{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/641",
    "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": 641,
    "subject": "[blue, spoilers, read only when finished] More on Blue",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-09-28T14:39:24+00:00",
    "last": "1999-09-28T23:12:17+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0037@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1999-09-28T14:39:24+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) [blue, spoilers, read only when finished] More on Blue",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I finished Blue last week, but have remained silent until now, waiting for\nsomeone else to speak first.  My awe is the same--considering that NEW SUN,\nURTH, LONG SUN and SHORT SUN are, in a sense, Wolfe's \"future history\" (though\nnothing so un-subtle), I think Wolfe is moving, finally, into the home stretch\nof one of the most powerful and evocative examinations of life ever expressed\nin fictional form.\n\nVarious random points:\n\n(1)  The three stars struck me early on as having some significance, and I was\npleased to see \"Horn\" explain them as Blue, Green and the Long Sun Whorl (and,\nof course, the three books of Horn's narrative, and (since this is Wolfe)\nperhaps the three SUN uber-novels and even the Trinity...)\n\n(2)  Horn, by the time the ongoing narrative (which will presumably merge into\na single conclusion at the end of RETURN TO THE WHORL) starts is a tall(er),\nwhite-haired, one-eyed man with a staff and good ol' Oreb on his shoulder:\nOdin.  I suspect that we will later learn that in some sense Horn has traded\nhis eye for wisdom.\n\n(3)  I think I have a guess at the secret of the inhumi, but there's probably\nsome startling aspect I haven't considered--it seems obvious that they only are\nintelligent because they drink the blood of intelligent creatures.  I suspect\nthat more than this, they in some sense take their \"person\"ality from the first\nperson whose blood they drink--and that Krait was the inhumi whose first\nfeeding was on Sinew, and thus he really is Horn's son, in a perverse (but\nin the end transfigured into something wonderful) sense.  If this is so, I\nwonder if Quetzal might have fed on Silk (or maybe Silk's father)?\n\n(4)  Mucor is still creepy, she's just not adolescent and creepy.  It would\nbe strange to expect twenty years with Marble not to have been better for her\nthan her previous upbringing.\n\n(5)  I'm trying to think if Wolfe has ever portrayed a protagonist who was\nfaithful to his wife during his wanderings--here, of course, Horn has the\nOdyssey to live up to, but Severian, Nardan from \"Seven American Nights,\" etc.\n(Latro if he is married).\n\n(6)  I think the ressurrection Horn keeps giving us hints about happened on\nGreen--where he received his \"fatal\" wound (I don't have my copy so can't\nreference exactly where he says this).\n\n(7)  Also, now that I've (almost completely) dismissed my Urth is Blue theory,\nI'm wondering how Severian's going to make his supposed appearance.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0038@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Patri10629",
        "address": "patri10629 at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-09-28T23:12:17+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) [blue, spoilers, read only when finished] More on Blue",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0010-0037@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In a message dated 9/28/99 4:42:03 PM, Alex_Groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu writes:\n\n<<  I think I have a guess at the secret of the inhumi, but there's \nprobably some startling aspect I haven't considered--it seems obvious\n that they only are intelligent because they drink the blood of intelligent \ncreatures.>>\n\nInteresting. Possible. But \"intelligent blood\"? Some sort of\nalzaboish transmogrification--if that's the word. I dunno.\n\n<<  I suspect that more than this, they in some sense take their \n\"person\"ality from the first person whose blood they drink--and \nthat Krait was the inhumi whose first feeding was on Sinew, and \nthus he really is Horn's son, in a perverse (but\nin the end transfigured into something wonderful) sense.  >>\n\nInteresting, too. But Krait seems to deny this in the text.\n\nP 205 (HC):\n\nHorn says:\n\n \"'One of you nearly killed my son.'\n\nHis head wagged. 'That wasn't me.'\"\n\nInteresting. He denies \"nearly killing\" Sinew. He doesn't say\n\"I didn't bite him.\" or \"I never touched him.\" Perhaps he's lying.\nPerhaps he's saying the child wasn't in mortal danger. Or perhaps\nKrait had the first taste and another Inhumu  drained the child to the brink.\n\nO dear, it's thickening. But perhaps we should wait...\n\nBest\n\nPatrick O'Leary\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}