Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

Lee Berman · 17 Nov 2011, 18:14 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:14:38 -0500
Subject: (urth) Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
Message-ID: <SNT123-W3383215848D6891960AC99CFC70 at phx.gbl>

>James Wynn: I have absolutely no idea how the inhumi are lianas. I only know that 
>they are. It really makes no sense to me. Marc has a method that 
>satisfies him but it doesn't satisfy me. Still, I have no alternate theory.

You are right. In some manner they are. The reason you know it is because you 
recognize you are not reading a science book, you are reading science fiction/fantasy; 
a work of art and literature.

If this was a conventional work of fiction, you would be willing to accept that the 
presence of trees and parasitic lianas are a purely metaphorical theme to highlight
the host/parasitic relationship between two characters. 

But in SF/Fantasy and most especially in the work of Gene Wolfe, metaphors take on a
much greater dose of reality than they do in fiction of the real world. Not recognizing
that this is SF/Fantasy leads some here to ridiculous arguments like, "trees can't talk".
Such people apparently require a scene where an inhumu pops out of a liana and bites a 
Neighbor on the neck to catch the obvious connection.

Wolfe has described the creative sequence which led to his writing of UotNS and I think
it can be instructive. There are so many vaguely defined mysteries in the first four books
that Wolfe expected us to understand, but nobody did.

But multi-limbed Neighbors and parasitic inhumi tracking with trees and liana/vines is 
a connection any Wolfe reader ought to be able to get. Anyone who claims they can't
is pretending (as David suggests) or playing kabuki theater (as James suggests). Nobody
who has been here contributing here for a significant length of time could really be that 
dense. Sorry, but anyone continuing to claim they are is lying. We ain't buying the act 
anymore ;- ).

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