Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy

James Wynn · 20 Nov 2011, 01:43 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:43:05 -0600
Subject: (urth) Fwd: Babbiehorn?: Was: a sincere question mostly for roy
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On 11/19/2011 2:54 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:
 >I was reading shakespeare today and the term huswife came up,
 >and I realized it was just a form of house: I think Babbie is like a 
spirit house.

Yeah, I knew it was Scandinavian for house. And I understood that the 
word referred to Babbie's ability to take in souls. It's just that the 
whole thing seemed rather overt for a Wolfe naming  MO.

 >Also, your contention that Horn is part neighbor is good,
 >I am just not sure he is fully neighbor and fully human in that way.
 >He is still spiritually inferior to Silk even after his time in the 
pit: a self-serving man.

Well okay. But there is a long period while he is on the Whorl that he 
does come off very Silkish. He does strike that man who gave him the 
corn but I the man attacked HIM (I could speculate, but it's not exactly 
clear to me why he did that). I don't think Wolfe would consider 
self-defense a mark against one's character. I don't not believe the 
Neighbors morally superior other than that they don't prey on others.

 >Also, your contention that Horn is part neighbor is good,
 >I am just not sure he is fully neighbor and fully human in that way.
 >He is still spiritually inferior to Silk even after his time in the 
pit: a self-serving man.

I don't really see him that way. Because he cheats on Nettle? Those vows 
were "until death do us part".
Even before he fell in the pit, I didn't hold it against Horn since I 
think Seawrack was designed to be literally irresistible.

 >If the neighbor portion of him is there, it has not made him 
"better" in the way that Silk is good,
 >so I can't quite liken it to the condition of Christ being fully human 
and fully divine.

I don't think we're expected to take it that far. The Rajan is a 
Christ-figure, not Christ. Just as is Severian (who is far from perfect).
The Rajan is a mediator between Neighbor and Man (not God and Man as 
Jesus is). He is an impossible combination of two incapitable entities. 
100% of both. He is a sense a Trinity. Wolfe is exploring and 
rationalizing these facts. The Rajan is not to Jesus in the same way 
Aslan is.

 >I will on my next re-read of Short Sun, probably next year,
 >pay careful attention to hints that he is or is not a neighbor,
 >but I am still sticking with the external neighbor Horn paradigm
 >for now as something distinct from the resurrected Horn,

Well, as with all Wolfe stories, you invariably end up with 3 or 4 
equally defensible big theories without the textual means to finally 
choose the *right* one. That's why I like it when I think I can identity 
more than one external paradigms that I can use to *check* a theory. I 
think the connection between Neighbors (greenbuck and the pit) and 
Faeries (white deer and faerie circles) with the story of Prydain from 
the Mabinogion is meaningful in Horn's story. And the connection to 
Actaeon  (son of Aristaeus) reconfirms it.

I think you should /consider/ accepting the possibility that Green is 
not post-Ushas, but Eden (I like your "jungle as Eden" analogy). In that 
case, Blue could be the companion satellite that collided with Urth to 
form Lune. "Trees eating people to form Neighbors" is absolutely vital 
if Green is Urth's future. But it is totally unnecessary if the Green is 
in Urth's past. You might be right about the hybidization as an 
important clue, but it might not mean what you think it does.

 >I need to look at the text holistically again.
 >(fasting was a trait of Silk when he was scared of being selfish)

I don't think he would have to fake eating in order to fast. I think it 
is really important that he doesn't show any genuine interest in eating 
until the Spring. I consider that additional evidence that the Neighbors 
are the trees.

One advantage you have over me however is that at least you have settled 
in your own mind how the inhumi are/become liannas. I could say that 
when inhumi feed on Neighbors in dream-travel form, that their children 
take the form of vines. That would get me there.
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