# BLUE religion notes *The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 07 Oct 1999* > 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. --- ### Alex David Groce *07 Oct 1999, 14:04* Nor, for that matter, had Severian become a perfected being in URTH. Despite the Christ-imagery, none of Wolfe's heroes are Christ. They're better viewed as apostolic, blessed figures--performing miracles left and right, wiser than than have any right to be, aided by the forces of nature, but decidedly not part of the Godhead, and still capable of moral failure. I suspect the New Vironese motive for the "goose chase" is self contradictory-- the five who send Silk probably want to get rid of Horn, and have some of the motives of squashing this "new religion," but I suspect some of them (perhaps the same ones harboring those motives) are also guilty of "Silkism" themselves, those who knew Silk especially. Glorifying Silk is part of the problem, they may think, but they also may suspect that if Silk shows up it will "fix everything." Such mixed motives (and in some cases the right idea for the wrong reasons or wrong idea for the right reason) are typical Wolfe. Does anyone else think that behind the stuttering Remora knows a LOT more about things than even Horn thinks he does--he's seen Neighbors or some such, and I suspect he knows who the fourth on Mucor's island is, although he won't answer any questions. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 ``` Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu) Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department 8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *07 Oct 1999, 09:49 · follows Alex David Groce* Having said that OBW is like the authorized sequel to DON QUIXOTE, and responding in part to questions of motives for the elders of New Viron in choosing Horn for the goose chase, I offer the following notes: Horn (and Nettle, it turns out) wrote TBOTLS as memoir of the way they lived on the Long Sun Whorl, and also as a tribute to Silk. That is, they didn't intend to write a sort of New Testament. However, things are getting bad in the colony. People in dire straits look for heroes, and people have been reading TBOTLS. They may be on the cusp of a new religion, call it "Silkism," that stands to the Vironese Church as Christianity stands to ancient Paganism. Silkism focuses on a transcendant god, the formerly obscure Outsider, as being above and beyond all the other gods. Obviously this impulse, real or imagined, will cause friction with the established Vironese Church. The goose chase offers the opportunity to nip it all in the bud, by sending the chief architect of Silkism (even though he doesn't recognize it as a new religion) out of sight and mind, or, should he be somehow successful, by bringing (the heretic?) Silk to answer questions (charges?) in New Viron. Just as the Rajan of Gaon proves useful during times of trouble, up to the moment of victory, when suddenly he must be killed . . . not all that different from Apu Punchau, come to think of it . . . Another parallel with TBOTNS: Severian writes four volumes about himself, then one volume about his return as something else, something he was striving to become (however unconsciously); Horn writes four volumes about Silk, then in OBW it becomes clear that he has somehow incorporated Silk within himself, Silk has become a part of him, or he has become a part of Silk--in any event, he has merged to a degree with his role model. Not that this leaves the Rajan as a perfected being! =mantis= *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---