{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1246", "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": 1246, "subject": "Style (spoiler)", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-03-01T17:01:27+00:00", "last": "2001-03-01T22:44:15+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-03-01T17:01:27+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Style (spoiler)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Jordan wrote:\nSomeone brought up the fact that so many climactic events are off stage,\nand we only get hints of them. I can understand this as \"Horn's\" rambling\nstyle of memoir writing, devoid of a Nettle to edit him. But it seems that\nthe children also write this way in their part of RTTW, and that's odd." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've commented before on the unlikelihood of the children preserving the\nmystery of \"Horn\"'s identity until the end. Unlike Wolfe's narrative games\nin other works, I can't see that the children's authorship of the\nthird-person sections is anything more than a device to increase Wolfe's\nmystification of \"Horn\"'s identity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, the children's part of RTTW reflects the many times that Father\ntalked about his experiences on the Whorl. Well, how long did Silkhorn hang\naround New Viron? I got the impression that he left right away, but maybe\nhe stayed around for a year or so, and that's why the good-byes are not\neally needed. I guess it would have taken some time for the entourage to\nbe collected...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Otoh, Horn would have had plenty of time to narrate his experiences on the\nWhorl to Hide and Hoof while they were travelling on Blue (and astral\ntravelling), so there's no problem here.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n \n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2001-03-01T18:21:21+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Style (spoiler)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam wrote:\nI've commented before on the unlikelihood of the children preserving the\nmystery of \"Horn\"'s identity until the end. Unlike Wolfe's narrative games\nin other works, I can't see that the children's authorship of the\nthird-person sections is anything more than a device to increase Wolfe's\nmystification of \"Horn\"'s identity." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I politely disagree in the most strenuous terms while still allowing for\nall the spectrum of personal readings.\n\nThe kick of all the Whorl stuff being written by people who have never\nactually been on the Whorl, and never are going to be on the Whorl . . .\nwell. It is somewhat like having the fictional framing of \"`A Story' by\nJohn V. Marsch\" (an anthropological reconstruction/romance) eroded and put\nthrough the pretzel machine in the course of \"V.R.T.,\" only much moreso.\nBecause we read those Whorl chapters as being \"true,\" \"from the Narrator\nnamed Horn by his mother,\" \"based upon firsthand experience,\" etc. Just as\nOBW and IGJ had been.\n\nThe poignancy of N meeting Horn's father; the intensity of the dark; the\nsacrifice of the eye; visits by \"ghosts\" from the beginning (Remora) to the\nend (Crane); N's sense of what any of it means; all vppppt! Gone into a\ndifferent plane. At first read perhaps we think \"N is writing in third\nperson during these sections because he is recreating through the action of\nwriting how he was still struggling to get a grip on his personality/body\nissues.\" Nope. We might think, \"Oh look, it says right here in the first\nfew pages that the pockets of the robe were unfamiliar--that means he does\nnot recall being Silk.\" Not exactly, but it does suggest what the\nwriter(s) think about what happened (whether the writer[s] are consistant\nor not, etc.).\n\nHere we were expecting to get to the \"heart\" of the matter, and we find\nthat we are further away than when we started. Like in 5HC, where you\nthink you've been on Ste. Anne, but you never have, you've always been on\nSte. Croix.\n\nThe entire Whorl \"half\" of the book really =is= fan-fiction (aka fanfic).\nLiterally and truly. (This is unarguable, right?) Again, this is another\nterm (fanfic) which has been bandied about with regard to RTTW, in reaction\nto cases which may or may not be limited to the Whorl \"half\"; but yet\nagain, here is a detail (\"fanfic quality, nuance, or origin\") to which I\nmyself say, \"That's not a =bug=, that's a =feature=.\"\n\nWhich, in turn, boils down to the simple case of \"I like it\" and \"you don't.\"\n\nI have here tried to explain my reading, to explain why I, personally,\nstrongly object to Adam's statement of opinion, reiterated here again for\nclarity: \"I can't see that the children's authorship of the third-person\nsections is anything more than a device to increase Wolfe's mystification\nof \"Horn\"'s identity.\"\n\nPerhaps a flavor of discontent with RTTW can compare with the following\ncase regarding URTH OF THE NEW SUN: some readers were expecting certain\ntypes of revelation, and when these things didn't materialize, they said\nthings like, \"URTH doesn't give anything that wasn't intimated before.\"\n\nLikewise, it may be for RTTW and some readers.\n\nThis particular fanfic angle might also lead to some of the more tricky\n(\"potentially destabilizing of a given reading\") questions inspired by John\nCrowley's ENGINE SUMMER, since the same can be said of it in its entirety.\nTo the same sort of reader disappointment/thwarting, etc.\n\n=mantis=\n\nSirius Fiction\nCatalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-03-01T22:44:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Style (spoiler)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nVery nice, mantis. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This particular fanfic angle might also lead to some of the more\ntricky (\"potentially destabilizing of a given reading\") questions\ninspired by John Crowley's ENGINE SUMMER, since the same can be said\nof it in its entirety. To the same sort of reader\ndisappointment/thwarting, etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ok, I'll bite. It's been a while since I read ENGINE SUMMER, but I'm\nabout to reread it again. Which specific destabilizing questions are\nyou talking about? (I can think of a couple of possibilities, but\nthere may be more)." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }