{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/350", "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": 350, "subject": "Playing Catch-up", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1997-06-16T14:58:11+00:00", "last": "1997-06-16T14:58:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-06-16T14:58:11+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Playing Catch-up", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gosh, I come back from a week in the hinterlands, and look at all\nthe excitement! A belated welcome to Rostrum, who seems to have\nbeen stirring things up.\nThere's so much to respond to, including the answers to the\nTrain, I'll just pick a spot and dive in...\n\nrostrum say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "So, I read the Horn's comment as a poke by Wolfe saying, \"Ha!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Were you\nthinking like Horn that Love is all perfume and roses? Think\nagain!\" It\ncertainly goes along with Silk's disillusionment when he realizes\nHyacinth\ncan be a nasty fighter when she needs to be.<<\nand then wolfe say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "11. \"What changed Mint's character?\" Kypris. What I was\ntrying to" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "say is that there is more to love than doves and simpering.<<\n\nNow that Wolfe has spoken, it's unnecessary for me to back up\nrostrum on this point. But I will just throw in that when I read\nHorn's statement, I thought of a lot of other Wolfe passages\nwhere he pretty much says women (especially when they're the\nfocus of someone's love) are dangerous. Like in _New_Sun_ where\nSeverian says that everyone loves what they must destroy:\ntorturers love their clients, soldiers love their enemies, women\nlove men. I haven't read _Pandora_ which may be the obvious\nexception, but Wolfe's women do seem to have a kind of limited\nrepertoire: the Stand-In for Divine Love, the Sex Object, and\nAgent of Destruction.\nOn the subject of where Mint's strategy ability comes from, Wolfe\nis on the record as saying that military strategy is not a\ntalent, that it must be studied, isn't he?\n\nmantis say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And where =is= Sphigx, anyway (whom Silk calls a tawny" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "virago--which\nis a nice way of saying \"yellow haired dominatrix\")? And why\nhasn't\nanybody seen her since the rebellion, hmm? <<\n\nToo bad the kibosh has been put on further Mint-possession\nspeculation, 'cuz I found this comment pretty interesting.\n\nrostrum say re: C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This seems so close to Silk's formulation of the Outsider's\nrevelation, \"I" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "am to receive no help, because I am help\" that I'm inclined to\nbelieve it\nmust have been an influence on Wolfe.<<\n\nI'm glad you mentioned this, because I thought about the space\ntrilogy several times when reading the books, but had forgotten\nabout them by the time I found this list. Before I found this\nlist, I didn't realize that Wolfe was an actively practicing\nCatholic, but I did read _Long_Sun_ as covering a lot of the same\nground as the space trilogy, only... you know... interesting.\n I didn't make the Remora/Withers connection, but it strikes me\nnow that you mention it. Think Withers was the point of departure\nfor the character of Remora?\n\nwolfe say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "14. \"Is there a member (current, former, or future of the Order\nof" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Seekers for Truth and Penitence on the Whorl?\" I'm going to\ninterpret this question in the broadest possible sense, since\nthat\nseems to be what Parsons wants. Yes, there is. It is Silk.<<\n\nNow, he's intentionally giving me fits...\nThis could mean that the actual torturers guild lies in Silk's\nfuture, 'cuz who knows what could happen in the course of a few\nmore Wolfe novels, but I guess this is probably a literal answer,\nnamely Silk seeks truth, and he seeks penitence. Unlike the\ntorturers (but like Severian?), he seeks it from himself, not\nothers.\n\nmantis say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But yeah, ambiguity: if Q is all for planetfall (another\nInfocom" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "title!), then what has he been doing to promote exodus for the\nlast\nthirty years? Even if we grant as true the theory that the\nplanetfall\ngods lost in the big war, even then Q seems to be acting to\npreserve\nstatus quo, albeit a kinder and gentler (no human sacrifice)\nversion.<<\n\nOkay, I know what I said when we sent that last train off to\nWolfe: how we should give people who didn't get a chance to ask a\nquestion first priority. But boy, do I hope mantis slips this in\nto a second train, should there be one. Q strikes me as the big\nmystery now, since he's the person who could potentially shed a\nlot of light on the forthcoming series.\nI'm also still itching to hear my other question (the one about\nthe timing of Typhon/Piaton's head job) because, for all the\nreasons I've outlined previously, it seems to be a key to the\nsticky issue of the Whorl/Typhon/Severian timeline.\n\nI think I'm more or less caught up with the list now... Time to\ngo see what's been happening on the Urth list. \n\n-cephalothorax-" } ] } ] }