{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/279", "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": 279, "subject": "Ask Gene Wolfe", "messages": 10, "voices": 9, "first": "1997-05-12T18:08:36+00:00", "last": "1997-05-15T22:47:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-12T20:30:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Attention ladies and gentlemen, lurkers and larkers, et cetera, et\nali, and all ships at sea.\n\nIn my regular correspondence with Gene Wolfe I asked him if he would\nhave the time for a round-table interview (about THE BOOK OF THE LONG\nSUN) by snail mail, composed of questions from the Whorl list\naudience. He has agreed to this scheme, writing, \"Collect some\nquestions and I'll proceed to dodge them.\"\n\nOkay! So here are the rules: interested parties should individually\ncome up with the one question they would most like to ask and post it to\nthe whorl list asap. I would like to get something in the mail by\nFriday, so we'll assume that is when the train is leaving the\nstation--the response and the next train would come a few weeks later.\nPlease limit the question to THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN, and\n(as we normally do anyway), be sure to cite the text if the question is\ntied into a particular scene or scenes.\n\nI'm thinking that each person can get in one question per round.\n(Conditional follow-up questions can probably be appended. I'll\njudge on a case-by-case basis, so go ahead and include the follow-up\nif you have it in mind.)\n\nDon't be scared, don't be shy!\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Patri10629", "address": "patri10629 at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-05-12T18:08:36+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Patrick O'Leary approaches the sphinx and asks his one question:\n\nWho or What is Oreb?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Richman", "address": "mrichman at mail.cybernex.net" }, "date": "1997-05-12T23:22:44+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: m.driussi at genie.com\nSubject: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe\nDate: Mon, 12 May 97 20:30:00 GMT\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]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In my regular correspondence with Gene Wolfe I asked him if he would\nhave the time for a round-table interview (about THE BOOK OF THE LONG\nSUN) by snail mail, composed of questions from the Whorl list\naudience. He has agreed to this scheme, writing, \"Collect some\nquestions and I'll proceed to dodge them.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "=mantis=" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gene Wolfe seems to be very fond of pretenses that turn out to be the truth\n(one might almost call them 'True Lies' if one were extraordinarily brave).\n\nFor example, Patera Silk thinks he's only pretending to sabotage the\nTrigivante Derigible, when in fact instead of cutting off the fuel he's cut\noff the lubricating oil, causing the engine to freeze. Earlier, he plans to\nfool the Trigivante general into believing Maytera Mint is alive by setting\na place at the table for her, but by the time the dinner begins he's already\nlearned that Mint is in fact alive.\n\nI would like to ask him what is his attraction to situations like this?\n\n\n\n\nMichael Richman\n380 Homans Av\nCloster, NJ 07624\nmrichman at bc.cybernex.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Cleary", "address": "kcleary at tinet.ie" }, "date": "1997-05-13T11:43:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is like the three wishes problem (\"I wish for infinite wishes\"). \nI guess I'd have to ask \"What was Typhon's purpose in launching the \nWhorl and was the Blue/Green system the intended destination?\"\nSomebody will have to arbitrate as to whether that's two questions, \nbut I can't help feeling that Mr. Wolfe will be tricksy in his \nanswers. \n\nBTW, Michael Richman: somewhere in tBotNS, Severian says \"Have I said \nthat time turns our lies into truth?\" referring to a number of similar\nsituations (his armiger disguise which made him seem \"a pilgrim bound \nfor some vague northern shrine\" amongst them).\n\nLasrach\n\n\n____________________________________________________________\nKieran Cleary\nSenior Research Engineer\nNorth West Labs\nFinisklin Industrial Estate\nSligo\nRepublic of Ireland\n\nTel. +353 71 69441\nFax. +353 71 69451\nemail kcleary at nwlabs.com\n___________________________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Reusch", "address": "newsun at freeway.net" }, "date": "1997-05-15T07:47:55+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you mantis for arranging this with Gene.\n\nOK, I've got to know. What are Quetzal's motives?\n\nI realize that's a pretty open-ended question, but like Mr. O'Leary, I \ndon't know how or where to make it more specific than that.\n\nVance" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1997-05-15T20:20:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In message <199705122048.NAA11050 at lists1.best.com>, m.driussi at genie.com writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In my regular correspondence with Gene Wolfe I asked him if he would\nhave the time for a round-table interview (about THE BOOK OF THE LONG\nSUN) by snail mail, composed of questions from the Whorl list\naudience. He has agreed to this scheme, writing, \"Collect some\nquestions and I'll proceed to dodge them.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tOk - in the scene where Silk first meets Kypris, what is the\n\"beam\" that she says has not yet been fixed? (This is before Silk goes\nremembers to complete the \"third circuit\" and the rest of the\nexorcism. I can see it as a possible biblical reference - the quote\nabout \"removing the beam from your eye\", but it a more literal\ninterpretation might be a link with the rest of the Whorl/Mainframe network.)\n\n\tDerek Bell (a.k.a. Tercel)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Fernando Q. Gouvea", "address": "fqgouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-15T18:11:35+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, here's my question for Gene:\n\nIn Horn's \"Defence\", he writes: \"Fewer than I have expected have found\nfault with Silk's assertion that [Mint] took her warlike character from the\nGoddess of Love, although it seems implausible to me.\" What did cause the\nchange in Mint's character?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea\t\t\t\nChair, Dept. of Math & CS\t\tEditor, MAA Online\nColby College\t\t\t\thttp://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu\t\t\tfqgouvea at maa.org\n==========================================================\n\nNo matter what other nations may say about the United States,\nimmigration is still the sincerest form of flattery." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-15T22:47:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #3615878 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#\n\nReef and Tercel,\n\nGot the questions. Thanks.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marcos B. Gouvea", "address": "m_gouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-15T22:30:41+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tGah! I was so busy doing my science fair project that I\ndidn't check my e-mail until now... I would've been disappointed if I\nhad missed this oppurtunity for some *real* answers to all those\nmysterious questions. Cutoff is Friday, right? (I hope I hope I hope\nI hope!)\n\tI don't really want to be attributed with ruining the\nmysteries of the whorl, and I don't think I've really contributed\nenough to justify me asking one of the big ones. It's being knawing\non me for a while anyway. So, with that in mind, my question is: \"Who\nWAS Blood's father?\" I don't think we ever found it out.\n\n\t\tBloody was a baby, \n\t\tand Rosey was his Ma,\n\t\tand though she vowed her secrecy,\n\t\tWe should know who was his Pa!\n\n\tSorry. Just feeling a little inspired.\n\n\tIn case anyone who hasn't asked their question yet didn't\nnotice, no one's thought of asking whether Blue/Green was St.\nAnne/Whatever (I haven't read that series yet, so I wouldn't know).\nCome on, we neeed to get all of the biggies! Also, did anyone ask\nspecifically for the five things Mint gave up after she became 15?\nOne final loose strand: At the beginning of Chapter 8 in Calde,\nMarble/Rose remembers having seen an object in the sky and thinking\nthat it was dirty, causing the soldier nearby to remark \"Why don't\nyou dust it?\" Was the dirty object the Whorl?\n\t\"A memory so remote that it seemed to have lain behind her\ncurved metal skull stirred at this, her third view. Dust flew, as\ndust always does when something that has remained motionless for a\nlong time moves at last.\"\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tThanks!\n\t\t\t\t\t---Quill\n\n=====================================================\nMarcos Gouvea--------------------------m_gouvea at colby.edu\n\n\n\nBrutha tried to nod, and thought: I'm on everyone's side. It'd be\nnice if, just for once, someone was on mine.\n -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Doug Eigsti", "address": "d.eigsti at worldnet.att.net" }, "date": "1997-05-15T22:10:26+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Ask Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "mantis,\n\n\tIt is a daunting proposition to boil down all the variables and \nuncertainities from the Long Sun into just one question. The Whorl is \nnearly as grand and unsearchable as our world, peopled with characters \ntoiling away in their quarter oblivious to the grand gambits of unseen \nforces above. Part of the mystique of the series is the mystery. If I \nknow Gene Wolfe, never met him, he will not give away anything he \ndeems important in an answer to a direct question that he has evaded \nin 1400 pages of fiction. Such things, it seems, are meant to be an \nexercise for the reader. I almost feel guilty in hoping that his \nanswers are as elusive and diffuse, and delectible, as his text. I am \nreminded of LeGuin's THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS where one must take \nexacting care in drafting one's question else risk getting an \nunexpected answer. None the less, the offer is irresistable. Here's \nhopin':\n\n\tAs has been lamented in these postings the publicized link between \nthe NEW SUN and LONG SUN turns out to be tenuous when all is said and \ndone, Typhon/Pas being the only common character. (Scylla seems only \nto share the common name). \n\tMy search for a more robust connection lead me to the story told to \nSeverian by Cyracia of the \"race of ancient days [that] reached the \nstars, and how they bargained away all the wild half of themselves to \ndo so, so they no longer cared for wind...love or lust...songs or any \nother animal things they believed they had brought with them out of \nthe rain forests at the bottom of time-though in fact, so my uncle \ntold me, those things brought them.\" (SWORD, Ch.VI, p. 38, paperback). \nThese machines later tried to restore the \"wild\" thoughts to men, in \norder to destroy them, by introducing \"artifacts of every kind, \ncalculated by them to revive all those thoughts that people had put \nbehind them because they could not be written in numbers\". (SWORD, Ch \nVI, p.39, paperback).\n\tThe necessity for having living cultures on the Whorl segregated in \ncity-states, isolated by topographical barriers fortified by Chem \narmies programmed to be mutually hostile in order to dissuade an \norganized revolt against Mainframe seems to be an overly complex means \nof transport, considering that Typhon obviously had access to \n\"sleeper\" technology (Mamelta). My question, in a roundabout way: Was \nthe live cargo of the Whorl only put on board to preserve the \"wild\" \nhalf of mankind so the Typhon/Pas entity could establish a vital human \nvassal state on the destination world, or did the Inhumi require the \n\"wild\" parts to satisfy their blood lust? \n\n=Talon=\naka Doug Eigsti" } ] } ] }