Inhumi in the Whorl

James Wynn · 10 Feb 2011, 14:02 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:02:23 -0600
Subject: (urth) Inhumi in the Whorl
In-Reply-To: <4D53D9D2.9000803 at verizon.net>
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	<4D53D9D2.9000803 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <4D53EFEF.5030707 at gmail.com>


I get what you mean about allusions, heaven knows. But I think this is 
different. We know the Neighbors left for some actual place, and the 
Neighbor says the _some_ of humanity call it "Neighbor Whorl". But the 
humanity he is talking about is not the humanity on the Short Sun 
whorls. Assuming "Neighbor Whorl" means "Faeri", the Neighbor has to be 
talking about people of Western France to Ireland 1000-2000 years ago.

It doesn't feel like an allusion. An allusion in my mind is Quetzal as a 
demon-Dionysus on the Whorl ship. This statement by the Neighbor seems 
to be a statement of fact.

u+16b9

On 2/10/2011 6:28 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> I simply meant that sometimes an allusion is just an allusion. If o
> ne extrapolates a concrete theory from every allusion in Wolfe, it's 
> like pulling a thread and unraveling the universe.
>>> David Stockhoff: Exactly. That interpretation of "Neighbor" has been 
>>> with me from my
>>> first reading. But I don't have any idea what to do with it.
>>> I tend to consider conclusions like these to be too literal and not
>>> literary enough; that is, they try to make too much of references. For
>>> all we know, we are to understand that the Neighbors went sideways when
>>> they left.
>>> But, borrowing from the parallel discussion of astral projection, it
>>> seems an argument could be made that the Neighbors somehow co-opted the
>>> Inhumi ability to astral project as humans, combined with time travel,
>>> to go back to old Earth and become our gods.
>>
>>
>> Hm..."not literary enough"?  You can't mean Wolfe displays a poor use 
>> of the
>> English language I think....
>>
>> Aside from that, isn't the thing that turns a story into literature 
>> the ability
>> of the author to use his characters to address timeless themes of 
>> human existence?
>>
>> Isn't the origin of western literature rooted in the mythology and 
>> religion of ancient
>> people? I can't imagine a more literary subject than trying to 
>> illustrate the mindset
>> of the people who actually created those mythologies and religions.
>>
>> Isn't that essentially what happens throughout the whole SUn Series- 
>> human beings contending
>> with powers a bit too great, complex and advanced to fully comprehend 
>> but trying to
>> use the written word to describe the situation anyway.
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