Silk & Horn
The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 29 Jan 2001
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1077

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Michael Straight — 29 Jan 2001, 23:59

If Silk was used to fasting and eating very lightly all his life, then
Horn/Silk would probably get sick if he tried to eat as much as Horn was
used to eating.  Thus all the fuss about not eating -- Horn wants to eat,
but knows he'll regret it if he does.

If Horn is always trying to think/act like Silk, and all we know of Silk
is what Horn (and Nettle) wrote about him, then it's real hard for us to
tell the difference between Horn acting the way he thinks Silk would act
and Horn being influenced by whatever's left of Silk in his body (apart
from that weird bit where he mention's hearing Hyacinth singing in the
distance).  I submit that if we see Horn/Silk acting in some way that is
out of character for both Horn and Silk-as-Horn-describes-him, then that
is likely bits of the real Silk that Horn never knew.

In that vein, I've wondered if the reason Horn doesn't seem to want to
admit that he's in Silk's body is that he found himself in what appeared
to be an attempted suicide, and he can't believe that Silk would do such a
thing (as some of us can't believe it -- but then we've only seen Silk
through Horn's eyes).  It's been long enough since he last saw Silk that
looking in the mirror might not be conclusive.  Maybe part of him strongly
suspects it, but another part wants to believe that it's really someone
else.

-Rostrum


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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