Horn's ability

Lee Berman · 27 Oct 2011, 02:11 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:11:03 -0400
Subject: (urth) Horn's ability
Message-ID: <SNT123-W38CBAA2ECF405583BFFCA2CFD20 at phx.gbl>

>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: ... well, no point in quoting; I concede the facts, 

>and further agreethat it's clear that Hethor, at some point, crewed aboard The Ship.
>But that's a far cry from making him identical with Tzadkiel and/or Fr. Inire. After 

>all, _lots_ of people have crewed aboard The Ship.

Yes, I think the evidence for Hethor on Tzadkiel's Ship is pretty good. "Identical" 

is simply not a good word though. Is Jurturna identical to Idas? Is a khaibit

identical to her mistress? Is Silk identical to Typhon? (j/k never mind that last

one ;- ))

>From 5HoC to Short Sun, from Number 5 to Shadow Children to Tzadkiel to Neighbors, Wolfe 

has addressed the Identity Problem by using characters in his fiction who are not singular 

in nature as we are. I'm not sure why multiple Father Inire identities is so troublesome

and rises such resistance in some. Still the idea seems to nag and bother even those 

vehemently against it and that itself raises some questions in regard to why.

I think one problem is that the story is told in first-person, but Father Inire is 

presented in null-person. He never shows up. In my current view, the guy is either 

nowhere or all over the place. I just can't see the literary value in placing him in 

disguise as a few non-important characters. Why would Wolfe do that? Why, in the course 

of seven intense years of writing and editing and creating such difficult puzzles of which 

only some have been solved to this day, why would he make Father Inire such a throw-away? 

>Daniel Petersen: And I agree with you that Wolfe is probably sometimes too tricksy 

>for his own good - I trust his intentions but not necessarily his ability to deliver
>- yes.  Good connection to Joyce studies too.

I second that approval. It was a great post by Dan'l and spot on in all facets, IMHO.

>Andrew Mason: Hethor is also a saint, one of the martyrs of Chertsey. I take it that
>>is the reference our Hethor is going for, since he is trying to pass as a Commonwealth 

>citizen....that was the reference _Hethor_ was going for. What _Wolfe_ may have meant by it 

>is quite another matter.

okay, that is a notable distinction. Hethor did choose his own name. We can't know if he

erred in choosing a saint name that had satanic overtones or if he did it on purpose.

It's kind of like the veiled satanic references in Ultan's dialog. It seems WOlfe knew

what he was doing when he put them there but we can't know Ultan's motivation in 

mentioning them. Is he trying to send a coded message to Severian or just accidentally

revealing too much, as he does when discussiong the eating of the dead.

David Stockhoff: (When I googled "hethor name" it suggested "hector." the resemblance is 
close enough for google's algorithm ...)

;-) I can't argue with that. (Such name distortions still don't seem like anything we see

anywhere in the Sun Series)

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