{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1112", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 1112, "subject": "[big spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "1956-08-28T00:02:39+00:00", "last": "2001-02-08T13:00:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-02-08T10:23:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) [big spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 2/8/01 6:35 AM, Dan Rabin at wolfe-lists at danrabin.com wrote:\nIn _Return_, we pretty much get a chapter-by-chapter alternation\nbetween the homeward-bound story and the _Whorl_ story, told in very\ndifferent styles. Homecoming-protagonist pretty much continues his\npersona from _Green's_, but as Whorl-narrator he adopts a very\nmannered avoidance of identification with the Whorl-protagonist: he\nnever names that person (always referred to via third-person pronouns\nor as \"the man who...\")." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not quite. The third-person sections are not written by the\nHomecoming-protagonist, but by the editors of BoTSS, Hoof, Hide and their\nwives, as stated in the Afterword. Which raises the question: why do the\neditors keep up the ambiguity over the protagonist's identity until almost\nthe end? One possibility is that they don't want to admit that Horn is\ndead, but there are a couple of problems with this: apparently Hide and Hoof\nnever did believe that the protagonist was Horn (see the start of Hoof's\nnarration on p. 337); and when the editors finally do name the protagonist,\nthey unambiguously call him Silk. Another case where the editors create a\nmystery and I don't see why: it's clear that \"Horn\" gives an eye to Pig, but\nas far as I can recall this is never stated.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-02-08T12:33:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) [big spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 2/8/01 5:21 PM, Dan Schmidt at dfan at harmonixmusic.com wrote:\nAdam Stephanides writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "| Not quite. The third-person sections are not written by the\n| Homecoming-protagonist, but by the editors of BoTSS, Hoof, Hide and their\n| wives, as stated in the Afterword.\n\nI thought the Afterword said that they only wrote the last couple of\nWhorl chapters (after Horn stopped writing)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No: the editors write: \"He [the protagonist] left us no written record of\nhis brief sojourns in Old Viron and the West Pole, but he spoke of them\noften. In this volume we have re-created them to the best of our ability,\nbased upon these conversations.\" (p. 409)\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeffrey Meyers", "address": "jeffmeyers at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-02-08T13:00:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) [big spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam Stephanides wrote:\nAnother case where the editors create a\nmystery and I don't see why: it's clear that \"Horn\" gives an eye to Pig, but\nas far as I can recall this is never stated." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's made explicit in one of the last few chapters. I had the same question\nafter reading the recovery room section. I wondered if \"Horn\" had donated\nhis own eye well before he is described, in passing (I can't find the page #\nnow), as having one eye, or maybe as observing someone out of his one good\neye. Someone else may be able to locate the page number.\n\nPatera Bunny\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "1956-08-28T00:02:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) [big spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 2/8/01 7:29 PM, Dan Schmidt at dfan at harmonixmusic.com wrote:\nAdam Stephanides writes:\n\n| on 2/8/01 5:21 PM, Dan Schmidt at dfan at harmonixmusic.com wrote:\n| \n| > Adam Stephanides writes:\n| >\n| > | Not quite. The third-person sections are not written by the\n| > | Homecoming-protagonist, but by the editors of BoTSS, Hoof, Hide\n| > | and their wives, as stated in the Afterword.\n| > \n| > I thought the Afterword said that they only wrote the last couple of\n| > Whorl chapters (after Horn stopped writing).\n| \n| No: the editors write: \"He [the protagonist] left us no written record of\n| his brief sojourns in Old Viron and the West Pole, but he spoke of them\n| often. In this volume we have re-created them to the best of our ability,\n| based upon these conversations.\" (p. 409)\n\nOK, we're remembering the same text, but interpreting it differently.\nI took that to mean that he did write about his earlier time in the\nWhorl (e.g., meeting Pig and Hound) but the editors picked it up after\nhe arrived in Old Viron. Otherwise I would have expected them to\nwrite 'the Whorl' rather than 'Old Viron and the West Pole'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think that when the editors say \"Old Viron,\" they are including its\nterritory as well (we are told in the list of \"Proper Names in the Text\"\nthat Endroad is subject to Viron). In any case \"Horn\" (I will leave off the\nquestion marks in the future) and company arrive in Old Viron proper in\nChapter Ten, long before the end of Horn's account. I guess it's possible\nthat Horn had written the third-person sections up to that point and the\neditors continued the third-person narrative in Horn's style and\ninterpolated sections throughout the remainder of Horn's account. But I\nvery much doubt it. For one thing, in the preceding paragraph the editors\ntell us what Horn did leave a written account of, and they don't say\nanything there about the Whorl.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }