{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1165",
    "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": 1165,
    "subject": "Silk's suicide",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-02-14T21:40:28+00:00",
    "last": "2001-02-14T21:40:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0235@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-02-14T21:40:28+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Silk's suicide",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "on 2/13/01 3:37 AM, Robert Borski at rborski at charter.net wrote:\n\"[I] found myself upon my knees besides the open coffin of a middle-aged\nwoman. My hands and arms and face and neck were all bleeding, and an old,\nworn knife covered with blood was by my hand. There was no one else in the\npoor little house in which I knelt, and almost nothing in it that was not\ntorn or broken.\" (p. 127)\n\nTo Adam Stephanides and vizcacha: are you now still going to argue that Silk\nhas suffered a failure of nerve and cut himself not only on the arms, but\nhis hands, his face and his neck too? Good grief; if so, it has to be one of\nthe strangest suicide attempts in fiction. And how also do you account for\nthe torn and broken nature of the manse's appurtenances? That Silk, while he\nwas cutting himself all over, decided to trash the place?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "vizcacha may concede on the details, but I'm not about to.  It seems quite\nplausible to me that Silk, insane with grief, wrecked his place.  Nor is it\nimpossible that he would slash himself, too, under the same impulse.  Or the\ncuts on his face and neck may have been accidentally acquired while he was\ndestroying things.\n\nIn further support of the suicide theory, we are told that Silk has \"oozing\ncuts in both his arms and both his wrists.\"  This sounds much more like a\nsuicide attempt than like something inflicted by someone else, either\nrandomly or deliberately.  It's certainly unlikely as a result of Pig\nblindly flailing about, if that's what you want us to believe (it would make\nmore sense for Pig to grab Silk, hold tight, and then stab; but that's not\nlikely to leave the wounds Silk receives, either).  And the alternative is\nthat some unknown person or group decides, for some unknown reason, to leave\nSilk half-dead and trash his house, just when he has every reason to feel\nsuicidal.  (And I don't buy Alex David Gorce's argument that Silk kills\nhimself only passively, either; jumping off an airship doesn't strike me as\nany more passive than slashing yourself.)\n\nSpectacled Bear writes:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "My personal theory is that he wasn't trying to kill himself, either,\nbut did all the damage in a frenzy of grief. Rending his garments\nand all that sort of thing."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is a possibility, but given that Silk has attempted suicide before and\nwill again, and given the Neighbor's statement that Silk's \"spirit is\ndying,\" suicide seems the likeliest bet.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}