{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1214", "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": 1214, "subject": "Pig as godling", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-02-21T17:01:44+00:00", "last": "2001-02-22T00:52:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-02-21T17:01:44+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Pig as godling", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Patrick O'Leary having written:\n\n<3. 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) and a three dimensional human character. If\nthe godlings' mission is to proclaim the will of Passilk to the whorl does\nit make any sense for them to speak in an strange difficult to parse dialect\nlike Pig, or the slow, easily understood child speak of the godling.\nStructurally, think of how awkward it is to have TWO godlings in the same\nplace (Blood's\npalace). It lacks all the elegance and engineering soundness we find\ncontinually in Wolfe's fiction. It\nmakes no sense to me.>\n\nIf I read you correctly, Patrick, you seem to be denying the possibility of\neven small godlings in general, whereas Wolfe at least mentions them twice.\n\nThe first comes in OBW: \"It may be that our gods did not come among us\nexcept by enlightenment and possession because they were too large to do so;\neven the godlings that they send among the people now are, *for the most\npart,* immense.\" [Italics mine.]\n\nThe second mention is more implied than cited, but comes courtesy of the\ncorn farmer and his wife. When the former suggests that the source of Horn's\nwounds may be a godling, the latter avers that \"a godling would have killed\nhim,\" only to have her husband further amend this to, \"*Big one* would've.\"\n[Ditto.]\n\nThink Chekhov's gun here. Why have two differently-sized godlings if you're\nnot going to use them? It belies the very elegance and engineering soundness\nyou cite. Or do you have another candidate in mind for a smaller godling?\nOnly Pig of all the characters we meet is intermediate in size, if scaled to\nmore human dimensions. And I can't see Wolfe being this coincidentally\nsloppy.\n\nAs for Pig's dialect being too difficult to parse for a godling, you're\nbeing too parochial. There are many dialects and tongues on the Whorl.\nSurely, the godling who's sent among, say, the Whorl equivalent of Dorp\nwould communicate in the fractured yoda-speak they use. Pig--who claims he's\nbeen on the road for over a year and is thus far from home--might therefore\nbe quite easily understood in cities and towns that speak his same dialect.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2001-02-22T00:09:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Re: Pig as godling", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 5:01 PM -0600 2/21/01, Robert Borski wrote:\nPatrick O'Leary having written:\n\n<3. 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) and a three dimensional human character. If\nthe godlings' mission is to proclaim the will of Passilk to the whorl does\nit make any sense for them to speak in an strange difficult to parse dialect\nlike Pig, or the slow, easily understood child speak of the godling.\nStructurally, think of how awkward it is to have TWO godlings in the same\nplace (Blood's\npalace). It lacks all the elegance and engineering soundness we find\ncontinually in Wolfe's fiction. It\nmakes no sense to me.>\n\nIf I read you correctly, Patrick, you seem to be denying the possibility of\neven small godlings in general, whereas Wolfe at least mentions them twice.\n\nThe first comes in OBW: \"It may be that our gods did not come among us\nexcept by enlightenment and possession because they were too large to do so;\neven the godlings that they send among the people now are, *for the most\npart,* immense.\" [Italics mine.]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wow, Robert! This is most impressive. Wolfe mentioned godlings in OBW \nand I had totally forgotten it until you mentioned it. Could you give \nthe page number for this passage, please?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The second mention is more implied than cited, but comes courtesy of the\ncorn farmer and his wife. When the former suggests that the source of Horn's\nwounds may be a godling, the latter avers that \"a godling would have killed\nhim,\" only to have her husband further amend this to, \"*Big one* would've.\"\n[Ditto.]\n\nThink Chekhov's gun here. Why have two differently-sized godlings if you're\nnot going to use them? It belies the very elegance and engineering soundness\nyou cite. Or do you have another candidate in mind for a smaller godling?\nOnly Pig of all the characters we meet is intermediate in size, if scaled to\nmore human dimensions. And I can't see Wolfe being this coincidentally\nsloppy.\n\nAs for Pig's dialect being too difficult to parse for a godling, you're\nbeing too parochial. There are many dialects and tongues on the Whorl.\nSurely, the godling who's sent among, say, the Whorl equivalent of Dorp\nwould communicate in the fractured yoda-speak they use. Pig--who claims he's\nbeen on the road for over a year and is thus far from home--might therefore\nbe quite easily understood in cities and towns that speak his same dialect." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree with your reasoning here completely, Robert.\n\nWolfe has done this kind of thing before, too. Remember the the \"baby \nundine\" in TUotNS? Her name was Idas. She was masquerading as a tall \nman, but she was really just a young girl.\n\nAnd you have left out what, for me, is the clincher. The ears! \nGodlings have \"bestial, pointed ears\" (RttW, p. 53). When Horn \nrefuses to allow Pig to return to Blue with him, Pig first assumes \nthat it is because Horn had seen his ears (\"Seen me h'ears\" is what \nPig says on p. 372.) What in the whorl can this mean except that Pig \n*is* a small godling. (Now exactly why Pig assumes that this would \nmake Horn refuse to take him along, I can't say.) If Wolfe doesn't \nintend this reading, why does he give the godlings pointed ears? It \nseems, to me, like an atypical touch for him. What else could have \nbeen special about Pig's ears?\n\nPlus we are told that godlings have claws on p. 139, and Pig's nails \nare described as claw-like several times. You take take this as \nevidence for some sort of Pig-Babbie identity; I just think it is \nanother \"Pig is a little godling\" clue.\n\nNow I don't buy the Pig-Tartaros or Pig-Babbie connection and I don't \nthink Pig killed Silk, but I am right with you on \"Pig is a goldling.\"\n\nHey guys! If Robert and I can agree on something, how can anyone else doubt it?\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-02-22T00:52:39+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Re: Pig as godling", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The unusually-gracious-of-late William Ansley having written:\n\n\n\np. 157, paragraph 6.\n\n\n\n\n\nSo maybe pigs do sometimes fly, eh, William? Now if I can just get you to\nconsider the notion that all godlings are under the control of Mainstream,\nand ask you why you think Wolfe might have chosen to make Pig a godling as\nopposed to someone, say, like Auk (although the two do bear a fair amount of\nsimilarity), then perhaps we can get away from the usual applied sarcasm and\nhave a genuine discussion.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }