{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1346", "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": 1346, "subject": "The ending (was Re: (whorl) Not the Torah, but Torah-like)", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-04-12T10:10:52+00:00", "last": "2001-04-12T20:21:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-04-12T11:41:33+00:00", "subject": "The ending (was Re: (whorl) Not the Torah, but Torah-like)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 4/11/01 3:08 AM, Nicholas Gevers at vermoulian at yahoo.com wrote:\nAs for this repeated criticism about TBSS's \"hurried\nending\": it's not hurried at all. It's simply that GW\nhas spent seven volumes building up characters and\nscenarios, and he rightly assumes that readers who\nhave stuck with him this far know those characters and\nsituations well enough by now to infer their final\nmotivations and destinies. To invoke Kim Stanley\nRobinson again: GW is the king of the slingshot\nending; his texts move on and work on beyond the page;\nread in the spirit of the enterprise." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But the ending voyage doesn't \"work on beyond the page.\" We've never seen\nSilk qua Silk with any of the other passengers (except Oreb), and the others\nare all strangers to each other, so we have no idea what will become of this\nill-assorted bunch. And, to be frank, I don't particularly care.\n\nTo compare it with ENGINE SUMMER, a comparison mantis made (though\napparently he didn't mean by it what I took him to): in ES also, the\nprotagonist's story is not resolved in the sense we had expected it to be;\ninstead, a sudden twist of events abruptly \"closes off\" the protagonist's\nstory. But in ES the resolution worked, and I didn't feel cheated, because\nit was emotionally moving and thematically resonant. Neither of these\nthings are true of the ending voyage in RttW." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thus, to repeat\nwhat I and others have pointed out: Mucor is now old\nenough to look after herself; just in case, Babbie\nremains on Blue to keep many eyes on her; Jahlee is a\npredator and jealously in love with Horn to boot, and\nis fully capable of a crime of passion on Lizard\nIsland, just as is Horn himself, a mere human when all\nis said and done; Oreb accompanies Silk to the Whorl\nagain, as you would expect; Nettle ditto, because the\nonly remnant of her husband is in Silk, Old Viron is\nher old home anyway, and her children are all grown up\non Blue and Green; Seawrack ditto, because she and\nSilk form an archetypal couple once Hyacinth is out of\nthe way, and Horn (again) is still in Silk; and Blue\nand Green are left to their own devices because that\nis how God governs the Earth and its humans, giving\nthem free will." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In your list of motives, you don't explain why Silk wants to leave, or why\nhe has to leave so quickly. Aside from this, I think alga's basic complaint\nis not that the characters aren't motivated, it's that the hasty departure\nfails to resolve any of the narrative threads that have been left dangling.\n\nA couple of minor points on the ending, while we're at it:\n\n1) If, as you've argued, the inhumi mobbed the wedding to kill \"Horn\" and\nanyone whom he might have told the secret to, then Silk and Nettle's plan to\nuse Pajarocu as their point of departure might not be that great an idea.\n\n2) To put Nettle on a small boat for weeks with a woman who, in Daisy's\nwords, \"trusted only 'Father,' and would have put her long knife into any\nother person as readily as I would gut a fish\" (411) seems to be asking for\ntrouble. Isn't being nearly murdered by a rival once enough for Nettle?\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-04-12T10:10:52+00:00", "subject": "RE: The ending (was Re: (whorl) Not the Torah, but Torah-like)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam hath writ:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... the ending voyage doesn't \"work on beyond the page.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, it doesn't. New Viron, however, does; and so does the Whorl.\nWe haven't a clue what happens to the crewly mot that set off \nfrom NV (well, as you point out, we do in fact have a rather ugly\nclue), but we have a ramifying sense of the futures of the\ncolonists. Horn set out on a quest to save the colony: he \nsucceeded. He thought he was going to save them spiritually\nby finding Silk; he was wrong. He saved them physically by\nbringing back the corn (which is all they really wanted anyway).\n\nWhich ramifies _backwards_ toward the way Silk thought he was\nsupposed to save his manteion (and, as we learned, failed in the\nlong run), as opposed to they way he was actually supposed to\nsave it (and succeeded)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In your list of motives, you don't explain why Silk wants to leave," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because he simply doesn't belong there?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "or why he has to leave so quickly. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I've pointed out repeatedly, this is far from established, and\nat least some evidence points to the idea that he doesn't leave all\nthat quickly. The events prior to the Bloody Wedding don't leave\ntime for Nettle to have read the Narr's manuscript, but we know from\none of the editorial asides in OBW that she has. I suspect that her\nhaving read it is one of the things that prompts her to accompany\nthe Narr on his journey.\n\nPerhaps an actual statement of how long it was between the wedding\nand the departure would have been nice, but we know perfectly well\nthat Mr Wolfe doesn't like to tell what he can hint at." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "1) If, as you've argued, the inhumi mobbed the wedding to kill\n\"Horn\" and anyone whom he might have told the secret to, then\nSilk and Nettle's plan to use Pajarocu as their point of departure\nmight not be that great an idea." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Big Ouch. I haven't worked out the inhumi's motives for the attack\nyet -- I've only read RttW once, and my copy is out on loan -- but\nyou're certainly right on an \"if\" basis." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2) To put Nettle on a small boat for weeks with a woman who,\nin Daisy's words, \"trusted only 'Father,' and would have put\nher long knife into any other person as readily as I would gut\na fish\" (411) seems to be asking for trouble. Isn't being\nnearly murdered by a rival once enough for Nettle?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, ouch. I hadn't even considered that. Perhaps the Narr is\noverestimating his Silkish ability to bring peace...\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-04-12T20:21:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: The ending (was Re: (whorl) Not the Torah, but Torah-like)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 4/12/01 12:10 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:\nAdam hath writ:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "or why he has to leave so quickly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I've pointed out repeatedly, this is far from established, and\nat least some evidence points to the idea that he doesn't leave all\nthat quickly. The events prior to the Bloody Wedding don't leave\ntime for Nettle to have read the Narr's manuscript, but we know from\none of the editorial asides in OBW that she has. I suspect that her\nhaving read it is one of the things that prompts her to accompany\nthe Narr on his journey.\n\nPerhaps an actual statement of how long it was between the wedding\nand the departure would have been nice, but we know perfectly well\nthat Mr Wolfe doesn't like to tell what he can hint at." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But, as I've pointed out, we do have an actual statement, and it doesn't fit\nyour scenario. Daisy tells us that when she saw Silk for the last time, the\nwedding was \"a few days ago,\" (410) and Silk tells her they are leaving that\nnight (411). If we need to allow more time for Nettle to read the\nmanuscript (and I'm not convinced we do), it must come between her arrival\nin New Viron for the wedding and the wedding, not after the wedding.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }