{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1129",
    "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": 1129,
    "subject": "Notes from a Second Reading",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-11T12:03:02+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-11T12:03:02+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0177@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at shore.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-11T12:03:02+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Notes from a Second Reading",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "A few minor notes during a second reading:\n\n1) When Horn and Pig talk about names, Pig's first suggestion for a name for\nhimself is \"Cotton.\" Later, \"Ox,\" \"Bull,\" and \"Owl.\" Finally \"Pig.\" Any\nsignificance to the first, especially?  Also, Pig mentions at some point\naround here (which I can't find again, drat!) that he is from Nabaeantann.\nTo me, his \"Gaelic\" is more Scots (Robert Burns, e.g.) than Irish or Welsh.\nThe fliers (and this is just my impression) came across as Irish or Welsh.\n\n1a) During this exchange, Pig laughingly refers to a \"blind pig,\" which Silk\ndoesn't realize is a term for a speakeasy. A reference to Pig's past\ntroubles with \"grog.\"\n\n2) It's quite obvious to me that RttW, and to a lesser extent TBotSS as a\nwhole, is a long suicide note. Clearly Silk was in the process of committing\nsuicide due to his grief at Hyacinth's death when Horn's spirit was infused\nin his body. The book is a race between Silk's cure and his recovery of\ncontrol of his mind.\n\n2a) If Pig \"killed\" Silk and lost his \"een\" afterwards, it was the quickest\nrecovery from such massive trauma on record. Horn was added to the dying\nSilk, woke up, wandered out into the light, fell asleep, awoke on a darkday,\nand met Pig the same day. If Pig had lost his \"een\" shortly after an attack\non Silk, he would still be bleeding. Also, it's stated explicitly that this\nkilling occured in a manteion that attracted Pig as a looter due to the\nlarge size of its doors. Silk and Hyacinth lived in a \"manse\" also described\nas a \"cottage.\" Sorry, Mr. Borski, but this one just doesn't fly. On the\nother hand, the suggestion that Pig is a small-size godling is a good one;\nthere is no need for it (as Horn/Silk explains, he can as easily be a\nsuper-embryo like Silk) but it feels right. Probably the godlings of\nwhatever size are the result of genetic manipulation.\n\n2b) Somehow there is a unity among Hyacinth, Seawrack, and Kypris which I'm\nnot sure I fully apprehend. The point about Silk going off with Seawrack,\nwhom he has never met, is a good one. Are Hyacinth and Seawrack both avatars\nof Kypris? Is Seawrack an acceptable substitute for Hyacinth because she is\nso magically seductive that Silk will forget Hyacinth? Is she a replacement\nfor Hyacinth, or a successor? Is it Horn's love for Seawrack that survives\nin Silk somehow? Wolfe's view of mind-sharing seems to allow for a blending\nof characteristics over the long term, so I wouldn't rule it out. Remora's\ncouplet on p. 408 certainly makes me think of reincarnation or some other\nform of survival after death. Hyacinth may have been trodden down, yet she\nlives.\n\n2c) The business with the rings still has me confused. I didn't take notes\non it, but the ring Horn wears changes size (at one point it fits his thumb\nonly, later a finger) and appearance throughout the narrative.\n\n3) \"Thyone's son,\" apparently another avatar of the Outsider, is the Greek\nDionysus, son of Semele and Zeus. Semele's name was changed to Thyone when\nDionysus replaced Hestia in the Olympian pantheon. According to Graves, the\nname change was to avoid angering Hera. Silk seems to identify all unnamed\ngods with the Outsider.\n\n4) When Horn et al. are prisoners in Dorp, there is a reference (p 143) to\nCijfer fetching \"a bio\" to help Jahlee. I find this an interesting, if\nbaffling, statement. There are few chems on Blue. Does this mean Cijfer\n(intriguing name!) is a chem? The context is Horn wondering if there is\nanother inhuma in the house. Curious.\n\n5) p 183. Horn/Silk is wondering how he got to Green from Judge Hamer's\nsellaria with no inhumu present. He gives three possibilities: 1) Fava\nposessing Vadsig, 2) the presence of an unknown inhumu, 3) assistance by the\nNeighbors, and 4) a possibility he is \"loath to mention.\" Anyone know what\nthat possibility is? Is it, as suggested by several posters, that Horn/Silk\nhimself is an inhumu? I hate this suggestion, personally, but there is a lot\nof circumstantial evidence in its favor (and against it as well). The\nevidence in favor has been posted. The evidence against includes the fact\nthat Horn/Silk does eat, sometimes a fair amount (soup, sandwiches, wine,\netc.), that various people see him up close (Tansy bandages his wounded arm\nand comments on the scar from the white-headed ones bite, Olivine sees him\nnaked or nearly so, etc.). Also, the fact that he is still somewhat lame\nfrom a twenty-year-hold broken ankle is not usual, especially given the\nrather rough way he treated it immediately after.\n\n6) The Secret of the Inhumi. I feel a little let down here. We figured this\none out in book one. It doesn't live up to some of the remarks made about it\nby Horn himself. As we've pointed out, how would humanity in general knowing\nthe secret hurt the inhumi? Why would the inhumi care one way or another if\nthe secret came out? It's so terrible that Nettle has to leave Blue because\nSilk tells it to her. Why? What possible defense against the inhumi does\nknowing the secret enable? If anything it might influence humans to be more\ncompassionate towards creatures who are in some ways their own children, the\nbehavior we see from Horn (to some extent) and Silk.\n\n6a) The most interesting part of this is that the Neighbors introduced\ninhumi to the Whorl to see what human-inhumi would be like, as a sort of\ntest of whether humans deserved to have Blue and Green. So, they did this\ntest, liked the results, and gave Blue to humanity in the form of Horn,\nperhaps because he was the first human to approach an accord with an inhumu\n(Krait).\n\n6b) How is Jahlee Horn's daughter, other than by adoption? Krait is\ncertainly Horn's son (not grandson) in the sense that he shares Sinew's\nblood and mind, but Jahlee? I hate neat coincidences of the sort that\nprovides Jahlee, Krait's mother, as the randomly chosen inhuma dug up from\nthe plaza in Gaon. Even Shakespeare would blush at that coincidence.\n\nEnough for now.\n\n    Dave Lebling\n    aka vizcacha\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}