Subject: (whorl) Silk lives!

From: Peter Cash <cash at rsn.hp.com>
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 1997 12:08:12 +0000

[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Michael Richman wrote:

>I was rather surprised with this announcement because I got the impression
>at the end of Exodus that the Outsider had abandoned Silk.  I don't think
>Silk would have survived to the end of the series without the active help of
>the Outsider, and I pictured him dying a few minutes after Horn last saw him.

I don't think the Outsider abandoned Silk at all--I think Silk was
forced to realize how badly he had misunderstood the Outsider. Nor do I
think that Silk died; he's a survivor, and he's likely to live through
even the worst disaster--he can't help it. 

>I fould the ending to Long Sun very disturbing (even more than Urth) in that
>it seemed that Silk had been betrayed by everything he'd believed in, and
>that all he had left was Oreb.

Rest assured that I found it equally disturbing! (And I wasn't so sure
about Oreb...) Now that I've had time to think about it, though, I'm
really interested to see what Silk does next. How does he react to his
world crashing into pieces? Does he come to understand that the Outsider
is a spiritual God, and not at all like the programs in Mainframe? Does
he come to a better understanding of Love (and that Hyacinth isn't its
embodiment?)

Rock
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