{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/693", "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": 693, "subject": "more grist for the \"enhanced Horn hypothesis\"", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1999-10-15T07:42:35+00:00", "last": "1999-10-18T08:06:49+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "1999-10-15T07:42:35+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) more grist for the \"enhanced Horn hypothesis\"", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Last night I was re-reading the passage in OBW where Horn visits\nMarble and Mucor. Maytera Marble alludes to Hammerstone's deep\nfondness for Patera Incus, which as I recall, was a small\n\"improvement\" that Incus made, he being of the \"hacker priest\" class.\nA paragraph or two later, Horn laments the fact that the BOOK OF SILK\ndoesn't convey just how great Silk really was. Hmmm! This may be a\nred herring, but given its textual proximity to Marble's observation\nand the fact that we have ample evdience of how human \"software\" can\nbe re-jiggered by the will of the gods, it wouldn't surprise me to\ndiscover that Horn's perception of Silk has been enhanced.\n\nGiven the Wolfean \"unreliable narrator,\" it makes you start to wonder\nif the Silk of the BOOK OF SILK is something of an exaggeration, which\nwould certainly fit in with the Christ parallels. Silk is portrayed\nas a kind of Father Brown, but perhaps in \"real life\" he was more of a\nFather Ted.\n\nAnother random observation: \"Passilk\" immediately made me think of\n\"Tashlan\" from C.S. Lewis' THE LAST BATTLE.\n\nLex\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-15T12:10:32+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) more grist for the \"enhanced Horn hypothesis\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Given the Wolfean \"unreliable narrator,\" it makes you start to wonder\nif the Silk of the BOOK OF SILK is something of an exaggeration, which\nwould certainly fit in with the Christ parallels. Silk is portrayed\nas a kind of Father Brown, but perhaps in \"real life\" he was more of a\nFather Ted." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm a bit confused here--fits in with the Christ parallels in that Silk\ncouldn't possibly be that Christ-like, or fits in that the _gospels_ are\nexaggerations? I would think the first would be a more likely approach for\nWolfe than the second, but even then, there's Silk's Englightenment (which \nworks two ways--(A) it might make Silk better than he would be and (B) maybe\nhe got Enlightened because he had a tendency to be a Very Good person anyway).\nAlso going against the exaggeration theory is that other people who knew\nSilk very well (Marble, Mucor, etc.) seem to have seen him as an\nextraordinarily good man.\n\nI think a telling note in LONG SUN is that Horn is generally noticed much more\nthan Nettle--is Nettle even listed as \"Author of the BOOK OF SILK\" in the \nPersons, Places & Things section in Exodus? It seems her role is secondary in\nthe actual composition--scribe and organizer (given OBW, there is no telling\nwhat order Horn might have put things in...)\n\nHorn does mimic Silk beautifully long before any possibility of possession or \nanything, so as usual in LONG SUN, any possession is well in keeping with his\noriginal tendencies.\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": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-15T17:33:31+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) more grist for the \"enhanced Horn hypothesis\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At 12:10 PM 10/15/99 -0400, you wrote:\nGiven the Wolfean \"unreliable narrator,\" it makes you start to wonder\nif the Silk of the BOOK OF SILK is something of an exaggeration, which\nwould certainly fit in with the Christ parallels. Silk is portrayed\nas a kind of Father Brown, but perhaps in \"real life\" he was more of a\nFather Ted." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, he's Brown in the first book, not much in the latter three." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm a bit confused here--fits in with the Christ parallels in that Silk\ncouldn't possibly be that Christ-like, or fits in that the _gospels_ are\nexaggerations? I would think the first would be a more likely approach for\nWolfe than the second, but even then, there's Silk's Englightenment (which \nworks two ways--(A) it might make Silk better than he would be and (B) maybe\nhe got Enlightened because he had a tendency to be a Very Good person\nanyway)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tSome kind of \"divine election\" is involved in his whole life, as well as\nthe \"scientific predestination\" that resulted in his \"virgin birth.\" I'm\nnot sure how Horn as narrator could construe the whole flow of events to\nmake them more gospellike than they in fact are. We certainly cannot assume\nthat Horn had access to Luke, Acts, and the book of Revelation to use as\ntemplates. That would seem to be the doing of the Outsider and, behind him,\nWolfe." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also going against the exaggeration theory is that other people who knew\nSilk very well (Marble, Mucor, etc.) seem to have seen him as an\nextraordinarily good man." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tOne would like to know more about his mother, who, given Wolfe's beliefs,\nwould have to be a kind of virtuous Mary-figure." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think a telling note in LONG SUN is that Horn is generally noticed much\nmore\nthan Nettle--is Nettle even listed as \"Author of the BOOK OF SILK\" in the \nPersons, Places & Things section in Exodus? It seems her role is\nsecondary in\nthe actual composition--scribe and organizer (given OBW, there is no telling\nwhat order Horn might have put things in...)\n\nHorn does mimic Silk beautifully long before any possibility of possession\nor \nanything, so as usual in LONG SUN, any possession is well in keeping with his\noriginal tendencies." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tCertainly the \"imitator all along\" business runs against any \"special\nenhancement\" view, and perhaps accounts for everything. Horn's ignorance\nmight account for the seemingly truncated character of some sequences in\nthe narrative. On the other hand, he seems to know a lot of things that\nit's hard to see how he could have learned -- not just details, but whole\nevent-sequences.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-18T08:06:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) more grist for the \"enhanced Horn hypothesis\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Jim Jordan wrote:\nWe certainly cannot assume\nthat Horn had access to Luke, Acts, and the book of Revelation to use as\ntemplates. That would seem to be the doing of the Outsider and, behind him,\nWolfe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or vice versa. \n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }