{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/947",
    "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": 947,
    "subject": "Another message from Clute: read it in full!",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-08-17T08:12:58+00:00",
    "last": "2000-08-17T08:12:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0011-0120@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-08-17T08:12:58+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Another message from Clute: read it in full!",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yesterday I relayed the gist of the list's reactions\nto the \"Clute Revelation\" to Clute himself (if in so\ndoing I misrepresented anyone's viewpoint, I\napologise). Below is what Clute has since written to\nme, including his remarks on the points the list has\nraised."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "--- John Clute wrote: \nDear Nick,\n        Interesting responses, which sort of run the\ngamut of what I think \nabout the notion, or intuition--rather than\nthought-through \nhypothesis--that Horn/Silk may be an inhumu; or\nthat, perhaps more \ncogently, that Gene Wolfe is allowing us to consider\nthe possibility at \nthis stage of the enterprise.\n        As I'm sure you know, the third volume is\ndue out soon; and as I'm \nsure you know, Wolfe--unlike his procedure with\n_Long Sun_ --apparently \nwrote the whole text before any of it was published:\nso I do live in the \nexpectation that nothing here is inadvertent, and\nthat everything \ndiscovered will, as with _New Sun_ enrich the whole.\n        Comments follow."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "1) One member agrees with you, and is cross you\nexpressed the idea before he could."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "        ---Sorry about that. To make it worse, you\nmight note that I \nmentioned the inhumu notion very briefly in my\nearlier review of the first \nvolume, also in _SFW_ ."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "2) Several others are thoughtful, saying they need\ntime to reflect."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "        ---Me too.\n        "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "3) A feminist feels you're engaging in the\nreactionary\nerror of assuming that because someone sympathises\nwith the enemy he must be one of them; in her\nview,\nHorn is demonstrating the great human virtue of\ninterspecies empathy, not betraying an alien\nidentity."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "        ---A bit confused by this, as there are\nseveral floating \nassumptions in here. Unless you were just\nidentifying one of the list as a \nfeminist so I could sort folk out, it doesn't quite\nseem to me that the \nissue before us is a feminist issue. But would be\nglad to get a \ndifferent take. It may be reactionary to assume that\nif you're not with us \nyou're with them, but the application of the\nprinciple here presupposes \nthe inhumi as enemy, a notion I'm very leary of at\nthis stage. I would go \nso far as to suggest that Horn/Silk (whoever they\nare) is more concerned \nwith family than species; and that the book is\nexpanding, as are \nHorn/Silk's Assumptions of different forms, through\nan expansion of the \nidea of family. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "4) Most criticism of your hypothesis rests on\ntextual\ndetails: if Horn is an inhumu, why doesn't Oreb\nperceive this? If Horn is an inhumu, how can he\nwrite\nhis text with such facility, whereas inhumi in\ngeneral\ncan hardly write at all? When is the transition\nfrom\nhuman to inhumu supposed to have occurred? If Horn\nis\ncapable of shapeshifting, why doesn't he do away\nwith\nhis injuries such as his missing eye? And so it\ngoes."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "        ---All good points, it strikes me (see\ncomment after next \nparagraph). The question here about when he might\nhave changed is the \nquestion I asked: when did he begin to find it\ndifficult to eat human \nfood? Chronology is so complex in the text that I\ncould not begin to give \nan answer to this on the basis of one reading--or,\nfor that matter, work \nit out to my satisfaction that this is an irrelevant\ntrack to follow.\n "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Basically, the Whorl list has been agreeing for\nthe\nlast nine months that Horn is the (human) redeemer\nof\nthe humans of the three whorls, and that \"the\nsecret\nof the inhumi\", which Horn is sworn to protect,\nrelates somehow to that redemption: if humans\nachieve\ngoodness in themselves, the inhumi preying on them\nwill imbibe and emulate that goodness."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "        ---I'd be very disappointed if this were the\ncase: by which I mean \nI'd be disappointed if this were the \"secret of the\ninhumi\" which \nwe have as far as I know not yet been told--because\n1) although the idea \nseems transparently and conspicuously true 2) WE\nALREADY KNOW IT. \n_In Green's Jungles_ (I haven't chapter and verse\nhere) seems to make it \nextremely clear that inhumi take on the\ncharacteristics of those they \nchange into (as it were) as part of the process of\nfeeding on them. \n        The idea that the achievement of human\ngoodness (which would \nsimilarly transform the inhumi) seems to me, though\nvery likely to be the \ncase, not to be an inhumi secret at all. \n         My intuition about Horn/Silk is inchoate\nand absolutely not \ndefended by me unto death, unlike the way I got\naddicted, nearly 20 years \nago now, to the idea that Severian's mother was in\nfact the Autarch. (It \ntook a long time to lose the sweet-tooth of that\nparticular notion.)\n        My intuition is based on a sense that\nsomehow or other Horn/Silk's \nnature-as-inhumu (if it is confirmed to be a fair\ntake) is intrinsicate \nwith his relationship to the Neighbors, or\nwhoever/whatever represents \nthem to him, inhumi (those inhumi who took on\nNeighborly nature) or ghost \nor aquastors in the Corridors of Time or what. And\nthat Horn/Silk as \ninhumu as Neighbor might well \"fool\" Oreb, etc, etc.\n\n\nBest,\nJohn "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}