{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1225", "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": 1225, "subject": "Requiem for a mermaid", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2001-02-23T11:42:12+00:00", "last": "2001-02-26T10:52:44+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-02-23T12:34:53+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Requiem for a mermaid", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No one seems to have liked my Kypris-Seawrack theory, so I've done a bit of\nretooling and have come up with the following alternative:\n\nSeawrack is driven from her underwater home by the Mother (\"Time to leave\nthe nest, darling\"), has an arm immediately amputated, is then sexually\nassaulted by the surface-dweller she's been given over to (although this is\nnot his fault, right? \"Honest, officer, the bitch's singing made me do it,\nand she wouldn't shut up\"), and then is abandoned by this same man after\ncoming to see him as her best--and possibly only--protector in a world\nfilled with hurt and violence.\n\nThen a couple of years later when this same man--or maybe it's not the same\nman, he sort of looks the same, but he seems to have undergone radical\nchanges in personality and is missing an eye--wants to take her away from\nthe only world she's ever known and go off on some long-ass star junket to\nthe-Outsider-knows-where, once again the Mother compels her to join him,\nalong with his wife, pet, and former robot teacher (can anyone say ménage à\nménagerie?), and they all live happily after. The end.\n\nIn other words, the little fishy tramp gets just what she deserves.\n\nHarrump. Given this sort of brutalization, small wonder Wolfe gets thumbs\ndown from so many feminists.\n\nAnd yet this seems to be the version most of you prefer. Go figure.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David DiGiacomo", "address": "dd at adobe.com" }, "date": "2001-02-23T11:42:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Requiem for a mermaid", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No one seems to have liked my Kypris-Seawrack theory, so I've done a bit of\nretooling and have come up with the following alternative:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nice summary!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Harrump. Given this sort of brutalization, small wonder Wolfe gets thumbs\ndown from so many feminists." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, he's the same guy who has teen virgin Mora expounding the \"get back\non the horse\"/\"Friday\" concept of rape. Then there's Jahlee's \"hello\nsoldier\" reaction to her new astral humanity.\n\nP.S. Did Babbie bite off Seawrack's arm or what?\n\nP.P.S. No quoted-printable on the list, please.\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Fernando Q. Gouvea", "address": "fqgouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "2001-02-23T17:43:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) requiem for a mermaid", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not really happy with any of the explanations so far as to why Seawrack\n(and Nettle!) decide to return to the Whorl with Silk/Horn. At one point in\nthe book, \"Horn\" says that he knows how to contact the Mother and therefore\nSeawrack, but that he would never do it while Nettle is alive. How does the\nepiphany in Remora's house change this? If what happens is that Silk\nrealizes that he is Silk and not Horn, how does that free him to contact\nSeawrack? Is Seawrack so totally in control of the Mother that *her* wishes\nare not a factor? It doesn't seem so. So it seems a crucial question to ask\nwhy Silk feels he can ask them to come and why Seawrack and Nettle decide\nto go. \n\n(Of course, one answer is that Wolfe just wanted to end the story, but that\nexplanation isn't much fun... so regardless of what Wolfe was thinking it\nmakes sense to look for an answer.)\n\nFernando" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea \nDepartment of Mathematics Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online\nColby College Mathematical Association of America\nWaterville, ME 04901 http://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu \n==========================================================\n\n\"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?\"\n\n\"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,\" said the Cat\n -- Lewis Carroll\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "2001-02-26T10:52:44+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) requiem for a mermaid", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Robert Borski\" \nSeawrack is driven from her underwater home by the Mother (\"Time to\nleave the nest, darling\"), has an arm immediately amputated, is then\nsexually assaulted by the surface-dweller she's been given over to" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't have OBW in front of me right now, but doesn't Seawrack claim\nat one point that Horn has in fact been turned over to *her*?\n\nBTW, speaking of mermaids what's up with \"Merfrow\" Cijfer anyway?\nAccording to one online Dutch-English dictionary her name translates\nto:\n\n 1. cipher, digit, figure, numeral\n 2. code, secret code\n\nAnd Wijzer's name means \"needle\", perhaps as in a compass needle,\nseems like a good name for a captain.\n\nShellac (coming into the home stretch on my second reading of BotSS,\nhaving just completed my third reading of BotLS, 2,650 pages in my\neditions)\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }