{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/180",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 180,
    "subject": "questions about Vironese religion and smart",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": null,
    "last": null
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0004-0022@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Richard Horton",
        "address": "rhorton at mdc.com"
      },
      "date": null,
      "subject": "(whorl): questions about Vironese religion and smart",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\t   animals\nDate: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 13:42:46 -0500\nBestServHost: lists.best.com\nSender: whorl-errors at lists.best.com\nErrors-To: whorl-errors at lists.best.com\nReply-To: whorl at lists.best.com\nTo: whorl at lists.best.com\n\n\n[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]\n\nI'm knew to this list, and treading somewhat warily in the face of such\nexcellent, close, readers.\n\nBy way of a brief introduction, I'm a long time fan of Wolfe's work, coming\noriginally from roughly his neck of the woods (Naperville, IL, a southwest\nsuburb of Chicago in the sense that Barrington is northwest).   I remember\nreading \"The Fifth Head of Cerberus\" in a Nebula collection when I was\nperhaps 14, and getting almost nothing from it, then rereading the novella\nand the rest of the novel when the latter came out in paper a few years\nlater: what a rush of wonder and satisfaction when all of a sudden much\ncame clear to me: and a good lesson about the necessity of rereading\nWolfe.\n\nWhich I haven't yet done with Long Sun, and I must.\n\nI confess to feeling much as someone did on this list (I read it in the\narchives) on approaching Exodus: a certain trepidation, knowing that\nWolfe would really have to pull off a lot to make the whole thing work,\nfollowed by a growing sense that, yes, by golly, he's done it.  And tears at\nboth endings: Oreb crying \"Silk! Silk! Silk!\", then Horn's recollection of Silk\ncatching the ball at the beginning of the books.\n\nI had a couple of specific questions (I hope these haven't been hashed to\ndeath in the list before now):\n\n1. What is the \"Vironese religion\" that Remora leads on Blue?  Is it a\ncontinuation of the Vironese religion as it was practiced in the Whorl, with\nworship of Pas and the Seven, or is it, inspired by Silk, worship of the\nOutsider?\n\n2.  How did the intelligent animals such as Oreb and the catechrest\nbecome intelligent?  Are they gene-enhanced, or mechanically enhanced,\nor are they possessed to some extent by the gods?  (Without researching\nthe text for specific clues, I'd lean to the latter view.)\n\n ---\n Rich Horton, or, if we are signing posts with Vironese names, I will take\none based vaguely on my last name:\n\n ---\n - Tusk -"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}