{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1506", "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": 1506, "subject": "Silk as toy of mother", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-12-30T02:03:50+00:00", "last": "2002-01-01T17:12:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2001-12-30T02:03:50+00:00", "subject": "Silk as toy of mother", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for the kind words about my idea of female spys in the Book of the \nShort Sun, Alice. I myself am fascinated by the appearance of Dr. Crane's \nghost near the end of Return to the Whorl. Ok, here are some of the important \nassociations with Seawrack that I think indicate she has more power over the \nnarrator than is at first apparent: \nIn On Blue's Waters, the narrator considers the song of the Mother and thinks \nof it as a song of time, while specifically stating that Seawrack's song seems \na song more like \"wind\". With all of the foul wind blowing from the sea \nthroughout the book, it seems that the wind goes against his boat at very \ninteresting times: while he and Seawrack while away the hours before reaching \nthe island, the wind stops to prolong the time they spend together. Horn \nbelieves the song of the mother was employed to improve his reception of \nSeawrack. \nRight before the narrator is going to return home to see Nettle at the end of \nReturn to the whorl, all the wind beats fiercely against him, delaying him and \ncausing him to stay in the town of New Viron until he can get a boat. Often, \nmention of Seawrack's song involves mention of the wind and the weather. \nWhile not significant by itself, the wind becomes important in the augury that \n\"silk\" performs with Olivine. His prophecy there involves clouds, whirlwinds, \nand darkness twice over. All right, none of that means too much by itself. \nThen, we have the strange thoughts of Horn right before he is freed from the \npit in On Blue's Waters, before Krait reveals that paradoxes resolve \neverything (he who tries to save his life will lose it, he who casts it away \nwill save it). Horn thinks of his blue painted string man, who he thought he \nwas so skillful at controlling. Then he says how jealous he was that his \nMother could control that blue painted string man much more effectively \nwithout even trying. In Return to the Whorl, in Chapter 8, Sad Experience \nTeaches Me, \"Silk\" thinks of his famous song \"fair young girls live to deceive \nyou\" and thinks of himself as a blue coated puppet. The blue painted puppet \nspies a tempting woman in the garden as he steals an apple. If Horn regrets \nthat he cannot control the blue painted puppet and admits that the Mother \ncontrols him more effectively, then perhaps Silk (or whoever the narrator \nis)has been a puppet all along for the Mother, who Horn can no longer control.\n \nThe passage from the Chrasmologic writings that the narrator reads from in \nChapter 12 of Return to the Whorl during Olivine's sacrifice is interpreted by \nSilk (with those weird finger motions on the cheek that he does) as \"Wild \nwhirlwinds are to rise. ... if he didn't believe we needed a warning, I doubt \nthat he would have provided it. ... Clouds? I can't make much of that. It \nmay mean perfectly ordinary clouds, such as we see every day. It may also \nrefer to the god's veiling the minds of those he intends to destroy. ... The \nwhirlwinds, clouds, and double darkness therefore refer not merely to this \nwhorl, the Long Sun Whorl, but to Blue as well\" While Seawrack has been \nassociated with winds before, clouds have not really been mentioned except in \nthe storms that the wind instigates. Interestingly enough, in the previous \nchapter, Windcloud the Neighbor testifies for \"Silk\", admitting that \"Silk\" \nworks for the Neighbors, and \"Humourously\" declaring that the narrator has not \nbeen working against his own kind. We learn that the Neighbors infected \nhumanity with inhumi, in order to judge the character of the visitors in their \nsystem. \nPerhaps Windcloud, whose vanished people used to worship the mother, knows \nthat Silk could be a tool of the Mother, played by a fair young girl as \neffectively as if he were a marionette in the hands of the mother. Windcloud \ngives a fairly unflattering analogy for humanity when he compares them to \nfishcatcher birds who infest a chimney without permission (and from Inclito's \nmothers story about people getting stuffed in chimney's, there is nothing too \npositive associated with them). Perhaps Windcloud's people and the Mother are \nstill interested in controlling humanity through Silk/Horn. In the neighbor \nWindcloud's name, the symbolism of the wind and clouds from the augury are \njoined (and \"silk\" observes that he cannot see the eyes of the neighbor \nWindcloud, and has never been able to see their eyes - whereas Babbie talks \nwith his eyes when he returns in Return to the Whorl, and it is Babbie who \nattacked Seawrack before the Song of the Mother placated both Horn and Babbie \ninto accepting her.) \nAlso, while I cannot locate the exact place where it occurs in the text but I \nhave it written in a note, the narrator comments at one point that some \ncharacter's mother attempted to guide his decisions and actions, and \"my own \nMother had done the same, and I am not sure it was always for the best\". \n(that is probably a paraphrase from my notes: I will look for the precise \nquote).\n\nIs all that nasty wind blowing enough to indict Seawrack? What about all \nthose corpses she feasted on before, and Krait's claim that \"she lies all the \ntime\"? Seawrack's ring might invoke the neighbors. Are they all working \nagainst humanity, or for it? Tough to say. Hopefully these word associations \nare intelligible to most people ...\n\n(Interestingly enough, the dictionary definition of Silk includes something \nabout blooming corn - I didn't think of the Silk on corn until I happened to \nlook at it. Pretty cool, considering that whole corn aspect of salvation in \nthe text, huh?)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2002-01-01T17:12:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Silk as toy of mother", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This was a really interesting post, and I don't know what to make of it \n(yet; I'll wait for others to interact).\n\tBut I have a thought: Wolfe expressed to me that Mother Goddess worship is \nthe essence of paganism. Those weren't his words, but the gist of our \nconversation. If you want to see Wolfe's understanding of this in action, \nthink of the castration scene in the \"Soldier\" books. Philosophically, \nMother Goddess worship is simply pantheism in action: the universe as \nMother Earth is the ultimate thing in existence, so that violence and \n\"evil\" are as \"natural\" as peace and goodness. The true God is the \nOutsider, the Creature of nature.\n\tFrom Wolfe's standpoint, Mother Earth is created by Father God, and \nbecause of human sin, is fallen. Mother has her role, but as a creature of \nFather. Sin means disorder, while redemption means the restoration of \nproper order. Paganism means to ultimatize and worship the creation \n(nature) rather than the Creator.\n\tBased on the evidence as you present it, I'm thinking that this kind of \nconflict is in the background of the Short Sun Books. Perhaps PATERA Silk \ncontinues to be the Father's Agent, sought by Horn, but there is also the \nMother and her agent Seawrack contending for his allegiance. Idolatry was \narguably the major theme in the Long Sun books, but expressed as \npolytheism. It would make sense for Wolfe to continue that theme in the \nShort Sun books, while going deeper behind polytheism to Nature/Mother worship.\n\tHorn searches for Father Silk in the heavens; while Mother dwells below, \nin the Deep. In between in the land, where the contest is joined.\n\tWhich side are the Neighbors on? Evidently in their own history they \nexperienced the same kind of contest, sometimes falling into Mother-Nature \nworship; but in the main, the Neighbors seem to be like tutorial angels \nrather than seducers. That is, the Neighbors don't seem to be puppeteers, \nseeking to enslave humanity (as a puppet is enslaved or ensorceled); but \nrather they seem to be encouraging free and mature decision-making on the \npart of humans.\n\tAlong these lines also: wind and storm are surely powers of Mother, but \nthey are also manifestations of theophanies of the Creator. Thus, \nWindcloud's name may not indicate that he serves the Mother, but that he \nserves the Outsider. One would have to weigh the evidence to see if both \naspects of this imagery are present in the books.\n\tJust some thoughts. Nothing in stone here!\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }