Dionysus (was Neighbors & Trees/Ash & Vine)

James Wynn · 02 Dec 2010, 20:47 · from 2010-December.txt.gz
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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:47:21 -0600
Subject: (urth) Dionysus (was Neighbors & Trees/Ash & Vine)
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-w46820E6488C4E8A0D2B072CF270 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-w46820E6488C4E8A0D2B072CF270 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4CF805D9.3080104 at gmail.com>


> Lee Berman-
> I've been following the discussion with some interest. It really seems like
> Horn died in the pit. Aside from the other evidence mentioned, the chapter is
> called The End and Horn explicitly calls it his grave. Maybe I was conditioned
> by Severian's eidolon resurrection but I can remember thinking even on first
> reading that, "okay, this guy really just died". So something inexplicably brought
> him back to life. I don't know the answer but I thought it must have something
> to do with Krait since that's who Horn sees him as he regains consciousness. I
> am interested in hearing more about James' theory regarding greenbuck and the
> Neighbors. It would help explain that other mystery- why Horn is so instantly recognized and accepted by the Neighbors.

Once again, for Lee....

Horn on the ruinous island sees a Neighbor in the form of a greenbuck. 
He chases after it, falls in a pit, breaks his neck and dies. The reason 
I say he breaks his neck (aside from being a likely way to die 
instantaneously in that circumstance) is that Babbie and Seawrack see 
him in that pit and know he is dead without having to go down there. The 
Neighbor feels guilt at having caused Horn's death (in a sense). This is 
the guilt that haunts our Narrator throughout the story, and this guilt 
is the reason that he is adamant on being Horn instead of Silk....if he 
declares himself Silk or neither Horn nor Silk, it would mean that he 
had killed Horn and that there was no way to truly repair it. At the end 
of the story, he is reported to say:
*********************************
RTTW (HB) pg 411
  "We will sail tonight...Would you be willing to make my farewells to 
Hoof and Hide?...I've been dreading it--in a sense, I have killed their 
father, though the Outsider surely knows that I never meant him the 
least harm. I don't want to have to face his sons..."
  ********************************
The Neighbor's perspective on taking a life was detailed in the 
conversation between the Rajan and Hide when they are talking about 
Hide's dream of seeing Mora and (I believe) dark Fava. I suspect there 
are hints about several things in that conversation, but the part I 
quote below explains how the greenbuck Neighbor sees guilt over causing 
the death of another being.
*********************
RTTW (HB) pg 24
"I spoke of killing a man with this. I hadn't intended to kill him, but 
I was afraid he was going to kill us. I thought he might kill you or 
Jahlee, and kept hitting him as hard as I could; when the fighting had 
ended, I looked at him, and he was dead."
"It wasn't your fault, Father."
"Of course it was, and his as well. It was---it is---my fault that I 
killed him. It is his fault that I bear the guilt of killing him, 
because he gave me good reason to fear him."
*********************
The Neighbor revives Horn by possessing and repairing the damage (or 
seeming to at least). It takes three days to do that.

_______________________
There's a lot in this thematically. 1) Christ was dead three days in the 
grave and was resurrected.
2) Secondly, 'The Book of the Long Sun' is mapped over the life of 
Aristaeus at related by Robert Graves. Aristaeus's son Aktaion saw 
Artemis naked (Seawrack), and was changed into a deer, and torn apart by 
his own hounds (Not Horn is killed by his own mutinous men).
3) Thirdly, "Neighbors" is a term for fairies as noted by a character in 
An Evil Guest. One is likely to encounter a white stag on the border of 
Fairieland (which is the land of the dead) at which point --ala the 
Mabinogion-- find a Aelf King/changling has taken your identity. 
Alternately, one enters Fairieland through a fairie circle, in this 
case, Horn's circular grave.
___________________________

Now the "new Horn" is Horn's body and memory with the Neighbor *as his 
soul*. The Neighbor, who we'll call HORN seeks to absolve his guilt by 
completing Horn's mission. He-Pen-Sheep and She-Pick-Berry seem to have 
a lot of discourse with the Neighbors call him "Neighbor-man" OBW (HB) 
pg 261&262

  Later HORN meets with Neighbors who give him a ring and the deed to 
Blue as a representative of his people. As he walks through the woods, 
the trees get out of his way. They choose him because he is a mixture of 
Neighbor and human. A Mediator--a orthodox and gnostic Christian 
designation for Christ. One of the Neighbors shakes Horn's hand and they 
"share blood".

**********************
oBW (HB) pg 272
"My name is Horn." I offered him my hand. He took it, and this time I 
felt his hand and remembered hard, and seemed to be covered with short, 
stiff hairs. Beyond that I will not say. "My name is Horn also, " he 
told me. I felt that I was being paid an immense compliment, and did not 
know how to reply.
**************

There's a obvious kind of mystery going on here.  When he shares blood 
with this Neighbor who afterward calls himself "Horn", the Narrator has 
access to some of his former psyche or that of the Neighbor. But it is 
clear that "Horn" has ceased to be merely that boy who arrived from the 
Whorl. The Narrator says a few pages earlier that he does not remember 
this event merely in fairly accurate terms, but precisely as it 
occurred. This is because he remembers it simultaneously from two 
separate points of view: himself and the Neighbor with whom he clasped 
hands. This suggests that the Neighbors might have a loosely communal 
consciousness or a communal personality like the Shadow Children or the 
children who were turned into a flock of geese in "Peace". Or maybe the 
Neighbor is HORN's spiritual self. Later on Green, as the Narrator lays 
dying he uses his ring to summon help to heal him again.
*******************
  IGJ (HB) pg127
"Through the ring a Neighbor saw him, and she came to him in his agony. 
He told her what was in his heart; and when he had finished, she said, 
"I cannot make you well again, and if I could you would still be in this 
place. I can do this for you, however, if you desire it. I can send your 
spirit into someone else, into someone whose own spirit is dying. If you 
wish, I will find someone in the whorl in which you were born. Then 
there will be one whole man there, instead of two dying men, one here 
and another there."
******************* /
/
 From what she says, HORN's agony is not just in that he is dying 
but//in that he is going to fail his mission. The Neighbor's solution 
solves both those problems: giving him a workable body and putting him 
on the Whorl. She complicates matters in some ways by choosing the 
object of Horn's mission. Silk has slashed his wrists and arms in front 
of Hyacinth's casket.  She sends HORN into Silk. Now he is the Neighbor, 
what the Neighbor remembers of Horn's memories, and Silk's body and 
memories. I call him the Rajan, because that is what Wolfe calls him.

**************************
  iGJ (HB) pg 122
"Was this you for real Incanto? Were you on Green? By Echidna's babies, 
I think you were!" I shook my head and told him it had been someone 
else, a man whose name I have forgotten, a man who wore a ring with a 
white stone. My own name is Horn, no matter what Oreb may say. 
***********************

You see, there is Horn and there is HORN and there is the Rajan...the 
man who begins writing the Book of the Short Sun, Incanto, Pike's Ghost. 
At the end of the story,  he ultimately realizes that he is neither most 
truly Horn nor Silk, but the soul inside or, perhaps, something entirely 
different from all three.

And if there were any other doubt, there is "Silk's" inhuman but very 
Neighborly new abilities such as dream-traveling and "sharing blood"
********************
iGJ (HB) pg 267
" 'We're going to attack you within an hour, Incanto. You'll be--' He 
fell silent, staring at me. 'Can you hear something I don't?'
'Sing song,' Oreb suggested; and I did, following Seawrack's own 
intonation and pronunciation to the best of my very limited ability. [snip]
'That is the language of the Neighbors, whom you call the Vanished 
People,' I said when I could no longer sing for weeping.
'I can--' Terzo began. Then again, 'I can almost hear it myself.' He 
fell silent.
_I put my hand upon his shoulder_ . 'Listen, and you will hear her. 
Those who truly listen do.'
He heard the music then, I know..
*******************************

u+16b9




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