Grand Unified Theory

Lee Berman · 03 Sep 2010, 13:19 · from 2010-September.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:19:35 -0400
Subject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory
Message-ID: <SNT123-W355F8BF7B5680A12EF534ACF8D0 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff- But since silk is an animal product, Chenille can't be named for a 
>fabric derived from it.

Chenille is French for caterpillar. There is the fabric named chenille which has little 
caterpillar-like piles to it. We might assume Chenille's name comes from the cotton version
rather than the silk version but there is also a chenille plant which has drooping fuzzy
flowers which look like caterpillars. Tussah is the name of a silkworm (a type of caterpillar)
and also the name of a type of silk fabric.

1. We could guess Silk, Chenille and Tussah are related, judging simply by their names 
alone, without the need of the other text connections.

2. Silk is sort of a metrosexual mama's boy who has an animal name with somewhat feminine 
connotations. Chenille is a big, coarse woman with a plant name that has animal associations.

It is just a drop in the bucket...one small part of the story, but to me, Wolfe's use of these 
three names to connote both personal attributes of characters and connnections between them is 
bloody freaking brilliant. I just couldn't imagine off-handedly dismissing any perceived 
connection between characters based on naming.

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