# Horn "Help" *The Whorl list — 4 messages, 3 voices, 15 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. --- ### Alice Turner *15 Oct 1999, 17:18* An Enraged Enormous Rat is something to see, all right, horrid red eyes aglow, lice-ridden fur bristling, slimy fangs dripping... But I digress. The Rat wrote: How dare you imply that I'd forgotten Nettle's help? Don't forget that Nutria's eat Vizcachas alive bite by bite (whatever Vizcachas are)! Hyoomr aside, I still find it hard to understand how either of them could have known many, many of the things in TBLS. Inventing "typical" dialogue is a long way from the large stretches of material they had to learn from other people, and I'm having trouble thinking of how they might have learned all this stuff, and from whom. But what I really need to do is re-read the Quartet through Horn's eyes, and see if it is really possible that he and Nettle could have written it without "supernatural" help. Has anyone done this? Yes, indeedy-doody. The four gospeleers of the NT come to mind instantly, writing decades, and dubiously, after the death of their biographee. If you throw Thomas in, five gospeleers. -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Jim Jordan *15 Oct 1999, 17:37 · follows Alice Turner* > At 05:18 PM 10/15/99 -0400, you wrote: > An Enraged Enormous Rat is something to see, all right, horrid red eyes > aglow, lice-ridden fur bristling, slimy fangs dripping... > > But I digress. The Rat wrote: > > How dare you imply that I'd forgotten Nettle's help? Don't forget that > Nutria's eat Vizcachas alive bite by bite (whatever Vizcachas are)! Hyoomr > aside, I still find it hard to understand how either of them could have > known many, many of the things in TBLS. Inventing "typical" dialogue is a > long way from the large stretches of material they had to learn from other > people, and I'm having trouble thinking of how they might have learned all > this stuff, and from whom. But what I really need to do is re-read the > Quartet through Horn's eyes, and see if it is really possible that he and > Nettle could have written it without "supernatural" help. Has anyone done > this? > > Yes, indeedy-doody. The four gospeleers of the NT come to mind instantly, > writing decades, and dubiously, after the death of their biographee. If you > throw Thomas in, five gospeleers. > > -alga Alga! Talk about slime! ;) Each of us has her/his own view of the origination of the gospels. What matters here is what Wolfe's view is, and it's not what you describe. Since BLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what the author had in mind.... Unless one is a deconstructionist, I guess. Algae is kind of amorphous, so maybe.... ;) Slobbering Rat-face *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Alex David Groce *15 Oct 1999, 19:15 · follows Jim Jordan* >> Yes, indeedy-doody. The four gospeleers of the NT come to mind instantly, >> writing decades, and dubiously, after the death of their biographee. If you >> throw Thomas in, five gospeleers. >> >> -alga > Alga! Talk about slime! ;) > Each of us has her/his own view of the origination of the gospels. > What matters here is what Wolfe's view is, and it's not what you describe. Since BLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what > the author had in mind.... > Unless one is a deconstructionist, I guess. Algae is kind of > amorphous, so maybe.... ;) Ah, but as someone actually going through the conversion process right now, I think formal Catholic position is "sure the gospels were written later, under difficult circumstances, etc." but that, of course, they overcame this by aid of the Holy Spirit. So Wolfe could be giving us an analogous process here-- with "mainframe possession" or something secularly explicable doing the Outsider's work--which is a favorite Wolfe tactic. The Dr. Crane hypothesis COULD hold, but a kind of narrative Occam's Razor makes it seem ridiculous-- if the explanation is just a brain tumor, it's very odd that Silk walks in the pattern of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. From Father Henry Wansborough, general editor of the New Jerusalem Bible, in Oxford a few years back I found out that very orthodox Catholics are much more comfortable saying John was written in 70+ AD than many similarly orthodox Protestants. The historical approach to the Gospels and the Theological approach aren't necessarily opposed, because Christianity is quite concerned with historical events--the claim of the Incarnation is a historical as well as metaphysical claim. So, perhaps zapping "dubiosly," what Alga said might match Wolfe's views. In fact, that the canon had to develop and the Gospels didn't just instantly appear after the resurrection is part of the Church's fundamental argument about the Magesterium and Sacred Tradition. "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. ``` --- ### Jim Jordan *15 Oct 1999, 19:04 · follows Alex David Groce* > At 07:15 PM 10/15/99 -0400, you wrote: > > Ah, but as someone actually going through the conversion process right now, > I think formal Catholic position is "sure the gospels were written later, > under > difficult circumstances, etc." but that, of course, they overcame this by aid > of the Holy Spirit. Yes, you and I and Wolfe agree, and Alga (almost certainly) doesn't. My only point was that we have to consider what Wolfe had in mind. (Well, I'm a Reformed Protestant, and I imagine those synagogue-trained Jews demanded a book-narrative right away, and I imagine Matthew started writing on Pentecost evening -- but that's for a different list and debate!). To return to topic, I'm just toying with the fact that so much else in the Silk story is gospel-tracking, that it seems likely that some kind of equivalent of the inspiration of the Spirit would also be tracked, and it seems likely to me based on the data I've presented. Of course, am I right? Time will probably tell, as we read the next two volumes. Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---