{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/883",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 883,
    "subject": "IGJ, impressions, riddles, many spoilers! (of course)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-07-29T12:04:45+00:00",
    "last": "2000-07-29T12:04:45+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0016@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at shore.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-07-29T12:04:45+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) IGJ, impressions, riddles, many spoilers! (of course)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I finally got the book and the time to read it (had to put aside the new\nHarry Potter, which has its own attractions as my children have now both\nread it first and want to talk about it).\n\nSome of the things I noticed have already been covered (what an astute and\ncareful-reading bunch!).  Some, like Horn's arrival at the Citadel on the\nday _Shadow of the Torturer_ starts, I thought no one would get, and was\nitching to report first, but no...\n\nWe get a surprising amount of throw-away detail in this book.  One item that\nstruck me particularly was Horn's tale of his and Nettle's early years on\nBlue.  In OBW we got the \"story of our life I tell around the dinner table\nto the family.\" It's told in the slightly whitewashed family-legend style,\nand we heard it so often I just accepted it.  In IGJ we get the harder-edged\ndetails, the hardship, the failures, the fights with the relatives (and all\nthis is very understated as well -- it must have been hell to live through\nit), but included is the throwaway about how the colonists produced their\nfirst generation of livestock, the twisted flower of a seed planted in\nMucor's life history in the Long Sun books.\n\nThe funny thing about IGJ is that as I read it the book as whole didn't come\ninto focus, partly because it didn't seem to be progressing what I thought\nof as the plot (fool!).  I expected, having been given the _Odyssey_ in book\none, to get (sneaky Wolfe) the _Iliad_ in book two, or maybe the _Anabasis_.\nThat is to say, the war against the inhumi. Instead, we get a different and\napparently irrelevant war (but one won by a clever trick, so there's the\n_Iliad_ poking up).  In any event, just sitting here reflecting on it after\nreading the first batch of posts, it's a much much more wonderful book than\nit seemed as I was reading it, and it hangs together incredibly well\nconsidering the latticework narrative structure.  It's full of little\nset-pieces and scenes that are wonderful, as is typical of Wolfe.  (An\naside: everyone has noticed the parallel with the eucharist in the scene at\nthe Neighbor's altar.  What about the parallel with Abraham and Isaac?  Horn\nhas been muttering about how Oreb would make a great sacrifice, or maybe a\nhorse, mutter, mutter... Then he takes Hide up the mountain to the altar...\nand serves communion. There's your whole bible-study course in a nutshell.)\n\nThe big questions:\n\n1) What have we learned about the secret of the inhumi?\n\nFirst, the inhumi derive their intelligence and personality from the\ncreatures they feed on, and almost certainly can pass them on to their\noffspring. We know the former from any number of examples, and we may infer\nthe latter from Krait's mother's drinking Sinew's blood. As inhumi are\napparently oviparous (Fava's story), we may discount the possibility of _in\nutero_ influence.\n\nSecond, and more importantly (and here we are getting close to the true\nsecret), there are actually no inhumi.  There is only, poignantly, \"a girl\ntrapped in the body of a blood-drinking reptile.\"  The inhumi only have\n\"spirits\" because their victims have spirits, only have intelligence because\ntheir victims have intelligence, and so on. Crucially, they also have the\ngoodness or evil of their victims, their moral sense.  Jahlee describes the\npursuit of Horn at the end of OBW, and how the inhumi all felt they should\nkill him, but each hoped that another would do it first.  They feel this way\nout of gratitude and also, I think, because the people whose blood they have\nabsorbed would not be quick to kill either. Few are eager to cast the first\nstone, sinful or not.  Result, Horn escapes.\n\nPerhaps the secret is that if the inhumi are treated justly, treated as we\nwould like to treat other human beings, they will gradually become less of a\nthreat.  This has been hinted at on several occasions. Krait asks, \"why do\nyou hate me?\" and when Horn responds with responses about inhumi in general,\nasks \"did I do those things?\"  I think there is a similar scene with Jahlee\nin IGJ.  I don't mean this idea to be a reprise of the \"Golden Rule\" theory,\nbut rather a \"Rule of Law\" theory.  If humans treated inhumi as though they\nwere human, as individuals who can be reformed or punished or rewarded based\non their own actions, they would act in a more moral manner.  Horn describes\nthe Neighbor's history briefly, and the implication is that the inhumi were\nenslaved by the Neighbors, but it didn't help, it only made things worse.\nThey were unleashed on the Neighbor inhabitants of Blue, but that only made\nthings worse. Horn sees that as a possible future for humanity as well, and\non Green it is coming true; the villages capture other humans to sell to the\ninhumi as slaves.\n\nDoes anyone other than me see a strong parallel to racism and African\nslavery here?  (Though at times the inhumi are the stand-ins for Africans\nand at other times it's the humans).  One could write an entire essay on\nthis one aspect of the book.  It's understated but everywhere.\n\n2) Where is Silk and what's up with Horn/Silk?\n\nThis one is clear.  Silk is Horn (half a spirit) and Horn is Silk (half a\nspirit plus a body).  However, Silk is also \"an aspect of Pas.\"  But Horn is\nalso only half of Silk (in some unit of measurement appropriate for the\ntask), so he doesn't claim to be Silk, though sometimes he is, and is\nbecoming more like him, just as the inhumi are human and for similar reasons\n(if using a less messy mechanism).  Horn/Silk was kidnapped by the Gaonese\n(on the _Whorl_) because they thought he was Silk (I think this is\nexplicitly stated in OBW). Also, the Gaonese had a working lander which made\nmultiple trips to the _Whorl_ (Inclito's telling of Eco's story).  (What\nhappened to it?)  Many people on the _Whorl_ knew and could identify Silk,\nso the Gaonese got the right man.\n\nSome of Horn's powers are given by the Neighbors: he can find or create a\npath in OBW, he draws the sword to himself during his sewer-cleaning\nexpedition, so this is not either a function of his merger with Silk or of\nbeing in a dream in the later segments.  Reshaping the sword may be a\ndream-only function. Besides, it's not dreaming, it's astral projection.  It\nhappens in current time, affects those involved whether fellow-projectors or\nnot, etc.  The Neighbors can do it, the inhumi can do it if Horn is around\n(and Horn is a friend of the Neighbors). Could it be purely a Neighbor\nability?  Obviously Fava and Jahlee are frightened by it, it's not a normal\ninhumi thing, like flying.\n\nI think Horn is slow to reveal himself to Hide because he no longer looks\nlike himself, and wants Hide to come to the conclusion on his own.  It's\ndifficult enough at first for Hide to go along with the \"pretend I'm your\nfather\" thing.  If Horn had said, \"I _am_ your father,\" Hide would have\nfreaked out.  Horn pushes all the clues out, and lets Hide do it himself.\n(There's a lot of this in the book.  It happens with Mora, too.  I wonder if\nWolfe does this a lot in his real life?  Must have been very frustrating for\nhis children.)\n\nHorn reverences Pas partly out of inertia, partly because Pas is now\nPassilk, with a helping of the enlightened Silk, and hence worthy of some\nreverence.\n\nMore to come, when I get time.\n\n    -- Dave Lebling\n        (aka vizcacha)\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}