Subject: (whorl) silk flowers, sleepers awake, whorl gazetteer

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 13:31:05 +0000

[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Rereading Nightside.  What the heck's going on between Silk
and Hyacinth?

I-Ch 6 - Silk has dismissed the monitor and snuck into
Hyacinth's bedroom.  "As he bent over her, something within
him reached out to her; and though he had not touched her,
he felt the thrill of touch."

A suggestive choice of words, as the augur said to the
monitor.  Mucor touches without touching, too...

I-Ch 8 - He's finally made it home after a long night of
breaking-and-entering and attempted extortion. "The
familiar, musty smell of the manse was like a kiss.  He
dropped into a chair, pulled the azoth from his stocking,
and pressed it to his lips, then stared at it."

Kissing an azoth?  Hmm.  Why did Silk fall so hard & fast
for this dell?  Adrenaline & pheremones?  Kypris' Secret
Love Charm?  Another loose bit of genetic programming? Did
Hy or Ky snare him on purpose, or just take advantage of it
when it happened? Should I, as the monitor would say,
abandon this line of inquiry?

I noticed this time while scanning II-Ch4 that Crane has
given Hy cosmetic surgery like Talos did Jolenta.  Does
Crane remind anyone else of Dr Talos?

--

By the way, what's with all this speculation about the
sleepers being genetically enhanced or programmed with
special knowledge?  The only evidence we have is Mamelta
repairing a rocket: heck, maybe she was a rocket scientist
on Urth.

Also, I can't see Mamelta's work reviving the sleeping gods
of Viron; she barely managed to get the monitor
half-working in the independent subsystem of a lander.

--

Just for the heck of it: What cities do we know of?  Gens
("they got tails in Gens"), Trivigaunte ("the girls fight
like troopers in Trivigaunte"), Palustria ("down amongst
the pollywogs, eh?"), Urbs and Urbis (can't find a quote).

--

Finally, another suggestion for the gammadion/voided cross:
a central hub with four screwdrivers (two philips and two
flat?) and four removable, gamma-shaped hex-keys.  With the
gammas snapped into place with their crossbars facing the
screwdrivers, they form hollow rectangles; four hollow
rectangles make a voided cross.

r.

Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com

---

From: Doug Eigsti <douge at nti.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 12:29:43 +0000

> the pollywogs, eh?"), Urbs and Urbis (can't find a quote).

	I scanned through my list of cities and I think you listed them
all. You will find a listing for Urbs in EXODUS Ch. I, P.36.7 (7th
paragraph from the top). "More spys than Urbs..." (I always find it
burdensome to read through an entire page to find the word I am looking
for)

	I still maintain that the void cross cannot have a central hub. A 
void is a void.

=Talon=

---

From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 22:08:27 +0000

>Crane remind anyone else of Dr Talos?

	Hmmm... Excellent point - both also appeared to be of higher
rank than a particular patient, but turn out to be serving that patient. 

>the pollywogs, eh?"),

	I think night-choughs were supposed to be native to the
marshes of Palustria.

>Urbs and Urbis (can't find a quote).

	Urbs and Wick are mentioned by Quetzal when he talks of his
contacts with other cities.

	As for the two Flier terms that I haven't translated yet: I
have a couple of (very uncertain) translations. "canna" could mean a
vessel or container - the dictionary I consulted also suggested it was
a variant of "caunna", which means moth. I'm not sure which of these
are correct. The former translation could be a euphemism of some sort,
just as the term "tank" was in WW1 when tanks were about to be
introduced. (I think the propulsion unit has a bell-shaped rocket
nozzle, so this could be another explanation.) Then again, "moth" is
appropriate, seeing as there are Fliers with names related to flying
animals.

	I'm even less certain about "glacaiocht": it could be a literal
translation of karate ("empty hand") as "glac" means hand. It could
also be related to the Irish for recieving, possibly denoting a soft
martial art, where the emphasis is on redirecting your opponent's
attacks. I also asked a friend about the possible meaning and he said
it sounded like the word for athletics, which could be used to cover
martial arts at a stretch. As I wasn't sure of the pronunciation I
have emailed him the spellings. (Irish uses accute accents, which are
clearly missing in some of the Flier names.) Hopefully, he will reply
soon.

	Tercel