{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/989", "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": 989, "subject": "Hues, HORARS: II", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-07-14T14:34:16+00:00", "last": "1998-07-15T17:15:54+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-07-14T14:34:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Hues, HORARS: II", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In a previous post I mentioned how I thought \"The HORARS of War\" and \"All\nthe Hues of Hell\" were part of the same story cycle. Time now to examine\nwhat I think each means and how they may be further interrelated.\n\nHORARS is an updated Golem story (which basically Mary Shelley's\nFRANKENSTEIN also is). As God has done with us, so have we humans done with\nthe Homolog ORganisms (Army Replacement Simulations). But whereas God has\ncreated us in His image out of love, we create the HORARS for less noble\nreasons. We certainly don't love them; in fact there's evidence most\nordinary humans revile them. But if it's a choice between us dying in\ncombat with the Enemy or the HORARS, hey, we'll gladly let them be our our\ncorporal stand-ins, i.e., the HORARS are bodies only (whores), fit only for\nacting out our vile needs. (We're their puppeteers, as we are Pinocchios,\nthe robot tank.) \n\nOf course the HORARS eventually turn on us, their masters, just as the\nJewish Golem and Frankenstein's monster do (a consequence of hubris, I\nwarrant; of our trying to usurp God). In this case 2910, the viewpoint\ncharacter, kills Brenner, the Synthetic Biology Services rep, who\nsymbolizes the HORARS' creator. (Brenner, I believe, is named after Sydney\nBrenner, famed director of the Cambridge Molecular Biology Laboratory, and\nwhose pioneering work in genetics parallels that of James Crick and Francis\nWatson). \n\n2910 also believes he is human, and much of the subtext plays to him being\na Christ figure--like Jesus, he's an intermediary, only between man and\nmachine--but there seems little doubt he is actually a HORAR. He is also\nreporter Keith Thomas, of course, the one person besides a few key generals\nwho allegedly knows 2910 is human and to whom he gives his reports as field\ncorrespondent. This is implied by the story's last two paragraphs, as well\nas the name Keith Thomas. Keith means \"wind\" and 2910 has memories of\ngrowing up in Chicago (aka The Windy City), while Thomas means \"twins,\"\nsymbolizing I believe he is 2910's alter ego, an implanted memory that\nresurrects itself schizoaffectively every two weeks so he can \"accept\" and\nfile his own field reports.\n\nAnybody remember the Burt Reynolds-Woody Allen sperm scene from EVERYTHING\nYOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK? I think \"All the Hues\nof Hell\" is somewhat similar, only the local event we're witnessing is the\ncreation via artificial insemination of a HORAR. It's a prequel in other\nwords. The Egg is the female gamete; the shadow matter is seminal fluid;\nand the \"demon\" is an optimized DNA program, the genetic blueprints for a\nHORAR. \n\nObserve the following bit of dialogue, when Jansen is talking about Kyle's\n\"soul,\" which the cyborg describes in terms of a computer program (note too\nthat \"horrors\" refers to the shadow demon): \"I suppose it [Kyle's soul] may\nbe put into one of these horrors [HORARS]. They seem more machine than\nhuman, at least to me.\" [ES, p.339] Given our last description of 2910,\nwith his metallic leg, this seems to jibe with the \"more machine than\nhuman\" description. As do the HORARS overall, who can run \"miles without\ntiring and only sleep a couple of hours a night.\"\n\nOther evidence we're witnessing an artificial insemination: much of what we\nsee of the Shadow world in the monitors seems as if it could also be\ndescriptions of ultrasound imagery, and there's a predominance of pink and\nblue, the traditional baby colors, with blue--i.e., a male fetus is being\ncreated--coming to dominate.\n\nAnd of course, because this is an immaculate conception of sorts, albeit a\nscientific rather than a divine one, we have all sorts of religious\nsubtext. Polyaris, of course, is the Paraclete, shouting \"Ghost! Ghost!\nGHOST!\" on one hand and warning of Danger, Fire and Catastrophe on the\nother. He's also the false star of Bethlehem--like the other Polaris, a\nfixed star used for navigational purposes. Meaning this is no Christ being\nborn and damnation may not be far off. \n\nThere's also the character Jansen, who I believe is named after Abraham\nJansen, a Flemish artist famous for his religious paintings. Just as he\ncould see angels and paint them into The Adoration of the Magi, so too can\nhe see the captured shadow demon without special equipment. The Jansen of\nHues is also diagnosed as both dead and insane, signifying the abdication\nof belief in a world where man has usurped God as prime creator.\n\nIn fact, both stories seem to be cautionary tales about the ill-advisedness\nof tampering with nature, especially in regards to eugenics and attempting\nto improve on God's greatest creation, you, me and all the rest of our\nfellow Homo sapiens--hardly surprising caveats from a writer of Gene\nWolfe's Catholicity. \n\nRobert Borski " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-07-15T17:15:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Hues, HORARS: II", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Robert Borski wrote:\nHORARS is an updated Golem story (which basically Mary Shelley's\nFRANKENSTEIN also is). As God has done with us, so have we humans done with\nthe Homolog ORganisms (Army Replacement Simulations). But whereas God has\ncreated us in His image out of love, we create the HORARS for less noble\nreasons. We certainly don't love them; in fact there's evidence most\nordinary humans revile them. But if it's a choice between us dying in\ncombat with the Enemy or the HORARS, hey, we'll gladly let them be our our\ncorporal stand-ins, i.e., the HORARS are bodies only (whores), fit only for\nacting out our vile needs. (We're their puppeteers, as we are Pinocchios,\nthe robot tank.) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[...]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In fact, both stories seem to be cautionary tales about the ill-advisedness\nof tampering with nature, especially in regards to eugenics and attempting\nto improve on God's greatest creation, you, me and all the rest of our\nfellow Homo sapiens--hardly surprising caveats from a writer of Gene\nWolfe's Catholicity. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "HORARS seems to me to be more fundamentally yet another example of one of\nWolfe's favorite themes, the narrator who doesn't know who or what he is,\nand who is ignorant of his true role in the world. I suppose this is also\na pretty Christian theme--that fallen humans don't know who they are,\ndon't know the story the are a part of.\n\nI think the irony of the narrator's pretending to be something he already\nis (does the text leave open the possibility that he really is human after\nall?) is more central to the story than a warning about not tampering with\nnature. The moral seems not so much that the HORARS shouldn't have been\ncreated in the first place (lest they rise up against us), but that we\nshouldn't treat as sub-human creatures that seems so human (\"For all you\nknow, you might be one too!\").\n\nHues is one of the few Wolfe stories I neither like nor get (probably some\nrelation there), so I'm not going to try discussing it. \n\nAnyone up for making a list of Wolfe stories where the narrator is\nmistaken about his own identity? Off the top of my head: \n\n\"HORARS\"\n\"The Other Dead Man\"\n\"Checking Out\"\n\"The Changeling\"\n\"Tracking Song\"\n\"Forlesen\"\n\nLatro\nBoth Severian and Silk to some extent\nMaybe Weer in PEACE\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }