{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/18", "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": 18, "subject": "More Whorl Mysteries", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-01-10T14:47:39+00:00", "last": "1997-01-11T10:38:42+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Patri10629", "address": "patri10629 at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-01-10T14:47:39+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) More Whorl Mysteries", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Long Sun Books are full of puzzles and mysteries--that's part of their\npower and charm, I think. \n\nBut after having read the series three times I remain mystified/intrigued by\nthese:\n\n1. What purpose did the tour of the Talus factory serve? It happens late in\nExodus and seems to lead nowhere--a battle plan that didn't pan out? I wonder\nwhat others make of this scene...\n\n2. In the same scene why does Oreb cry out in apparent fear/anxiety at\nsomething disturbing that is happening \"off screen? I think he says something\nlike \"No! NO!\" Huh?\n\n3. What is the deception/lie of Maytera Marble which so distressed Silk near\nthe end? Is it ever made explicit?\n\n4. Has anyone else gotten the impression that all the political maneuvering\nand intrigue, strategems and plots, temporary victories and reprieves--a\nlarge portion of the Long Sun story, in fact--amounts to nothing? It's as if\n\"the best laid plans of mice and men...\" As if the true purpose and meaning\nof the whole whorl is unknown to its occupants until the last 100 pages. All\nthis futile spying and scurrying, useless battles and needless bloodshed,\nborder skirmishes and diplomatic bargaining--what a joke! Perhaps this\ntriggers Silk's despair--the dawning realization that His Story wasn't about\nsaving his Mantion, wasn't about overthrowing the government, wasn't even\nabout making Peace or saving the whorl--his people and himself have been\npawns of a larger scheme--Pas's or The Outsider--Perhaps he's not sure. And\nperhaps that's why he despairs.\n\nIt seems to me a very religious, if not downright Christian take on the true\nhistory of humankind--that there is a larger, more profound divine plan\nhidden beneath the trivial parochial concerns of humans.\n\nIt annoys me a bit--but that's part of the pleasure of Wolfe's work, too.\n\nPatrick O'Leary\n\nAuthor of DOOR NUMBER THREE\n\nHome Page: http://users.aol.com/patri10629/index.html\n\nemail:\n\nPatri10629 at aol.com\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CoxRathvon", "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-01-11T10:38:42+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) More Whorl Mysteries", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is to thank Patrick O'Leary for the recent \"Whorl\" comments, which seem\nto me insightful and interesting. (But I wish, Patrick, you'd enlarge upon\nyour closing comment: \"It annoys me a bit.\" I too find Wolfe's work\nunsettling in many ways--and I do not belong to his religion--but I'd like\nyou to expand on your comment, if you can, to let me see if we're reacting to\nthe same qualities in Wolfe's writing.)\n\nI too am in the midst of my third reading of the \"Long Sun\" series, and I\nmust say I'm enjoying it more than ever and perhaps understanding it better.\n Patrick mentions some particularly mysterious points. He asks: \n\n\"Has anyone else gotten the impression that all the political maneuvering and\nintrigue, strategems and plots, temporary victories and reprieves--a large\nportion of the Long Sun story, in fact--amounts to nothing?\"\n\nMy answer is--yes, very much so, and I agree with Patrick that Silk's hour of\ndespair atop the airship derives in part from this perception of the largely\nfutile surge of history. It's typical, I think, for Wolfe's stories to take\nplace against a backdrop of war, espionage, and political chaos--all of it\nabsorbing and vital to its participants--which however is ultimately\npointless when compared to one's search for self or truth or God. Wolfe's\nvision seems to be that mankind will *always* be thrashing about in politics\nand war, and that innocent people will be swept up and killed in these\nendless, bloody tides. If anything, this inevitable social chaos makes the\nquest for a deeper meaning more precious--and more difficult. Poor Silk is\nthrown into the midst of a political storm at the very same time that he's\nshown a path of redemption. It must tear his heart to realize that so many\npeople will perish in the chaos without sharing his vision.\n\nBut of course, Silk has some purely personal sorrows in that hour of despair\non the airship, and I'm still trying to understand those. One involves\nHyacinth and another involves Maytera Marble, as Patrick points out.\n Hyacinth, as has been suggested in recent postings here, is almost certain\nto have done some spying for Crane and Trivigaunte; evidently she and\nChenille have not fully divulged to Silk the extent of such activities. But\nalso, it's clear that Kypris used to visit Hyacinth (through the glass at\nBlood's villa), and is therefore apt to have possessed her and \"left a piece\"\nof the goddess with Hyacinth. Does that perhaps explain Hyacinth's ability\nto overcome a trooper? I'm still not sure and would welcome further\nsuggestions from fellow readers.\n\nAs for Maytera Marble, she seems to have lied about her past (she was not\nMoly after all) in order to marry a soldier. She had good reasons for\npursuing happiness in this way, but nevertheless she lied, something Silk\nfinds saddening. I suppose he's struck, in that moment on the airship, at\nboth the futility of politics on a large scale and the frailty of individuals\non a small scale.\n\nAs for the tour of the talus factory, I think it simply illustrates Silk's\ndetermination to do his job as calde. He doesn't know he'll be leaving the\nwhorl in a matter of days, so he's laying military plans that could be\neffective months in the future. Whether his special-ordered taluses are\nmanufactured in time to be effective in Viron's wars remains unknown--and of\ncourse, is ultimately meaningless.\n\nPerhaps I should add that although I do not, as I've said, share Wolfe's\nCatholicism, I do respond sympathetically to a vision of humanity in which\ncruel chaos is the rule on a large scale while redemption of some sort is\npossible on a personal scale. I think the \"Long Sun\" books explore this\nvision in a fascinating way--with a lot of extra twists and turns, of course,\nof an almost postmodernist literary sort. \n\nSorry if I've carried on too windily. I'm still working a lot of this out in\nmy own mind. It's great having a forum in which to compare thoughts.\n\n--Henry Rathvon\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }