Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

James Wynn · 19 Nov 2011, 16:31 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:31:16 -0600
Subject: (urth) Fwd: Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
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>  James Wynn wrote:
>> I think it is a mistake to think that just because Wolfe writes 
>> novels investigating identity that he has this idea in his mind of 
>> how it works.
>
> David Stockhoff wrote:
> OK. But he has to have at least a recognizable basic mechanism, even 
> if the details are fuzzy.

The mechanism is that the Neighbors (at least in the ways we encounter 
them) are spiritual beings. The mechanisms of their nature are delved 
into every time the Rajan dream-travel's. The Neighbor reanimates and 
repairs Horns body and inhabits it (thus the Puppet foreshadowing). 
Later, Horn's body is dying and he has no other body to inhabit. His 
fellow Neighbors help him out by sending him to one...THE ONE that will 
help him accomplish his mission. It has always bothered me that Silk was 
dying just as Horn was, but understanding that the Neighbors are 
Time-Travelers resolves all that.

Additionally, making the narrator of this story Horn walks away from the 
pattern set in The Book of the Long Sun. There, the story is about Silk, 
but it's told by Horn. Here it is sort of about Silk and Horn but it is 
told by neither of them (for they have died) even though it is 
autobiographical. It's genius. And it perfects the ambiguity Wolfe likes 
in his story telling.

Marc is on the right track, but he has under-estimated Wolfe's cleverness.

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