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From: "Alice Turner" <al at interport.net>
Subject: Silk vis a vis God
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 12:05:17 -0400
With regard to the identity of the Outsider, let me remind you of Lake, 285, where Silk is telling Crane about his enlightenment:
"Voices...One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very masculine--not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone were speaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet both voices were his...I believe, too, that the Outsider has a great many more voices as well. I could hear them in back of me at times, although indistinctly. It was as if a crowd were waiting behind me while its leaders whispered in my ears; but as if the crowd was actually all one person, somehow: the Outsider...."
If that isn't Severian, I'll eat my mouse.
How would you like it cooked?
"Cooing" seems more like a reference to the Holy Spirit, in RC tradition. It has sometimes been thought of as the feminine part of the Trinity. I can't see how you could get Severian to have the voice of a mountain of stone.
In Genesis, God often refers to him/herself in the plural. (This in itself has sparked much discussion). This seems to me to be Wolfe's take on this metaphor/image/idea.
Kieran Mullen