the voice of the outsider is the conjunction ofpas/kypris

Lee Berman · 21 Dec 2010, 19:07 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:07:29 -0500
Subject: (urth) the voice of the outsider is the conjunction ofpas/kypris
Message-ID: <SNT123-W4798373EF0712CA7505974CF1A0 at phx.gbl>

>Marc: "the woman who slept in the glass tube, the tube in
>        which he himself now slept beside Chenille, who was
>        Kypris, who was Hyacinth, who was Mamelta, with
>        Hyacinth's jet-black hair,"

>Gerry: The first can easily be interpreted as just sleep imagery, lots of faces 
>and people running together.

Easily only if there was a real person sleeping. There is not. There is an author 
creating this scene with carefully chosen words. It is actually quite difficult for
me to interpret this as Gene Wolfe randomly throwing faces and people together with
no meaning to it other than conveying a dream atmosphere.

>Marc: his mother would come to kiss him good-night; he liked to be awake for it, to
>say distinctly, 'good night to you, too Mama,'

>Gerry: In the second, while it can certainly be argued that Silk's dream and Mamelta's 
>name are tips to the reader, it is inescapable that Silk himself is thinking of his 
>non-biological mother, and therefore not Mamelta.  

Again, we are not dealing with a real person named Silk. Therefore whatever Silk may be
"thinking" is secondary in importance to "tips to the Reader". Gene Wolfe's main purpose in
writing is to communicate to his readers not to create independent, imaginary characters 
without meaning to the reader.

>Marc: on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too."

>Gerry- In the third, it may be that Kypris is - in Silk's thoughts -  representing all women.

Or it may be that Wolfe repeatedly connecting Mamelta and Hyacinth and Mother and Kypris in 
various ways is once again trying to tell the reader something. Perhaps it is something more than 
simply "some women = all women".  I'm willing to take a hint.

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