# One question answered. *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 27 Nov 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. --- ### Paul C Duggan *27 Nov 1999, 00:00* If I recall, when we discusses long sun the question of the literary purpose of the long drawn-out description of the mechancial engineering process of talus production came up. Horn's new book at least gives us a fuller explanation of this than "Wolfe is an engineer by trade". Horn alludes to his purposes in making the Book of Silk have a utilitarian function for those on the short sun who may need some of the long sun know-how. "I am an impure thinker. I am hurt, swayed, shaken, | paul + | + elated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted, and I | --|-- have to transmit my mental experiences lest I die." | + | + -- Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy | pduggan at world.std.com *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---