive. 
It's only natural that the Silk in Horn would sometimes make the latter mix 
up the names of the two. My grandmother quite often refers to my grandfather 
(which I've never met) as 'your father' while talking to me about old 
recollections and doesn't notice it at all, she's clearly uncounsciously 
positioning me at the son (which she never even had) level in those situations.

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From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:10:56 +0000

>Antonio P. Marques: Hyacinth is the woman Silk ever found 
>up the names of the two.
 
Yes, if the mistake is repeated then I suppose this is the most parsimonious
answer. Would have been nice (for me anyway) if there was more to it. For some
reason Wolfe is uncharacteristically heavy handed in his demonstration that Silk 
and Horn have been merged. This could just be a part of that.

---

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:12:43 +0000

James Wynn wrote:

I'm pretty sure that is not the only time the Rajan confuses Hy with
Seawrack. I couldn't tell you exactly where. I thought there was a
time where he talks about Hyacinth singing.

There is, in IGJ, p. 121. "Here I stopped to listen, for I heard
Hyacinth singing to her waves."

I believe this is more about the Narrator's identity confusion than
any real identification of Hyacinth with Seawrack. He exchanges one
love for another because he is really two men. A similar mistake is
when he addresses one of his sons as "Horn" in the last book.

The following quote shows how his memories of the women are doubled:
IGJ p. 170: "I am going to pray and go to bed and (if I cannot sleep)
daydream about the first time I lay with Seawrack on the clumsy little
sloop I built with my own hands, and loved so much, and of lying with
Hyacinth, too, in Ermine's on the night of our marriage."
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:56:56 +0000

> when he addresses one of his sons as "Horn" in the last book.

I agree. IIRC, there are also other places where Silkhorn confuses one wife
with the other, when he writes Hyacinth when he means Nettle. He also
consciously substitutes Hyacinth's name for Nettle's at least once, when he
spoke to Chandi: "As for me, I did not weep; but I was at least as homesick
as she, and when she was calmer I told her about you, Nettle, calling you
Hyacinth." (OBW, 222)

He also mentions Seawrack's singing on the same page.

-Roy

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:06:04 +0000

>> Dave Tallman-

Hmmm... perhaps. But the fact that he is aware, in this event at least, 
that he is making these transpositions gives me pause.

u+16b9

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From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:14:52 +0000

James Wynn wrote:

> In the case of Chandi, I think he makes a deliberate choice. He knows she
thinks he's Silk, and she probably knows Silk's wife's name is Hyacinth. So
to avoid confusion and mistrust, he chooses to speak of Nettle this way.
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