{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1137",
    "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": 1137,
    "subject": "Digest whorl.v012.n045",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-12T12:00:33+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-12T12:00:33+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0192@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "akt",
        "address": "akt at attglobal.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-12T12:00:33+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v012.n045",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "From mantis:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This scene is a series of painful shocks: the death of Jahlee and the\nunspoken denunciation of Horn/Silk.\n\nThe death of Jahlee bugs alga more than anything else in RTTW, so I'm\nsurprised she hasn't mentioned it yet <g>.  Here is how I see it right\nnow:\nit is very much like the situation in HUCKLEBERRY FINN, where Twain\nfound\nhimself with a problem.  The runaway slave and the white trash boy,\nhappy\nand free together on their river journey . . . are floating toward the\nslave block.  Going the wrong way.  (IIRC, Twain himself put the\nhalf-finished manuscript aside for many years, unable to work around\nthis\nproblem; he finally solved it by introducing Tom Sawyer, who made a\nburlesque of the whole thing).\n\nBut what if Huck had to deal with a more realistic, less forgiving\nsituation?  Now we switch back to BOTSS, and how happy we were when\nHorn/Silk called Jahlee his daughter at the end of IGJ!  And they\ncontinued\nto \"flow down the river\" toward Lizard Island and disaster.\n\nBut why?  Why is Jahlee so bent on it?  Well, judging by what happens,\nwe\ncan guess a certain ill intent.  And what is Horn/Silk's problem that\nhe\ncannot dissuade her: is he simply too soft-hearted, to the point that\nhe is\nbeing taken in by \"Honest John\"?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Big \"Blade Runner\" and other snip.\n\nI don't have an actual physical copy of RttW handy, so I can't be\nspecific on details. But I really do have problems with the book--a few\nposts back on the Urth list, I defended the fifth book of the first\nseries as adding a great deal to what had come before. I don't feel that\nway about RttW, however. A lot of it seems rather cursory to me, an\nauthor's half-hearted attempt at tying up loose ends (and yes, the\ncomparison with -Huckleberry Finn- is valid; that book also famously\nsuffers from author fatigue). And mantis also is right about my\nindignation re Jahlee. The last few paragraphs of IGJ seemed so\nbeautiful to me, rather like Chaucer, with that thrilling last line to b\noot. To turn her into a B-movie predator at the last moment seems to me\nto betray the immense and thoughtful journey Wolfe had previously taken\nus on wrt the relationship of the inhumi and the humans and--agreeing\nwith some of my favorite adversaries here--the mythic nature of the\ndemon. Some of the intelligent discussion on this list concerning\nNettle's double shock, first regarding Silk's \"rights,\" and second that\nhe would bring an inhuma to the island under any circumstances,\nconsidering their history (hers and Horn's), has modified my opinion.\nbut I still consider Jahlee's attack and death crude and unworthy. Nor\ndo I think that some of the other business (the godling, the drafting of\nSeawrack--and Nettle too--at the last moment. etc.) seems very\nthought-through. More like Wolfe just wanted to be done with the whole\ndamn thing with a few Hollywood effects (the godling) just thrown in.\nAnd, for me, Pig's Scots accent was pathetic, an irritating, amateurish\ncaricature. Come to think of it, I didn't much care for Pig, though I\nfelt that I was being forced to by the author. OK, I'm cranky, but I\ndidn't feel this book worked very well as a grand wind-up to the series.\n\n-alga\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}