{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1210", "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": 1210, "subject": "pigs, Sheep & Wolves", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-02-21T15:14:53+00:00", "last": "2001-02-21T16:37:31+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Patrick O'Leary", "address": "poleary at sloth.cecom.com" }, "date": "2001-02-21T15:14:53+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) pigs, Sheep & Wolves", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fascinating stuff, buds.\n\nAs always I swing between being intimidated by the depth of your analysi\n\nand annoyed by the cockamamie conclusions you sometimes leap to.\nBut I'm always grateful to share this obsession.\n\nAdam: Thank you for your lucid and sane comments. Your take on the\nending\nis dead on, I believe. Silk lives. Horn has laid down his life. I can't\nthink of any other way to\nread it.\n\nThings I'd argue against:\n\n1. Passilk does not infiltrate Silk in Pig's Post-Op scene. Yes, there\nis a monitor.\nBut where do we see the evidence of this occurring?\nDoes Silk behave differently after this scene?\n\n2. Pig is not Tartaros. True, Both are blind. Pig was wounded so. Wasn't\nTartaros born blind?\n\n3. Pig is not a godling. Think of difference between the two: One an\nartificial being (a combo of\nchem and Super Talus, I'd say)\nand a three dimensional human character. If the godlings' mission is to\nproclaim the will of\nPassilk to the whorl does it make any\nsense for them to speak in an strange difficult to parse dialect like\nPig, or the slow, easily\nunderstood child speak of the godling.\nStructurally, think of how awkward it is to have TWO godlings in the\nsame place (Blood's\npalace). It lacks all the elegance\nand engineering soundness we find continually in Wolfe's fiction. It\nmakes no sense to me.\n\nOn the issue of Wolfe's obscurity I see three alternatives:\n\n1. Lazy and pretentious\n2. Unconscious and sloppy\n3. Deep and deliberate\n\nI go for three (I doubt this surprises anyone).\n\nThough I should add an amusing personal note. Wolfe has read and deeply\nappreciates John Clute's\nSF Weekly Review of RTTW.\nHe wrote me that \"I only wish I understood why Clute thinks those books\nso difficult.\" (Meaning\nthe Short Sun Books)\n\"It's a simple quest story with a fold.\"\n\nI think he is being coy here and I told him so.\n\nFor me the most obscure parts of RTTW are the Scylla parts. After two\nreads I'm still not sure I\nreally really get it.\n\nOh. And one last thing. I pay particular attention to the openings of\nWolfe's books.\n\nHe usually plants important clues there.\n\nHere's one I rediscovered on the first page of ON BLUE'S WATERS p. 13\n(in the opening letter).\n\n\"There are many beds of hide.\"\n\nWhich I take to mean several things.\n\n1. This is a work of multiple layers.\n2. Many characters will be sleeping in each other.\n3. People will cover and obcure themselves in other creatures' skins.\n\nFun, eh?\n\nPatrick O'Leary\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-02-21T16:37:31+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) pigs, Sheep & Wolves", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 03:14 PM 2/21/01 -0500, Patrick O'Leary wrote:\n2. Pig is not Tartaros. True, Both are blind. Pig was wounded so. Wasn't\nTartaros born blind?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, and (reading between the lines) with a damaged visual cortex, so that\nhe *can't* see. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3. Pig is not a godling. Think of difference between the two: One an\nartificial being (a combo of chem and Super Talus, I'd say)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. I'm not sure why anyone assumed that the godlings are fleshy--did I\nmiss something? (Well, obviously I missed something. Did I miss something\ngermane to this question?)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games \n kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2001-02-21T16:01:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) pigs, Sheep & Wolves", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Though I should add an amusing personal note. Wolfe has read and deeply\nappreciates John Clute's\nSF Weekly Review of RTTW." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that being the case, I must bow and admit that Horn is dead and Silk\nlives. I was never certain, but I thought a case should be made for the\nHorn Lives standpoint. I'll have to rethink a few categories...\n\nPatera Nutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }