Subject: (whorl) To alga: Complaining too early

From: Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 00:56:05 +0000

I think part of the difficulty list members like alga
and William Ansley have had in accepting RTW stems
from the fact that they haven't had sufficient time to
digest the Short Sun series yet. The implications of a
Wolfe text take a while to emerge fully, if they ever
do; give TBSS time. Meanings will emerge. Just reread,
and ponder...

To a few specifics: 

William Ansley's querying of the "brother and sister"
section: TBSS is a political novel, with a strong but
qualified utopian subtext. Please note, generally,
that the final fivefold "Good fishing!" utterance at
the end of RTW is almost certainly an homage to the
ending of Kim Stanley Robinson's markedly utopian MARS
trilogy ("..on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on
Mars"). The Secret of the Inhumi is a political
secret, an impetus to a juster social order; brother
and sister represent Natural Man, or the Noble Savage,
an essential component of general utopian discourse.

Horn's status as inhumu-suspect, and the ring in RTW:
Horn is not an inhumu, but he is inhumu-like, in that
he is one individual masquerading as another (either
Horn as Silk or Silk as Horn). Thus the repeated hints
of Horn being an inhumu, which misled John Clute among
others: the hints are thematic, pointers to Horn's
inner and outer ambiguity. The ring Oreb retrieves for
Horn in RTW changes form as a further pointer in the
direction of shifting or uncertain identity: it is
protean, like Horn, like the inhumi, like the
Neighbors.

The death of Jahlee, and the massacre of the inhumi:
Alga, I think this took you aback because you were
anticipating Wolfe's intentions, a dangerous course as
you once warned me. You had a utopian/feminist agenda
in your reading; while repeating that TBSS is a
political and even utopian novel, I have to say that
its utopianism is cautious, indeed conservative, as is
only natural for GW. Silk/Horn is concerned to protect
humanity; the inhumi are predators upon humanity; the
political settlement required to defeat the inhumi is
universal human solidarity, this 1) to deny the inhumi
human blood and 2) to ensure that such human blood as
they do acquire is that of benign utopians. (Note that
Sinew's village late in IGJ is an emerging utopia
along these lines; but Silk/Horn is pessimistic about
general prospects on Blue.) In the immediate term,
cruder methods are needed to fend off the inhumi, such
as the killing of Jahlee; the inhumi need to be warned
to rein in their arrogance; and in any case, Jahlee
had ample warning of the possibility of the murder, as
in Horn's shooting of her "friend" on Green; and her
attempt to kill Nettle was hardly benign. Wolfe in
TBSS, as in all his major works, is being brutally
frank about the nasty realities of existence; Jahlee's
death fits perfectly into this scheme, like it or not.

Or so it seems to me.

--Nick Gevers.

--- William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net> wrote:
> 
> What do I mean by "loose ends"? Well, if I had the
> time and energy 
> (which I currently do not and almost certainly will
> not) I believe I 
> could make up an impressively lengthy list. To take
> just one example, 
> the "brother and sister" section toward the end of
> OBW. Is there 
> anyone here who understands it? Is there anyone here
> who feels that 
> the book/trilogy is a better work because this
> passage is in it?

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---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 20:35:48 +0000

> an essential component of general utopian discourse.

My immediate reaction is that I don't believe Wolfe is a utopian, even a
"conservative" one; I don't believe Wolfe advocates "Natural Man" or the
"Noble Savage"; and while the parallel with the ending of the MARS trilogy
is interesting, I doubt that it means Wolfe is borrowing Robinson's politics
(unless, reversing the usual course of events, he's become radical in his
old age).
 
> Silk/Horn is concerned to protect
> they do acquire is that of benign utopians.

The more I think about it, the less I understand how the inhumi's secret, or
"loving one another," is supposed to render the inumi harmless.  I don't see
what the colonists could do if they all loved each other that they can't do
now, which would keep the inhumi from getting any human blood.  As for 2),
for the inhumi to voluntarily stop preying on humans, they'd have to be not
just benign.  They'd have to be self-sacrificing enough to give up their
intelligence rather than attack humans (which, in moderation, apparently
does humans no long-term harm).  But if the colonists became so altruistic
that the inhumi would absorb that much altruism, then they would be
altruistic enough to allow the inhumi to prey on them rather than lose their
intelligence.  In any case, as someone once pointed out, can the inhumi
really believe the colonists as a group capable of such altruism?

> In the immediate term,
> to rein in their arrogance

But Horn doesn't kill Jahlee as a deterrent to other inhumi; he kicks her to
death in anger, and is deeply ashamed of it afterwards.  (And if it had been
a deterrent, then it didn't work, since it was followed shortly afterwards
by the mass attack.)

I agree, though, that Jahlee's death is a plausible development, though not
inevitable.  My complaint was not at the failure of the inhumi subplot to
resolve in a utopian fashion, but at its failure to resolve at all (except
as far as Jahlee is concerned).  The Secret was a big letdown (I don't buy
the theory that Horn has concealed the real secret from us, for reasons I've
stated before, and if I did it wouldn't make me happier), and the victory
over the massed inhumi at the wedding solves nothing.

The more I think about that wedding attack, though, the fishier it sounds.
Such a mass attack (at least six hundred inhumi) seems to be unprecedented.
It must be very rare, at least, or Blue would have to be far more
militarized and regimented than it is.  Would Juganu really be able to get
hundreds of inhumi deviate from their usual habits and join him in his
private revenge?  And would these inhumi continue the attack once they saw
that the wedding party was armed, contrary to expectations?

--Adam

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 08:29:54 +0000

> over the massed inhumi at the wedding solves nothing.

No takers for my theory that the Secret is simply that inhumi intelligence
is derivative from humans and that they fear the Secret because they are
insecure, longing to be human (failing that to at least be mistaken for
human), and they can't bear for humans in general to know what they really
are?

-Rostrum

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 09:53:15 +0000

> human), and they can't bear for humans in general to know what they really

'Fraid not; your theory won't jibe with Horn's statement that the Secret "is
a weapon too heavy for our hands," and that the Neighbors knew it, but could
not wield it (IGJ, 125).  The humans on Blue are perfectly capable of saying
to the inhumi "nyah, nyah, you aren't really human," and the Neighbors
presumably could have done the same.

--Adam