{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/79",
    "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": 79,
    "subject": "Horn's Authorship 1.1",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-07T09:32:26+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-07T09:32:26+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0002-0121@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Doug Eigsti",
        "address": "douge at nti.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-07T09:32:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Horn's Authorship 1.1",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tThis is a revision of my previous posting. I had to correct some \nglaring errors from the first release. Changes are in [brackets].\n\t\t*\t*\t*\n\n\tEver since I learned that Horn penned the \"Book of Silk\" I have\nbeen on the lookout to see if the story is consistent with his writing\nperspective. I think it is. I have, so far, collected information from \nthe first two volumes. Wolfe has Horn drop some cues in the scenes\nwith the two fishing boats on Lake Limna, the first with Silk at the end\nof LAKE and the second with Auk at the beginning of CALDE.\n\tSilk's rescue by Captain [Scup] leaves him lying on a pile of\nnets. The narrator describes the scene using only Silk's vocabulary: \" a\nrope connected the long stick (Silk could not recall its name, if he had\never known it) that spread the sail\". Later, with Auk, he describes a\nsimilar scene freely using the nautical terms \"halyard\" (the rope), III p\n25.-1, and \"yard\" (the stick), III p 27.2. What are we to make of these\nnarrational irregularities?\n\tThe parenthetical phrase could be evidence consistent with a\nwriter reconstructing events based on personal interviews, in this case\nwith Silk, for his story. Our narrator refrains from using terms his\nwitness did not use in his account. Later he applies them correctly\nbecause his eye-witness, Auk, was more fluent in nautical terms. Wolfe has\nchanged narrational perspective before, for instance with Musk or Marble,\nbut this time he gives us a clue that he is not using conventional limited\n3rd person narration. \n\n\t\t*\t*\t*\n\n\tHorn has a way of working his name into the story in flattering \nways even when the character Horn is not in a scene:\n\nI p.15.-7 - I (Silk) know that whenever I need you I can call on you \n(Horn), and that you'll do all that you can do without counting the cost.\n\nI p. 204.-1 - I should have Horn - he's quite artistic - and some of the \nolder students paint the front of the manteion.\n\nII p. 13.1 - Horn, the tallest boy in the palaestra...\n\nII p. 19.3 - You imitated me so well that for a while I actually thought \nthat your voice was my own; it was like hearing myself.\n\nII p. 23.-4 - It (Horn's toy marionette) had strings, and if you did them \nright you could make him walk and bow. (Puppet symbolism is [prevalent in]\nmany of Wolfe's stories)\n\nII p. 111.-3 - Horn's toy (Chenille's movement under the influence of \nMucor, reminded Silk of a marionette).\n\nII p. 286.5 - Horn, the best player we have...\n\nII p. 320.2 - Running at thrice the speed even a fleet boy like Horn \ncould have managed.\n\nII p. 347.1 - I can have Horn or one of the other boys bring them back.\n\n[III p. 95.2 - ...planning to have Horn and some of the other boys...]\n\n\tOne might, at first, think that Silk is just fond of Horn. These \nreferences take on a different cast seen from the perspective of Horn's \nauthorship. I see these as cameos by the author.\n\n=Talon=\ndouge at nti.com\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}