Silk beating two horses, Orpine rotting to vines, and Wolfe's dedication

Lee Berman · 15 Feb 2011, 13:27 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:27:06 -0500
Subject: (urth) Silk beating two horses, Orpine rotting to vines,
 and Wolfe's dedication
Message-ID: <SNT123-W3A0A3CA80DBEE61A154FDCFD30 at phx.gbl>

>Marc Aramini: To Dan Knight, who will understand more than most. This right here validates 
>all the twisted readings of Wolfe I've ever done, he is simply not a straightforward writer 
>from the get go,

Marc, it upsets some people here greatly to think that Gene Wolfe would write in a way which
is not meant to be understood. Perhaps "not conciously understood" is a more gracious way of 
thinking about it. If you consider that he wrote 5HoC and BotNS, Soldier series and Long
Sun before the internet, then any thinking person should at least wonder if he ever meant those
stories to be fully understood by a majority of his audience. I am willing to label him (as
an author) as a liar and trickster in the mold of some of the worst of his characters. (including
when he writes "Green is Urth"; IMHO that was a true/not true trick as much as anything else he
writes)

I don't have any answers for the puzzles you mention but maybe I have some vague intuitions on
the right directions Wolfe is pointing us toward.

>Okay, in one dream, Silk is beat two black horses, but he is said to be whipping the wrong horse 
>every time he tries to hit its brother.

I think there is some wordplay going on.  A conflation of two equine metaphors- "backing the wrong
horse" and "beating a dead horse". Does this dream occur before Silk has fully accepted The Outsider
as the true God? If so it could relate to backing Pas and his brood when he should be backing the 
Outsider. I dunno.

>The horse winds up being cast into the save grave as orpine, who rots away to like flowers and vegetation 
>in his dream...

>If the embryos were grown before, and in any way have a familial relationship to the monarch, could Mucor 
>be Echidna...?

I think it is important to remember that Mucor is a misnomer by Vironese convention. Mucor is neither 
plant nor animal, but a fungal mold which grows in soil and other rotting vegetative material. I think
ideas about the importance of plants and succession could be important. As Ushas is fertilized by the
death of humanity, so something is fertilized by the death of plants. Again, nothing concrete to offer.

>disturbing is his immediate comparison of the Outsider with Auk, thinking, what if the Outsider is good ... 
>in a dark way?

I think gnostic thinking pervades this story. Our earthly Judeo-Christian creator Jahweh is surely primarily 
a God of Light. Not so in Briah. The outsider is primarily a God of Dark. This doesn't mean He is bad or evil 
necessarily but..well, perhaps each is missing something.

>he talks about how the Outsider split him in two, and how that old version of himself would be frightful to meet.

I think this relates to Severian. There was a long discussion not so long ago about "dark and light twins" from
BotNS. So many dark/light mirror images between these characters to be found.  There is physical appearance, of 
course. There is the gentle augur vs. the rough torturer constrast.  I'm thinking how Severian carries a blue 
(dark) light and a bright sword. SilkHorn carries a bright light and a dark sword (on Green). Severian seems immortal, 
Silk well, not so much. There is the suggestion in BotNS that Severian's light twin is Typhon, whom some think is 
related to Silk. Both Silk and Severian have associations with The Outsider (Severian's association is according to 
Wolfe, directly).

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