Subject: (whorl) Horn Dies

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:11:24 +0000

THANK YOU! It all makes sense to me now. Yes, Horn has died. Got it.
Thank you. I'd missed this.

And it raises more thoughts for those of us sympathetic to Wolfe's
Christian standpoint. Silk's own death/resurrection does seem to lead to a
shift from animal sacrifices to bread & wine. We don't see this (as I
recall) in the Long Sun series, but Olivine is aware of it. But then Horn
recapitulates this experience, and comes to be "in union with Silk," and
says that the bread and wine he offers with Olivine is "his" body and
blood. Recall that according to Paul in 1 Corinthians, the bread represents
both Jesus and ALSO the Church. I now suspect that this is part of what is
going on.

Finally, I strongly suspect that the answer to the question of how the book
ends, one way or another, is that as both Silk and Horn have "died," yet both
continue to live IN SILK'S BODY.

Patera Nutria

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---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:22:08 +0000

I wrote:
> ... isn't a Return to the World another word for
> resurrection?

I know, I know. It's not a wor, it's a phrase.

Blatt, blatt, blatt.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:21:04 +0000

PatRat wrote:

 (quoting moi)
 >3.2.2 His death is the necessary step that makes it possible
 >for Horn to bring corn back to the starving people of New
 >Viron -- the Wasteland,

> THANK YOU! 

Y'welcome.

> Yes, Horn has died. 

Right -- but he got better. Sort of...

> Christian standpoint. 

That's you, me, and Alex ... is anyone else on this list explicitly 
Christian? (Is _anyone_ but me on this list explicitly Catholic?)

> Silk's own death/resurrection does seem to lead to a shift
> from animal sacrifices to bread & wine. We don't see this 
> (as I recall) in the Long Sun series [...]

I seem to recall (having reread the series in January) 
something about Silk deciding not to sacrifice animals 
anymore? Certainly one of the major turning points in his 
own spiritual journey is the decision not to sacrifice Oreb
(though the decision is sort of, kind of made for him?).

> But then Horn recapitulates this experience, 

'sfunny: Horn's sacrifice in IGJ reminded me very 
powerfully of the Pendragon's supper in THAT HIDEOUS
STRENGTH (which itself was apparently designed to recall
not only the Passover but a scene in a George MacDonald
book I haven't read. Actually, I haven't read any 
MacDonald at all...). I vaguely wonder if this is
deliberate. 

> and comes to be "in union with Silk," and says that 
> the bread and wine he offers with Olivine is "his"
> body and blood. 

Sounds familiar, eh? 8*)

> Recall that according to Paul in 1 Corinthians,
> the bread represents both Jesus and ALSO the
> Church. 

Well, the Bread becomes (or represents for the heretical
Protestants in the audience -- JOKING!) the Body of Christ;
and the Church is also the Body of Christ; the Body of 
Christ is undivided, present whole in each wafer; ergo, 
the Body of Christ is eating the Body of Christ in order
to become more closely united with/more like Christ.

We now return to the question of the Alzabo. Devouring
Thecla's flesh, with the help of that strange creature's
gland, Severian becomes united with Thecla. Ditto the
inheritance of the Autarchy. (What would happen, one
wonders, if a reigning Autarch were accidentally killed
and devoured at one of the feasts held by Vodalus or his
predecessors/successors? A whole lot of Autarchs at once?)

So ... Is little Severian's father actually present in
the alzabo? [Does an alzabo have Severian's-father-nature?
Five pounds of flax.]

> I now suspect that this is part of what is going on.

I've been looking for this sort of connection in Wolfe for
-- gulp! -- goin' on 20 years now -- I read SWORD within 
days of its hitting the shelves & the resonance of Typhon's
temptation of Severian was so blatant that I wound up going
back and noticing "Oh, he brings back the dead, he turns
water into wine ... Duh ..." So when I see bread in close
proximity to wine, the connection is there.

More fun for me, in many ways, is noticing Wolfe's non-
Biblical sources -- for example, Silk as a pretty darned
blatant hommage or pastiche or whatever of GKC's Father 
Brown. (I strongly suspect that Chesterton stands to 
Wolfe much as MacDonald is Lewis: "I fancy that I have 
never written a book in which I did not quote MacDonald.") 

> Finally, I strongly suspect that the answer to the
> question of how the book ends, one way or another,
> is that as both Silk and Horn have "died," yet both

Bingo.

And isn't a Return to the World another word for
resurrection?

---

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 15:02:42 +0000

> Christian? (Is _anyone_ but me on this list explicitly Catholic?)

I am, and as a fairly recent convert should probably be expected to be
obnoxious about it or something...

> More fun for me, in many ways, is noticing Wolfe's non- Biblical
> sources -- for example, Silk as a pretty darned blatant hommage or
> pastiche or whatever of GKC's Father Brown. (I strongly suspect that
> Chesterton stands to Wolfe much as MacDonald is Lewis: "I fancy that
> I have never written a book in which I did not quote MacDonald.")

Although, unless I missed something (which seems fairly certain),
there is nothing that yells "G. K." in BOTNS itself.

On a sidenote: even if the Horn in SilkHorn is a Thecla-ish ghost, is
it really that hard to understand why Nettle goes back to the Whorl,
even if she sees our narrator purely as Silk?  She is a widow whose
children are grown (two have married, one has left the planet, for
goodness' sake).  She's also the coauthor of the Book of Silk.  Silk
shows up.  She and Horn left one world because Silk told them to, is
this not perhaps an easier trip to make, to return "home"?

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 13:14:08 +0000

Alex wrote:

> Blattid:

> I am

Right, which is why I put "and Alex" in the paragraph you quoted 8*)

> and as a fairly recent convert should probably be expected
> to be obnoxious about it or something...

Obnoxious, no, but I think we need a little more participation 
that focuses on the (often explicit) religious side of Mr Wolfe's
writing. I often wonder what non-Christians see in him, but then
I wonder that about Lewis too (and have atheist friends who are
positively rabid, or rabidly positive, about Narnia, so go figure).

> there is nothing that yells "G. K." in BOTNS itself.

I dunno. I always thought the identity of the Autarch was sort of
Man-who-was-Sunday-ish.

> On a sidenote: even if the Horn in SilkHorn is a Thecla-ish ghost,
> is it really that hard to understand why Nettle goes back to the
> Whorl, even if she sees our narrator purely as Silk?  

Well, it's certainly a good question why -- I think your (deleted)
explanations are good, but certainly the Next Generation Lizard-
dwellers don't go to a great deal of trouble to make it explicit.

I think I'm beginning to agree with those who think Mr Wolfe's 
riddle-me-this writing tactics are getting a bit out of hand.
I don't want everything spelt out for me, and I appreciate his
belief that you shouldn't have to be told something twice -- 
but most of us grew up on pulp writers and the like, okay?
Maybe there's a happy medium?

Sigh. I love the stuff Mr Wolfe writes about (even the kinda 
gross stuff). I love the way he writes on a word by word, 
sentence by sentence level. I just wish he didn't feel called 
upon to make it so hard to get from the one to the other.

--Dan'l

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:26:09 +0000

>Blattid blatted:

>And isn't a Return to the World another word for

Maybe. Or maybe an ascension, since in some sense "Silk" has just been 
"resurrected." In a sense, Horn has "gone up to heaven" in answer to the 
prayer for "daily" bread. Of course, that definitely mixes the metaphor, 
since the Whorl is originally Egypt under Pharaoh, from which Moses 
delivers the people, and even more it is the people of God under the Jewish 
leaders (Ayuntamiento) and Romans (Pas etc.), from which Jesus delivers 
those who trust Him. At the same time, since Horn goes UP to the Whorl as a 
result of dying, the Whorl seems to shift into a partial image of heaven. 
Since Old Pas has himself died and been resurrected into New Pas 
(Constantine-like?), the Whorl can shift in (one) of its symbolic meanings 
-- especially since Wolfe is not writing any kind of close allegory anyway.

FWIW: I'm a Reformed (Calvinist) former minister, now theologian; but on 
the sacramental (real presence, not just symbol) side of that coterie. So, 
I've got no problem with Wolfe's symbolism.

Patera Nutria

---

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 17:33:36 +0000

> Right, which is why I put "and Alex" in the paragraph you quoted 8*)

Ah, I was replying to the "explicitly Catholic" part, which wasn't
true when I joined the list, but is now.

> Obnoxious, no, but I think we need a little more participation that
> focuses on the (often explicit) religious side of Mr Wolfe's
> writing. I often wonder what non-Christians see in him, but then I
> wonder that about Lewis too (and have atheist friends who are

Of the "off the list" Wolfe fans I know, three are Catholic (and one
of these is only a rather lukewarm Wolfe fan), two Protestant, and
five some gamut of atheist, agnostic, non-dogmatic mysticism (don't
ask me), etc., but certainly in Urusula K. LeGuin's category of
"definitely NOT Christian."

Dante, for instance, certainly has his share of great admirers, even
devotees, who do not share his theology or metaphysics (Borges frex).
The same holds for, say, Eliot (although to a lesser degree, and with
more controversy).  I would be surprised to find Wolfe fans who don't
have the background to place the references at all, though.

---

From: Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:00:29 +0000

**** On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 10:21:04 -0800, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com> said:

Dan'l> That's you, me, and Alex ... is anyone else on this list explicitly
Dan'l> Christian? (Is _anyone_ but me on this list explicitly Catholic?)

I am a Christian, but not a Catholic (though some folks might claim you
have to look pretty hard to tell the difference).

**** On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 09:58:23 -0500, "Patrick O'Leary" <poleary at cecom.com> said:

Patrick> Ok, Horn does indeed exist somehow in Silk at the end. Alga's
Patrick> comment on Wolfe's PC model of possession is very sound, I
Patrick> think. But I love the irony: We think we've been reading a book
Patrick> written by Horn denying he is Silk.  And, really, it is a book
Patrick> written by Silk denying he is Silk.

There's also a symmetry: BotLS is a book about Silk written by Horn, while
BotSS is a book about Horn (mostly) written by Silk (mostly).

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                      
==========================================================

Two percent of zero is almost nothing.

---

From: Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:00:29 +0000

Fernando

-- 

Fernando Q. Gouvea

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 15:35:25 +0000

Responding to my observation that a "return to the world"
might be a resurrection, JaJo wrote:

> Maybe. Or maybe an ascension, since in some sense "Silk"
> has just been "resurrected." In a sense, Horn has "gone
> up to heaven" in answer to the prayer for "daily" bread. 

Which lets us mix the symbolism in yet another way -- Horn
is very much Silk's spiritual son; after the death on Green, 
the son and the father are one in a rather literal way.

Or: ... Horn-the-Son ascends into Hell (green) and dies there,
then reunites with Silk-the-Father. Or: Horn-the-Son must
ascend into the Whorl so that the Silkhorn-the-Spirit might
return and bring the blessing of corn. Or:...

The point being that I think all these resonances are 
clearly there, but no one is a 'ruling metaphor.'

> FWIW: I'm a Reformed (Calvinist) former minister, now theologian; 

When I first fastread this, I read it as meaning: "I used
to be a Calvinist minister, but now I've reformed." 8*)

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 21:46:58 +0000

archy's cousin having t-y-p-e-d:

<Which lets us mix the symbolism in yet another way -- Horn is very much
Silk's spiritual son; after the death on Green, the son and the father are
one in a rather literal way.>

<Or: ... Horn-the-Son ascends into Hell (green) and dies there, then
reunites with Silk-the-Father. Or: Horn-the-Son must ascend into the Whorl
so that the Silkhorn-the-Spirit might return and bring the blessing of corn.
Or:... The point being that I think all these resonances are clearly there,
but no one is a 'ruling metaphor.'>

I still think a lot of you are neglecting to factor in Big Daddy Pas in the
final meltdown/merging of Horn and Silk at the series' denoument. In my
opinion there's at least as much of him as the other two, if not more.

Witness the following exchange between Oreb and Horn:

"Where did you go, Oreb?"
"Find god."
"I see. Passilk? I think that's what the surgeon called him. Did you find
him, and is that why you returned to me?"
"Find Silk." (OBW, 369)

It sure seems likely to me that M'to, as someone in the direct employ of
Mainframe, would be a little better informed to comment on this than any one
else, and even Horn, at one point in IGJ, claims that "Silk is an aspect of
Pas now." (202)

I'd therefore be a little more comfortable with Blattid's symbolic mix above
if it cited Pas as father, Silk as son (since he's resurrected in the
flesh), and Horn as Holy Ghost (since it's his spirit that's tossed into the
mix). That Pas has been redeemed by the incorporation of Silk seems
irrefutable; we get the sense of a similar transformation in his daughter,
who for most of the series is known by the name of a monster (Scylla), but
goes to her grave on Urth named as a saint (Cilinia).

And yet lest we take this Pas-Silk-Horn troika for something other than it
really is--say, the literal embodiment of the Outsider--Wolfe gives us
Quadrifons, perhaps, at least for the purposes of the SHORT SUN triptych,
endorsing medieval theologian Peter Lombard's doctrine of quaternity, which
posits God as a separate entity from the three persons of the Trinity.

Robert Borski

---

From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 00:23:20 +0000

Robert Borski wrote:

> And yet lest we take this Pas-Silk-Horn troika for something other
> than it really is--say, the literal embodiment of the
> Outsider--Wolfe gives us Quadrifons, perhaps, at least for the
> purposes of the SHORT SUN triptych, endorsing medieval theologian
> Peter Lombard's doctrine of quaternity, which posits God as a
> separate entity from the three persons of the Trinity.

Sounds good.  I don't see really where quaternity comes in here,
though unless we're, as I don't think Robert is. taking Wolfe to be
writing hard-nosed allegory.  Robert's notion is another mapping that
seems clearly intended, but again, there isn't a canonical "now which
one is the Holy Spirit?" answer.  Some characters might fit the
question well (Mucor, for instance, come to think of it), and others
poorly (it would require a strange reading to suggest that Sinew "has
Holy Spirit nature").

It seems to me that Wolfe doesn't use Trinitarian motifs to suggest
that these characters _are_ the Trinity in any sense.  Just as in New
Sun Severian's miracles, though patterned on Christ, don't make him
the Son.  On the one hand, seeing Severian's "imitation of Christ" is
certainly more important to understanding BOTNS than, say, seeing the
Claudius similarities, but it's not an equation.  Is Silk the Son?  Is
Silk Moses?  No.  Is Pas the Father?  No.  Nor is Oreb literally the
Holy Spirit, or Hyacinth the church as the bride of Christ.

The characters are themselves, but they also act in the patterns of
the Christian story (and, though it's less thematically central, they
go about taking on the roles of Ulysses and Odin and others as
well...)  I suspect that Wolfe doesn't even see this necessarily as a
literary device.  If certain historical events are also the essential
story of the universe, it is not a stretch to expect a God who acts in
history to "retell" echoes of that story throughout time.  Or, as
Chesterton says about God being "young enough" to enjoy telling the
Sun to rise every day, not getting bored with it as we would*, Wolfe
believes the Outsider could go on telling stories about exodus, the
blind seeing, the lame walking, and death and resurrection.

---

From: james.kellar <james.kellar at quantel.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:50:30 +0000

> Christian? (Is _anyone_ but me on this list explicitly Catholic?)
count me in in the Catholic side!

Just a thought - What do you think about the possibility that Wolfe's work is intended, if not to
convert people, but at least to make them think more favourably of his own religion?

gerbil

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:51:56 +0000

>convert people, but at least to make them think more favourably of his own 

I don't really think so. Long ago I wrote to ask him if he thought of 
himself as a Christian writer, and he wrote back to say that no, he is a 
writer who is a Christian. I don't think "evangelization" is part of his 
intention, though I'm sure he'd be happy if it were part of the result. 
BTW, I also asked him, in the light of *Peace,* if he thought of himself in 
any degree as a Southern writer (a la Walker Percy), and he responded by 
saying he that is more of an urban than a rural writer.

FWIW

Pat. Nut.

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:24:38 +0000

>blind seeing, the lame walking, and death and resurrection.

This is called "typology," and it is the way Christians read the Old 
Testament: various events and sequences of events anticipate by analogy the 
events in Jesus' life. Similarly, events after Jesus' life reflect 
backwards the events of His life. No surprise that Wolfe sees things this 
way -- he's doubtless heard many homilies in church along these lines -- 
especially in a series of novels that are fairly explicitly "Biblical."

Pat. Nut.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:39:38 +0000

> archy's cousin having t-y-p-e-d:

why thank you robert
perhaps i shd try writing that way and

...Naaah.

Anyway, Robert cites my list of resonances, and comments:

> I still think a lot of you are neglecting to factor in
> Big Daddy Pas in the final meltdown/merging of Horn and
> Silk at the series' denoument. 

I agree: in my case, because I'm simply not prepared to deal
with it yet. Pas' role changes so radically at the end of 
LONG that I'm not quite ready to deal with it, especially as
it merges into Silkhorn. (Other than the rather grotesque
obviousness of his being yet another Wolfe character who dies
and comes back from the dead.)

> In my opinion there's at least as much of him as the other
> two, if not more.

I dunno. The amalgam _talks_ like Silk.

**

Robert then cites this:
> "I see. Passilk? I think that's what the surgeon called 
> him. Did you find him, and is that why you returned to me?"
> "Find Silk." (OBW, 369)

Like many of Oreb's utterances, these allow of more than one
interpretation, but any good interpretation has to allow for
the presence of Scylla. What "god" would Scylla be looking
for? One that could help her with her little problem -- ideally,
the Mother, though perhaps she isn't yet aware that the Mother
exists as such. I would say the most obvious, if not necessarily
the best, intepretation is this: Scylla-in-Oreb went looking 
for a place where she could download ("Find god"), didn't find 
it, and returned to Silk{Pas}Horn.

> .. even Horn, ... claims that "Silk is an aspect of Pas now." 

Um... _who_ makes that claim? Isn't that Passilkhorn or 
whatever? And what does it mean in this case for Silk to be an
aspect of Pas? I might be wrong, but the impression I got (from 
the exchange with Kypris in _Exodus_) was that Pas was too 
damaged to completely resurrect from the hidden pieces -- perhaps
too many of them were lost. He couldn't build a complete or 
unified identity. So he wanted (or Kypris wanted it for him) to
upload Silk as a whole identity, and then merge the pieces of 
Pas into that. The resultant would, I think, actually be more
Silk than Pas -- Silk with bits of Pas merged in. [O'course, Pas 
being a very dominant person, this probably wouldn't be quite so
smooth...] 

> I'd therefore be a little more comfortable with Blattid's
> symbolic mix above if it cited Pas as father, Silk as son
> (since he's resurrected in the flesh), and Horn as Holy Ghost 

Then for heavens' sake, include it! I said, and you even quoted,

> ... I think all these resonances are 

...which means that there is plenty of room for yet other
resonances, including the one you cite. Once put in front
of me, it's a perfectly obvious and good resonance. 

Observation, though: all three (Passilkhorn) have, in one
sense or another, died and been resurrected in the flesh, 
-- in the same flesh, in fact -- Silk's. I would hesitantly
suggest that no human character in Wolfe is likely to be
a strong representation of either the Father or the Spirit;
Catholicism and Christianity in general suggests that we
imitate Christ, not His altar-egoes.

[...sorry...]

I would say, then, that we look to the Outsider as always
the Father-figure in these books; various human characters
as Son-figures; and anything, but especially anything not-
human that seems to in some way dispense Grace (as Oreb) 
as Spirit-figures.

> And yet lest we take this Pas-Silk-Horn troika for
> something other than it really is--say, the literal
> embodiment of the Outsider--Wolfe gives us Quadrifons,
> perhaps, at least for the purposes of the SHORT SUN triptych,
> endorsing medieval theologian Peter Lombard's doctrine of
> quaternity, which posits God as a separate entity from the
> three persons of the Trinity.

_Most_ unlikely. As a Catholic, Wolfe is likely to buy into
large chunks of Thomism; in particular, one might check into
the Summa Contra Gentiles, sections 1.18ff., that God is His
own Essence and that Essence and Existence are one in God.

(Oy. Thomistic existentialism. Any Maritain fans in the 
audience? and if so, why?)

---

From: james.kellar <james.kellar at quantel.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 16:24:27 +0000

>convert people, but at least to make them think more favourably of his own

and then Nutria replied
>saying he that is more of an urban than a rural writer.

That makes sense. I suppose that, from the point of view of a writer, Catholicism is a good
      background to be coming from as there's such a rich variety of symbolism to draw on!

gerbil