Subject: (whorl) It's Mostly the Ending

From: David Lebling <dlebling at ucentric.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 09:15:19 +0000

> From: <akt at attglobal.net>
> Like the godling. No reason at all to introduce it/him, and a completely
> irrational sort of creature to put in a closed environment.

As I think I said before, the godling reminded me of similar closed
environment creatures in Varley's Titan trilogy. In both books they are
manifestations of the bad temper of a god. Wolfe writes science fantasy or
"science" fiction, so it didn't bother me all that much. Of course, I think
anything with telepathy, astral travel, possession is pretty much science
fantasy anyway, so a few square-cube law violations are a minor additional
offense, barely worthy of a traffic ticket.

> Also like
> Merryn, whose appearence just seems bad-tempered on the author's part..

Merryn's appearance, which struck me as a case of Asimov's syndrome, had as
a saving grace the fact that we _didn't_ find out she was Severian's sister,
which would have been an even worse case of the above. For me, the only
positive of the Red Sun sections was to get an outsider's view of Urth and
Severian. To the people from Blue, who are much more like modern Americans
than the people of Urth, we get a better idea of what a decayed, run-down,
utterly tired and hopeless place Urth is. That part I liked. Hints that Silk
is the ghost of Malrubius? Bah. Cilinia/Scylla buried in the Necropolis?
Bah, again.

> Oh, honestly, what nonsense--this isn't the Torah!

As a regular reader of this list, I wonder about that sometimes.

> It's not my fault
> that Wolfe abandoned Mucor, murdered Jahlee, sent Nettle and Seawrack
> off on a Star Trek menage a trois with the saintly Silk, ditched Babbie,
> gave us no word of Oreb and in general tossed his whole story out the
> window--or off-planet as the case may be. Leaving both Blue and Green to
> go to hell together, Neighbors, inhumi and whatnot. Tra-la, let's be
> off.

RttW exhibits a serious case of Heinlein syndrome, where the story just
rumbles to stop and disgorges something intended to be transcendant or
stirring, leaving loose ends all over the place. I thought the ending
forced, possibly because Wolfe wanted to come up with something that was T
or S, this being the conclusion of a twelve volume epic, but he doesn't do
that sort of thing, so it falls flat. It does have a "lighting out for the
territories" feel about it, to uplift the Star Trek reference a bit.

> That strikes me as more nonsense. Why in the world would he be offering
> an "homage" to Robinson, a very diiferent kind of writer. Proust, maybe,
> but Robinson? I don't think so.

I enjoyed the _Mars_ trilogy, once I got beyond the didacticism. I rather
doubt Wolfe would enjoy it, or write an homage to it, or even a response.
The Short Sun books are a planetary adventure of an almost Vancean nature at
the "what the plowman saw" level, with the genetic-engineered offspring of a
psychological novel and an imititation-of-Christ novel on top of it to carry
the real message. As such, I found it excellent until the rushed and
unsatisfactory ending.

> I do not even object to Jahlee's death
> per se. I object to the hasty, melodramatic and far-fetched (would
> Jahlee really have attacked Nettle so foolishly--allow me to doubt it)
> B-movie manner in which it is fobbed off

I've gone on record as thinking Jahlee's behavior and fate make sense in the
terms of the novel. She attacks Nettle out of jealousy the day after Horn
and Nettle spend the night together. She is killed because she violated her
agreement with Horn. This makes sense but it's sudden and disappointing in
its suddenness.

I think he ran out of energy or room or ideas or some combination of the
three. Up to the point where the inhumi attack the wedding, things seemed
almost on track, but after that there are few scenes that are excellent
(Silk and Remora is one, but it's undercut by the fact that we knew "Horn"
was Silk already -- we don't feel Silk's awakening).

There are two major areas where the book as a whole lets us down on, and
we've beaten them both to death, but I'll say again:

a) we get the huge buildup on the secret of the inhumi, and it turns out the
secret doesn't meet the expectations that the narrative builds up for it. We
were expecting something more than we guessed in the first volume, but that
was it.

b) the fact that the narrator is Horn in Silk's body has been obvious since
the first volume, so the climactic revelation that the narrator is Horn in
Silk's body falls flat.

These are the two Big Ticket Items in the trilogy, and both are
disappointments. The rest of the problems (and Alga has enumerated them in a
properly annoyed way) are problems of narrative construction that a careful
editor or Wolfe himself could have dealt with.

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy the trilogy; I've already read it more
than once and gotten more enjoyment each time.

-- Dave Lebling
    aka vizcacha

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
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---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 10:46:54 +0000

> the first volume, so the climactic revelation that the narrator is Horn in

I thought the climactic revelation was that the narrator is Silk in Silk's
body.

-Rostrum

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 11:10:29 +0000

>the first volume, so the climactic revelation that the narrator is Horn in

The climax isn't the "revelation", since that fact is clear to a reader who
is paying *any* attention at all during _Green_ or _Return_. The climax is
the narrator's *acceptance* of the truth he has been denying since page 1
of _Blue_. 

Overall, I found _Return_ a disappointing novel for many of the reasons
that Alga did, but I thought the climax was one of the parts that was
completely satisfying. 

I can probably elaborate on what I'm going to say next, but not today: One
of the things which sets _Blue_ and _Green_ apart from the majority of
Wolfe's work is their naked emotionalism. _Return_, on the other hand,
feels much more distant, and that change of tone is frustrating. 

-- 
Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://www.nyrsf.com

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 14:29:17 +0000

A few thoughts on some of these issues:
>which would have been an even worse case of the above.

         I strongly suspect that Merryn appears because so many fans wanted 
her to appear. She's been MUCH discussed over the years. I think that there 
are probably several places in the SS novels that reflect interaction with 
fans/readers. I recall a number of years ago telling Wolfe that Patera 
Bunny (a Presbyterian pastor) mentioned to me that while in a counselling 
situation with a parishioner, he found himself thinking, "What would Silk 
do?" Then I noticed almost exactly this sentence from the Narrator at one 
point in either Blue or Green (I cannot recall where). Someone else here 
also pointed to a place where something he had said to Wolfe seemed to 
appear in the SS narrative. (Sorry, I cannot recall who or what.) At any 
rate, if we did not like Merryn's appearance, we have found the enemy and 
it is us!

>For me, the only

         This also struck me as overly coincidental -- though Wolfe has 
pointed out that in real life we encounter strange coincidences more often 
than we might think we would. But perhaps there is some method in this. 
Both Silk and Severian are Sub-messiahs (to coin a term), "Christian 
figures" who are replicating in a very significant way certain central 
aspects of Christ's life and work. Perhaps Wolfe is positing a kind of 
"spiritual attraction" or magnetism between the two, and between their 
companies.

>agreement with Horn. This makes sense but it's sudden and disappointing in

         Maybe. But to me it was fitting, and her death in Nettle's 
forgiving arms was very moving. I think Wolfe wanted us to think about the 
soul of Jahlee. She really is human in every way that really counts. Now 
she dies. Is that really the end of her? Is she just an animal? Or does she 
perhaps "go to heaven" in a way analogous to the other character's 
ascension at the end of the novel?

>almost on track,

         Long Sun ends apocalyptically. Silk has gone to heaven-mainframe, 
and now returns to an Armageddon in Viron, after which Silk's people go to 
"heaven" (outer space), leaving the Whorl behind. If my guess was right, in 
my post on Revelation 19, Wolfe intends Short Sun to have the same kind of 
referential ending: the Marriage Supper is also a Great Battle. And, it is 
the Last Battle in Revelation. So we move to a kind of final armageddon in 
New Viron, after which once again certain people go to "heaven" (outer 
space) -- which turns out to be the Whorl. But, in the Short Sun series, 
the Whorl functions as heaven in some ways, for it is the place where 
Messiah Silk is, and it is the place from which we get the new seeds for 
"our daily bread."

>were expecting something more than we guessed in the first volume, but that

         Granted, that can be a problem for US. But if someone is 
re-reading the trilogy, I'd like to know if the "secret" is something 
anyone other than Horn and then the Narrator knows. I came away thinking, 
"well, everyone knows this secret," but now I doubt it. We learn it early 
on, but only because we see Horn learn it, and figure it out for ourselves. 
By "secret" here I mean that the inhumi become intelligent and ensouled as 
a result of human blood.
         But this brings us back to what the Secret really is. Since Horn 
and the later Narrator don't intend to reveal it, why is it so clearly 
revealed to the reader in the course of the trilogy? I continue to think 
that the "great secret" that Jahlee tells at the end is not THE Secret, 
just "a great secret." One option, discussed here, is that the Secret is 
how the inhumi really get to Blue, which clearly is not by travelling 
through outer space. But that would not seem to fit the "too heavy to bear" 
aspect of the Secret. I suspect that the Secret is ... secreted away in the 
text, and that we in this discussion have not yet ascertained it, or 
ascertained it fully.

>the first volume, so the climactic revelation that the narrator is Horn in

         Well, you've revised your phrasing, and in terms of that revision, 
it would be a surprise to learn that it is not a living Horn in an "empty" 
Silk body, but that either (a) Horn is really dead and Silk is alive, or 
(b) both are alive in Silk's body.
         And now a question: Has anyone investigated the possibility that 
Seawrack is actually an inhuma? She does seem to be able physically to 
change shape. We've been focussed on the relationship of Seawrack with the 
Mother, but where did Seawrack really come from? I've thought of her as a 
modified human, but maybe she is a modified inhuma. Krait certainly seemed 
to have a negative view of her as a schemer. Is it possible that Seawrack 
shows, in some way, what the inhumi might be like if they were truly 
transformed? Just some questions....

Patera Nutria

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:40:40 +0000

> ascension at the end of the novel?

If Fava is any indication, then Jahlee and Hide are going to gang up and
posess Seawrack whenever Hide dreams.

-Rostrum

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:46:35 +0000

Patera Nutria makes some good points, which I've snipped to get to the
point that I wish to disagree with: 

At 02:29 PM 4/11/01 -0500, you wrote:
[Alga Alice said: 
>         Granted, that can be a problem for US. 

Well, yes. Alga was discussing *a real-world reader's reaction to the
novel*, not the reaction of someone on Blue to the book. The narrative
builds up a lot of emotional energy in "the secret"; Jahlee's revelation is
a crucial plot moment because of the effect it has on everyone around it...
and the secret goes off like a damp squib, because *we the reader already
know it*. 

(An aside: We knew the basics of the secret before Jahlee's revelation.
However, the particular detail that it is the children of the inhumi who
gain intelligence from the blood rather than the predators themselves is
something that had not been revealed in the earlier volumes, I believe. I
keep trying to figure out how this detail is of such significance that it
transforms our understanding of The Secret, and I keep failing to do so. I
suspect that Wolfe intended for that last piece to be a major revelation,
because of the way that the narrative is structured, but if it is, it
eludes me.)
 
>I continue to think 

That doesn't hold up to examination. There's a long converation between
Horn and one of the twins in _Green_ in which Horn tries to get the twin to
understand the secret of the inhumi, and it's very much about how the
inhumi benefit from the blood of their prey. Also, Horn's reaction to
Jahlee telling Nettle the Secret is inappropriate for anything other than
*the* Secret--you know, the one which the Inhumi will kill to protect?

And even if there is a "greater secret" hidden in the book--if that's true,
that's Wolfe hiding the emotional core of the novel from his readers again,
and I've already expressed today some displeasure to the degree that
_Return_ is distanced from the reader. If the secret that we are shown
on-camera in a big climactic momement isn't *the* secret, then that's yet
another layer of distance, and it's unsatisfying.

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 17:40:41 +0000

> which would have been an even worse case of the above.

But we did, I think.  Jahlee says she doesn't know who the boy [Severian]
is, and Merryn says "'He's my brother.  We're brothers and sisters, we
witches and the torturers.'" (267)  There's a bit of ambiguity here, as her
words could be interpreted as meaning only that all torturers are "brothers"
to all witches; but if that's what she means, her answer is rather
unhelpful.

> was Silk already -- we don't feel Silk's awakening).

Huh?  The scene with Silk and Remora is the only scene that follows the
wedding attack, except for the three-page Afterword.

--Adam