Subject: (whorl) Clute's revelation

From: David Lomax <dlomax at idirect.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 01:19:02 +0000

vermoulian at yahoo.com wrote

> SF WEEKLY has just published John Clute's review of IN
> GREEN'S JUNGLES, and (among other remarks of interest)
> Clute declares that it is "reasonably clear" that
> Horn/Silk is himself an inhumu. Any reactions?
>

Argh!  Clute beat me to it  -- maybe others did too.  I've been
deliberately not reading the list until I could get and read IGJ.  Just
finished today.  On the weekend, while we were on a long car trip, my
girlfriend offered to read a couple of chapters to me.  Around the
middle of the novel.  While she was reading,I suddenly burst out, "oh,
my god!"  When she got over her shock at thinking we were about to get
into an accident, she asked what I was talking about.  "What if Silk is
actually an inhumu?" I said.

She doesn't read Wolfe and had no idea what was going on in the novel.
But she agreed that it might be a possibility.

As I read on, I became more and more convinced.  I could be unconvinced
by some dazzling logic, but it sure seems to me that our humble narrator
may not be completely human.  There are some counter-arguments:  Oreb
still likes him, for one thing.  But what about that bit near the end
when Horn/Silk talks ruefully about his appetite being too great?

So there I was thinking, hey, maybe nobody else has talked about this.
Maybe I can make an original contribution to the list instead of just
lurking all my life.  And what happens, but Clute beats me to it.  I'll
get you for this, Clute, if it's the third-last thing I do.

And the inhumu secret?  Could it just be that if humans gave themselves
willingly to the inhumu, then the inhumu would be incapable of killing
the humans?

And weren't those last few chapters just glorious?

David Lomax

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---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 00:52:21 +0000

>when Horn/Silk talks ruefully about his appetite being too great?

	The appetite stuff is typical of Silk, though. He was always semi-fasting.
	I'd like to see some positive evidence for this thesis. The last line of
the novel might be a clue, but only with a lot more evidence.

Patera Nutria

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 02:12:13 +0000

> Horn/Silk is himself an inhumu. Any reactions?

David Lomax has already mentioned the Oreb angle, and it seems hard to
believe that Incanto-the-inhumu could fool the wise bird whereas Quetzal,
the Bean and Jahlee couldn't.

Yet another contraindication is Horn's handwriting. The inhumi have at best
terrible writing and Horn/Incanto has handwritten two books, at least the
first of which (and no doubt the second and third) has been read by Horn's
wife and children with no editorial comment about Horn's rather execrable
penmanship. Ditto for Inclito's mother, who receives handwritten
instructions on how she can remedy her recent ill turn in health ("Er, what
are these words, Incanto? 'Necklace of garlic'?"). And isn't it likely that
if Horn were able to manipulate his physical appearance, he'd at least try
to appear fully sighted or without the wound in his side? (Not sure how
shapeshifting works if you have scars or wounds.) Or that the Neighbors
would aid and abet a former vampiric nemesis?

And lastly while there is a precedent in Wolfean fiction--Victor Trenchard
killing and taking the place of John Marsch in FIFTH HEAD--at least it is
identifiable when it happens, something I'm not sure Clute's hornjacking is.
(Who exactly is subsuming Horn's personality? Krait? Some other inhumu? And
when/where does it occur?)

In other words list me among the unconvinced (as I am about Silk's suicide,
since Catholics that die by their own hand are forbidden not only burial in
Catholic cemetaries, but Heaven), although I do admit I'm willing to
consider further evidence.

Robert Borski

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 10:48:45 +0000

>consider further evidence.

<AOL>Me too.</AOL>

It is consummately possible that Clute has noticed something I have
missed--in fact, I would bet money that he has, many times, in IGJ
alone--but this just feels wrong. 

Kevin Maroney		kmaroney at ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor	New York Review of Science Fiction
http://www.nyrsf.com

---

From: Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 11:00:20 +0000

Nah... Even Clute hedges his bets, by saying maybe he's an inhumu (spells
it wrong, as "inhuma"... or does he mean that?), maybe he's an aquastor,
maybe something else. My main reaction is why should Wolfe repeat his
effects? He's already written "Fifth Head" and The Book of the New Sun. 

I agree completely with alga that having Horn become a better human being
seems to be central to this novel. One might even imagine an
Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso triptych in Severian/Silk/Horn. 

Finally, the evidence is all against it. Horn is shown writing, riding
horses, using weapons (even the azoth, at one point), all sorts of stuff
that inhumi don't do. Oreb likes him. He eats (not much, but he does).  To
sustain Clute's idea one would have to assume not only an unreliable
narrator, but a positively misleading one.

Fernando

-- 

Fernando Q. Gouvea                      
Department of Mathematics          Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online
Colby College                      Mathematical Association of America
Waterville, ME 04901               http://www.maa.org
fqgouvea at colby.edu                      
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