{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/152", "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": 152, "subject": "Digest whorl.v001.n057", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-03-10T18:58:43+00:00", "last": "1997-03-11T02:11:20+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Mullen", "address": "kieran at phyast.nhn.ou.edu" }, "date": "1997-03-10T18:58:43+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v001.n057", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " How did Silk know Hyacinth's name when they first met? (Silk is hiding\nin her bedroom, guards come in looking for intruder, and Silk plays role of\na \"client\". He tells Hyacinth to go back to sleep, calling her by name. She\nremarks later that he got her name right.) The text is quite suggestive -\nSilk feels as if something in him reaches out to Hyacinth w/o touching\nher.\n\n Here are (IMO) a few other big hidden questions:\n\n - Since Silk seems to come from a frozen embryo, does he have a \n superhuman talent?\n\n - Why does the monitor send them to Blue, over their instructions?\n\n - What was the ghost of Patera Pike that Silk saw?\n\nI also have a bunch of \"minor\" questions. \n\n - Is Silk scanned at Mainframe? (Note this fits into Silk's Christic\n image: he is tempted to cast himself down from a high place, and\n then tempted to become a ruler of all the world. Severian's\n temptation \"in the desert\" by Typhon is even more explicit. They\n both are pretty clearly related to the three temptations of Christ.)\n\n - What is Oreb? (I think that Oreb reflects a line of C.S. Lewis, that\n we are gods to animals, enobling them and drawing them to higher \n levels of reflection, and that a proper relationship with them\n would reflect this. Oreb refers to Silk as his god.)\n\n\n I confess I see most things in this novel with a theological\nperspective, and that Wolfe's work is interesting to me as a piece of\ntheological science fiction. (There are a few others in the genre.)\nOne \"major\" question I omitted from above list is whether or not Silk's\nrevelations were real. I think Wolfe allows the reader to assume what\ns/he wishes on this score. I like that.\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "revjack at radix.net", "address": "revjack at radix.net" }, "date": "1997-03-11T02:11:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v001.n057", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Mon, 10 Mar 1997 18:58:43 -0600, Kieran Mullen wrote:\n\n: How did Silk know Hyacinth's name when they first met? (Silk is hiding\n: in her bedroom, guards come in looking for intruder, and Silk plays role of\n: a \"client\". He tells Hyacinth to go back to sleep, calling her by name. She\n: remarks later that he got her name right.) The text is quite suggestive -\n: Silk feels as if something in him reaches out to Hyacinth w/o touching\n: her.\n\nWhen he was in the dressing room, he found a needler decorated with\nhyacinths, deduced that it was hers, and took a *big* chance when the\nguards broke in. \n\n: Here are (IMO) a few other big hidden questions:\n: \n: - Since Silk seems to come from a frozen embryo, does he have a \n: superhuman talent?\n\nHe certainly seems to heal quickly.\n\n: - Why does the monitor send them to Blue, over their instructions?\n\nI'm still puzzling over this one, and the others.\n\n\nPatera Jack\n_________________\nrevjack at radix.net\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ranjit Bhatnagar", "address": "ranjit at gradient.cis.upenn.edu" }, "date": "1997-03-10T23:35:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v001.n057", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " How did Silk know Hyacinth's name when they first met? (Silk is hiding" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He made a lucky guess based on the Hyacinth designs embossed on her needler." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Here are (IMO) a few other big hidden questions:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You can find a lot of discussion of these questions -- but\nnot necessarily answers! -- in the archives, on the web at\n\n\thttp://moonmilk.volcano.org/whorl/\n\nThat's not to say that your questions aren't worth\ndiscussing further.\n\nGood point about the Temptations of Silk: to cast himself\nfrom a high place; to rule the whorl. Who or what was\ntempting him in the first instance? And what is the other\nof the three temptations? He always seems to be starving,\nbut he didn't turn down Auk's invitation to dinner...\n\nI noticed a lot of very vivid descriptions of food in the\nLong Sun books. Somehow Severian's story never made me\nhungry.\n\n\tr.\n\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }