Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n038

From: Alice Turner <pei047 at attglobal.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 20:14:14 +0000

>From Alex:

>Chemise as Miriam?
Chenille <g>. There's a funny Terry Bisson story with a character named
Chemise.

>From Wm. Ansley:

> Horn gave his eye to Pig. And Marble's daughter gave up one of her eyes
for
> her mother.
>
> -----------
> Because I could not leave Pig blind, these people were able to bring me
> here, and so ended any chance of success I may have had. [p. 308]
> -----------
>
> Who is Pig? I don't know. in "Proper Names in the Text" he is referred to
> as "a mercenary of the LONG SUN WHORL." Horn mentions him a few times,
> although I don't have time to look for any more page numbers now. He has
to
> be someone Horn met on the _Whorl_ after he returned to it, unless Horn
> left an awful lot more out of _The Book of Silk_ than we think. He seems
to
> have meant a great deal to Horn; I am pretty sure he says at some point
> that he loved Pig more than anyone other than Silk.

He did say that (adding Nettle), writing of course much later. Pig is going
to turn up probably in the second book (I have no prior knowledge; this is
just something I picked up from hints, so they will be battle companions),
but the eye exchange may not happen till the third, as there might not be
the skill to do it on Green. So Pig will be blind for a while, or at least
that is my guess. (Remember Blind Peg in Treasure Island?)

> Olivine is "a young chem of VIRON," according to "Proper Names in the
> Text." I think she is also Marble's daughter or half-daughter(?). The eye
> Horn intends to give to Maytera Marble is hers. "I put Olivine's eye in
the
> pocket." [p. 310]. Olivine is definitely Hammerstone's daughter.
>
> -----------
> (What I would not give for Hammerstone now. Olivine, lend us your father
> please.) [p. 290]
> -----------
>
> On page 84, Marble tells Horn that she and Hammerstone "had begun a
> daughter." She also says, "We never got far with her, and I don't suppose
> she'll ever be born unless my husband takes a new wife, poor little
thing."
> This is why I said "half-daughter(?)" above. What do you call the relation
> between a chem and the mother that started building her if she was
> completed by her father and his new wife?
>
> Of course, even if Olivine does give up one of her eyes freely to Horn for
> him to give to her mother, the fact that Horn gave up one of his eyes may
> have triggered the event, even if it wasn't, strictly speaking, a trade.

I think this is a really good summing up of the eye situation fwiw.

-alga

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