{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/165", "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": 165, "subject": "Silk vis a vis God", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-04-06T12:05:17+00:00", "last": "1997-04-07T12:35:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1997-04-06T12:05:17+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Silk vis a vis God", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "With regard to the identity of the Outsider, let me remind you of Lake,\n285, where Silk is telling Crane about his enlightenment:\n\n\"Voices...One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very\nmasculine--not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone were\nspeaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet both voices\nwere his...I believe, too, that the Outsider has a great many more voices\nas well. I could hear them in back of me at times, although indistinctly.\nIt was as if a crowd were waiting behind me while its leaders whispered in\nmy ears; but as if the crowd was actually all one person, somehow: the\nOutsider....\"\n\nIf that isn't Severian, I'll eat my mouse.\n\nDr. Gouvea, assuming you've already rejected Porcupine and Hedgehog, the\nobvious choices for your Vironese alias, what about Tanrec or Tenrec\n(alternate spellings)? It's a spiny native of Madagascar. Or you could try\nPorpentine--I think that's from Othello, and most melodious.\n\nHush yo' mouf, mantis.\n\n-alga- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-04-07T00:03:45+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Silk vis a vis God", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:05 PM 4/6/97 -0400, you wrote:\n\nWith regard to the identity of the Outsider, let me remind you of Lake,\n285, where Silk is telling Crane about his enlightenment:\n\n\"Voices...One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very\nmasculine--not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone were\nspeaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet both voices\nwere his...I believe, too, that the Outsider has a great many more voices\nas well. I could hear them in back of me at times, although indistinctly.\nIt was as if a crowd were waiting behind me while its leaders whispered in\nmy ears; but as if the crowd was actually all one person, somehow: the\nOutsider....\"\n\nIf that isn't Severian, I'll eat my mouse." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tHope you like plastic! :-) Or is this a pet mouse....\n\n\tI'd say it is God and the Church, the Mother of believers and Bride of\nChrist. Not only does this work with theology, specificially Roman Catholic\ntheology, but it is also in Wolfe, as in the Italian Restaurant run by\n\"Mamma and her sons\" in *There Are Doors,* and as in the woman who runs the\nchurch-hostel in \"Westwind.\"\n\n\tIf the same thing is going on with Severian -- and I'm not sure it is\n(though it is an interesting symbolic suggestion) -- then it is because\nthey have a common source, not because the Outsider is Severian.\n\nFor my money, anyway. (In real life, a protestant theologian by trade.)\n\nSigned: Big Rat (Nutria) -- and by the way, a Nutria might look like a\nmouse, but I'm not YOUR mouse, so don't try slaughtering and roasting me!" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Doug Eigsti", "address": "douge at nti.com" }, "date": "1997-04-07T12:35:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Silk vis a vis God", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Alga,\n\n\tI'll have to chime in on the side of Nutria. The Outsider is \nbetter supported in the text as being the supreme being, The Creator:\n\t\n(IV, p284.9) \"...who shaped our forebears from the mud of the Short Sun \nWhorl.\"\n\t\n(IV,p341.-5) \"created Pas\"\n\n\tNo one would like to see Severian make a cameo in LONG SUN more\nthan I. I cannot, however, place Severian in the role of the Increate. \nConcilliator, yes. It is easier to accommodate the one difficult text you\nquoted, with the male and female voices, by incorporating God's triune\nnature, as Nutria has, than to assume that Severian is the One True God. \nFor this is the conclusion Silk comes to. His struggle with his beliefs \nis one of the key themes in the book. Severian just does not fit. I would \nlove to see further evidence to the contrary. If it's there I missed it \ncompletely.\n\n=Talon=\n\n\nOne tart without so much rat in it later... (Monty Python)" } ] } ] }