Subject: (whorl) Horn's Authorship

From: Doug Eigsti <douge at nti.com>
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 09:26:32 +0000

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

	I like the convention started by Michael Driussi of using 
Vironese names. Call me "Talon".

		*	*	*

	Ever since I learned that Horn penned the "Book of Silk" I have
been on the lookout to see if the story is consistent with his writing
perspective. I think it is. I have, so far, collected information from 
the first two volumes. Wolfe has Horn drop some cues in the scenes
with the two fishing boats on Lake Limna, the first with Silk at the end
of LAKE and the second with Auk at the beginning of CALDE.
	Silk's rescue by Captain Dace, whose name isn't given until III p.
34.-6, leaves him lying on a pile of nets. The narrator describes the
scene using only Silk's vocabulary: " a rope connected the long stick
(Silk could not recall its name, if he had ever known it) that spread the
sail". Later, with Auk, he describes a similar scene freely using the
nautical terms "halyard" (the rope), III p 25.-1, and "yard" (the stick),
III p 27.2. What are we to make of these narrational irregularities?
	The parenthetical phrase could be evidence consistent with a
writer reconstructing events based on personal interviews, in this case
with Silk, for his story. Our narrator refrains from using terms his
witness did not use in his account. Later he applies them correctly
because his eye-witness, Auk, was more fluent in nautical terms. Wolfe has
changed narrational perspective before, for instance with Musk or Marble,
but this time he gives us a clue that he is not using conventional limited
3rd person narration. 

		*	*	*

	Horn has a way of working his name into the story in flattering 
ways even when the character Horn is not in a scene:

I p.15.-7 - I (Silk) know that whenever I need you I can call on you 
(Horn), and that you'll do all that you can do without counting the cost.

I p. 204.-1 - I should have Horn - he's quite artistic - and some of the 
older students paint the front of the manteion.

II p. 13.1 - Horn, the tallest boy in the palaestra...

II p. 19.3 - You imitated me so well that for a while I actually thought 
that your voice was my own; it was like hearing myself.

II p. 23.-4 - It (Horn's toy marionette) had strings, and if you did them 
right you could make him walk and bow. (Puppet symbolism is pervalent if 
many of Wolfe's stories)

II p. 111.-3 - Horn's toy (Chenille's movement under the influence of 
Mucor, reminded Silk of a marionette).

II p. 286.5 - Horn, the best player we have...

II p. 320.2 - Running at thrice the speed even a fleet boy like Horn 
could have managed.

II p. 347.1 - I can have Horn or one of the other boys bring them back.

	One might, at first, think that Silk is just fond of Horn. These 
references take on a different cast seen from the perspective of Horn's 
authorship. I see these as cameos by the author.

=Doug Eigsti=
aka Talon
douge at nti.com

Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com