{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1263",
    "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": 1263,
    "subject": "Let's all sing w/ the Neighbors!",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-03-12T15:01:51+00:00",
    "last": "2001-03-12T16:49:37+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0431@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at charter.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-03-12T15:01:51+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Let's all sing w/ the Neighbors!",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Skeptical Kevin M. having peed on my Pas-as-Neighbor speculations:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "For starters, it explains why the Blue-Green system was targeted by the\nWhorl. Pas/Typhon is simply going home. Doubtless, other habitable systems\nmuch closer to Urth could have been targeted, but they haven't--why not?<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "<A. We don't know that there are. There's no evidence whatsoever to judge\nwhat criteria Typhon used to select the target for the _Whorl_. Personally,\nI think that habitable planets are few and far between. (Of course, I also\nbelieve that planets are an unnecessary luxury.)>\n\nThe other Blue-Green tandem in Wolfe's universe--Sainte Anne and Sainte\nCroix--are only twenty years out from Earth. And Wolfe's universe does seem\nto exhibit some continuity, especially if you accept certain notions such as\nthe ghoul bear of Sainte Anne is Urth's alzabo. So I find it unlikely that\nthe next likeliest pair of habitable planets is 15X over the distance from\nEarth to the worlds of Fifth Head. Like you, I agree about the unlikelihood\nof close habitable planets, but this is Wolfe's idea-space, not ours."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Fourthly, at one point during IGJ, Horn sings in and translates from\nNeighborese--and not amateurishly, but well enough so that it completely\ndiscombobulates poor Colonel Terzo. When and how did Horn learn the language\nof the Neighbors? From darling one-armed Seawrack?<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "<Obviously, you are more familiar with the book than I, but I never got the\nsense that Seawrack was singing in the Neighbors' language, or that Horn had\nthe opportunity to actually learn it from her. It seems equally likely that\nHorn learned the Neighbors' language from becoming Neighborly himself.>\n\nNope, you're wrong. Here's the exact quote from IGJ, p. 266-267:\n\n\"Sing song,\" Oreb suggested, and I did, following Seawrack's own intonation\nand pronunciation to the best of my very limited ability. The lapping of the\nwaves was in her song, and the eerie cry of the seabirds, and the lonely\nwhistling of the wind.\n\n\"That is in the language of the Neighbors, whom you call the Vanished\nPeople.\"\n\nThen two paragraphs later Horn adds:\n\n\"Seawrack is singing in that place that lays beyond this place. Listen\nthere, and you cannot help but hear her.\" With her I sang a few more words\nin the language of those whom Mora had once called The People of That Town.\n\nSo once again I ask: how have Horn and Seawrack learned to sing in the\nlanguage of the Neighbors?\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0434@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-03-12T16:49:37+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Let's all sing w/ the Neighbors!",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0012-0431@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "At 03:01 PM 3/12/2001 -0600, Borski, whose missives are GREAT and \nchallenging, challenges:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "So once again I ask: how have Horn and Seawrack learned to sing in the\nlanguage of the Neighbors?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         I propose a scenario. We know that the Neighbors visited the Whorl \nwhen it came in-system, and delivered inhumi there. I don't recall if this \nplays into the Revolt Against Pas or not. Let us assume Pas was still \nalive. He'd've learned the Neighbor language from the Neighbors, and then \nHorn would have gotten it from his experiences on the Whorl (a Silk \ndownload, if that's what happened). Pas's family would have learned the \nNeighbor language at the same time, being all one big computer after all, \nand Seawrack from Mother from Echidna (?).\n\nPatera Nutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}