Neighbors & Trees/Ash & Vine

James Wynn · 01 Dec 2010, 19:48 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:48:42 -0600
Subject: (urth) Neighbors & Trees/Ash & Vine
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinB2k48SyesHaL7tXEs4wu0OQWF8M5H=wFx4ybb at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTinB2k48SyesHaL7tXEs4wu0OQWF8M5H=wFx4ybb at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4CF6A69A.9040602 at gmail.com>

> Jane Delawney-
> Sorry I appear to have missed the original reference (I get overwhelmed
> with internet stuff quite often, blame my age) but regarding Ash and
> Vine, I have always assumed that these are cognates / references to Ask
> and Embla (Ash and Vine, in translation) the first human couple of
> post-Fimbulwinter, post-Ragnarok Midgard in Norse tradition.

> Dan'l-
> Indeed, in interpreting Wolfe it is often difficult to tell what is a
> "puzzle" and what is "interpretation." For example: there is
> intriguing (if not necessarily compelling) textual evidence, e.g., for
> the "Horn died in the pit/the Neighbors are the trees" set of
> theories. _If_ Wolfe deliberately planted this evidence and expects
> the clever reader to find it and understand that Horn did die in the
> pit and that the Neighbors are the trees, _then_ it's a puzzle. _But_
> the answer to that puzzle radically changes the legitimate space for
> interpreting the text!

I think this quote by Dan'l is very insightful and well-put. The 
solution to certain puzzles affect the way the text is read. And the way 
one is inclined to read the text affects what solutions are tenable. 
Someone once asked an atheist friend of mine why he didn't believe in 
God. He responded: "I don't see any evidence of it". My thought at the 
time was that I saw evidence to the contrary everywhere.

---------------------

But on to my main point:

These references first by Jane (regarding Ask and Embla) and now again 
by Dan'l have got me thinking again about the Neighbor-Trees theory. 
Dan'l only mentioned half the issue (maybe less than half). There are 
intriguing associations between the Neighbors and the Trees. But even 
more so, there is evidence of an equivalency between the inhumi and the 
vines. At one point, someone claimed the Rajan's staff--made from a 
vine-- was an inhumi, that it had a face, that the Rajan talked to it at 
night.

Furthermore, the trees and vines are referenced as husband and wife:
"Have I made you see Green's jungles? The swamps and their dire 
inhabitants? The immense trees and the lianas clinging to them like 
brides? [iGJ]

A few pages later he compares Jahlee-in-tream-travel to a vine in the 
same terms:
"I went over to watch Rigoglio, and in a moment more found Jahlee 
clinging to me like the lianas, her body warm and damp with perspiration 
(as those of inhumi never are), and fragrant with some heavy, cloying 
scent."

The references are there, but I haven't been able to figure out how it 
could be (not uncommon for me). How the trees could be Neighbors I can 
get. But the inhumi as vines?

So, anyway, this post is intended as a "proof of concept". An attempt to 
show that it is at least possible.

Suppose the Neighbors that Horn encounters in the woods are in 
dream-travel. That's not hard. But suppose their physical beings are not 
much like their soul traveling bodies. Suppose they are trees. Suppose 
that soul-traveling is their almost constant active state.

"The trees are bigger up the river. Bigger and older, and not so 
sleepy." [oBW]

Suppose the trees and vines originated on Green. And suppose they 
achieved their soul travel ability through some power inherent in the 
vines, or alternately the vines have inherited something by clinging to 
the Neighbors. But the vines are not sentient beings. Yet, through their 
physical connection with the Neighbors, when the Neighbors soul 
traveled, the clinging vines came along for the ride to become the 
inhumi--non-sentient animals.

The Neighbors--as active in soul travel as humans but as free to travel 
as the Rajan-- created their cities, fought their wars, and transported 
seeds and vines to Blue. I personally presume that the Neighbors did not 
have the ability for space travel until the Whorl arrived. So the inhumi 
were used for that purpose.

An inhumi who is born on Green, must simultaneously be born physically 
as a vine. And an inhumi that is born sentient is connected 
spiritually/psychically to its vine. So when the Rajan made a staff from 
a vine, the inhumi --not killed by the destruction of its body-- 
communicates with the Rajan through it's vine-now-staff.

Not only does this explain the Tree/Vines references (and add irony to 
soup the colonists eat made from vines) but it explains something that 
has always seemed more Fantasy than Science Fiction: the inhumi's power 
to absorb the souls of those on whom they fed and impart that soul to 
their children. The inhumi can do this because they are essentially 
SPIRITUAL/psychic beings.

u+16b9

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