# IGJ thoughts SPOILERS *The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 10 Aug 2000* > 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. --- ### Dennis G. Berdanis *10 Aug 2000, 08:40* > Adam Stephanides wrote: > Jim Jordan wrote: >> 1. The neighbor on Green switches the souls of Silk and Horn. That seemed >> clear to me. . > Not to me. What the Neighbor says is "'I can send your spirit into > someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying....Then there will > be one whole man there, instead of two dying men, one here and another > there.'" (127, my deletion doesn't affect the meaning) Nothing about > moving Silk's spirit at all. And the Neighbor doesn't say "there will > be one whole man and one dying man," just "there will be one whole man." Also note that is says "instead of two dying men" which implies to me that Silk was already dying and was not just in deep despair contemplating suicide. I also don't see the evidence that Silk had committed suicide. Perhaps he was just at the end of his life span. Many times when two people are joined in spirit and body for many years as he and Hyacinth (sp?) were when one dies the other doesn't live much longer. Perhaps he was just dying from sadness/grief. What in the text leads the suicide believers to believe so? Dennis/Endy http://home.mindspring.com/~endymion9/index.htm *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Jim Jordan *10 Aug 2000, 09:49 · follows Dennis G. Berdanis* > At 08:40 AM 8/10/2000 -0500, you wrote: > Adam Stephanides wrote: >> Jim Jordan wrote: >>> 1. The neighbor on Green switches the souls of Silk and Horn. > That seemed > clear to me. > . >> Not to me. What the Neighbor says is "'I can send your spirit into >> someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying....Then there will >> be one whole man there, instead of two dying men, one here and another >> there.'" (127, my deletion doesn't affect the meaning) Nothing about >> moving Silk's spirit at all. And the Neighbor doesn't say "there will >> be one whole man and one dying man," just "there will be one whole man." > Also note that is says "instead of two dying men" which implies to me that > Silk was already dying and was not just in deep despair contemplating > suicide. Yeah. I did not remember right. We aren't told what might have happened to Silk's soul. My guess is that he is dead. For Silk to die and to pass on his gifts to another in the process (i.e., his genetically enhanced body) is in keeping with the religious structure of the book. But with GW, you never know! Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---