Subject: (whorl) The Mystery of Malrubius's Ghost, SOLVED!

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 23:00:58 +0000

I thought I would take the liberty of assembling the appropriate 
portions of the relevant posts.

At 7:53 PM +0000 2/6/01, Ian Smith wrote:
>and another from cephelothorax:
>
>"Persnickety: Are we really meant to believe that
>  Severian, who writes about Master Ash, and the Green
>Man, and being a white fountain hundreds of years
>before he's born is going to consider "Horn" too much
>of a stretch for his readers to believe because he's
>got the love-vibe and walks through walls?"
>
>On this I'm no more certain, but I got the distinct impression that the
>apprentice Severian was under the impression that Horn / Silk's spirit  was
>actually Malrubius' ghost (hence his comment to Gurloes about Oreb), which
>of course does get mentioned frequently throughout TBOTNS( & he certainly
>pairs Malrubius with Triskele a fair bit).  Whether Wolfe has managed the
>phenomenal task of tying the ends up, we won't know until someone has the
>energy to re-read TBOTNS looking for them.  Surely such a thing is
>impossible, but I'm trying not to make the mistake of under-estimating
>Wolfe...

At 1:35 PM +0000 2/9/01, Spectacled Bear wrote:
>At 07:30 2001-02-09 EST, BMeyer7 at aol.com wrote:
>>>>>
>...

...

>3. Are we to believe that Horn/Silk is Malrubius?
>
><<<<
>It's an interesting idea, and quite plausible.

At 6:39 PM -0500 3/29/01, BraveSaintCroix at aol.com wrote:
>     Whoo-pee, I finally feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute
>to this group- unless, of course, someone beats me to it.  I got the April
>catalogue of the Science Fiction Book Club today, and it has a one-page
>article/advertisement for the Book of the Short Sun.  Of course, as is the
>way of the SFBC, it makes the book sound terribly pulp-sci-fi-ish.  (. . .
>the inhumi, blood drinking aliens who take human form. . . )  It even seems
>to give away quiet a bit.  The last paragraph reads: "As his inability to
>find Silk weights heavily on his mind, Horn if further tormented by the fact
>that his new body bears a striking resemblance to the lost Calde.  In the
>end, he will have to answer a troubling question: has he truly failed in his
>sworn task, or has he become the very man he sought?"
>     I'm not complaining though, because it also includes a "note from the
>author".  Gene Wolfe writes:  "At the end of the 18th Century, serious
>scientists denied that stones could fall from the sky.  At the end of this
>one, very few still insist that phenomena incapable of proof are beyond the
>realm of possibility.  We may doubt telepathy, ghost, and precognition-
>indeed, we should doubt them.  But we cannot rule them out altogether.  That
>phenomenon most often called astral projection plays a part in these books. 
>(So does space travel, which most adults derided as utterly impossible not so
>long ago.)"  And here's what really got me: "Accept it for the sake of the
>story, and you may learn the identity of Master Malrubius's ghost."  (My
>emphasis.)  Wow.  That makes my head spin.  I didn't even think of that, and
>if I remember, no one on here has discussed it much.  Who then, was Master
>Malrubius's ghost?

Apparently the the astral projection of Hornsilk was.

Well, well. Congratulations, Ian. Confirmation from the horse's mouth.

Gene Wolfe seems to have at least a mild case of Asimov's syndrome. I 
hope he recovers before his next book.

William Ansley

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