Subject: (whorl) Requiem for a mermaid

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:34:53 +0000

No one seems to have liked my Kypris-Seawrack theory, so I've done a bit of
retooling and have come up with the following alternative:

Seawrack is driven from her underwater home by the Mother ("Time to leave
the nest, darling"), has an arm immediately amputated, is then sexually
assaulted by the surface-dweller she's been given over to (although this is
not his fault, right? "Honest, officer, the bitch's singing made me do it,
and she wouldn't shut up"), and then is abandoned by this same man after
coming to see him as her best--and possibly only--protector in a world
filled with hurt and violence.

Then a couple of years later when this same man--or maybe it's not the same
man, he sort of  looks the same, but he seems to have undergone radical
changes in personality and is missing an eye--wants to take her away from
the only world she's ever known and go off on some long-ass star junket to
the-Outsider-knows-where, once again the Mother compels her to join him,
along with his wife, pet, and former robot teacher (can anyone say ménage à
ménagerie?), and they all live happily after. The end.

In other words, the little fishy tramp gets just what she deserves.

Harrump. Given this sort of brutalization, small wonder Wolfe gets thumbs
down from so many feminists.

And yet this seems to be the version most of you prefer. Go figure.

Robert Borski

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From: David DiGiacomo <dd at adobe.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 11:42:12 +0000

>retooling and have come up with the following alternative:

Nice summary!

>down from so many feminists.

Well, he's the same guy who has teen virgin Mora expounding the "get back
on the horse"/"Friday" concept of rape.  Then there's Jahlee's "hello
soldier" reaction to her new astral humanity.

P.S. Did Babbie bite off Seawrack's arm or what?

P.P.S. No quoted-printable on the list, please.

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From: Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 17:43:27 +0000

I'm not really happy with any of the explanations so far as to why Seawrack
(and Nettle!) decide to return to the Whorl with Silk/Horn. At one point in
the book, "Horn" says that he knows how to contact the Mother and therefore
Seawrack, but that he would never do it while Nettle is alive. How does the
epiphany in Remora's house change this? If what happens is that Silk
realizes that he is Silk and not Horn, how does that free him to contact
Seawrack? Is Seawrack so totally in control of the Mother that *her* wishes
are not a factor? It doesn't seem so. So it seems a crucial question to ask
why Silk feels he can ask them to come and why Seawrack and Nettle decide
to go. 

(Of course, one answer is that Wolfe just wanted to end the story, but that
explanation isn't much fun... so regardless of what Wolfe was thinking it
makes sense to look for an answer.)

Fernando

-- 

Fernando Q. Gouvea                      
Department of Mathematics          Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online
Colby College                      Mathematical Association of America
Waterville, ME 04901               http://www.maa.org
fqgouvea at colby.edu                      
==========================================================

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat
                -- Lewis Carroll

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From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:52:44 +0000

> Seawrack is driven from her underwater home by the Mother ("Time to
> leave the nest, darling"), has an arm immediately amputated, is then
> sexually assaulted by the surface-dweller she's been given over to

I don't have OBW in front of me right now, but doesn't Seawrack claim
at one point that Horn has in fact been turned over to *her*?

BTW, speaking of mermaids what's up with "Merfrow" Cijfer anyway?
According to one online Dutch-English dictionary her name translates
to:

  1. cipher, digit, figure, numeral
  2. code, secret code

And Wijzer's name means "needle", perhaps as in a compass needle,
seems like a good name for a captain.

Shellac (coming into the home stretch on my second reading of BotSS,
having just completed my third reading of BotLS, 2,650 pages in my
editions)