Like a good Neighbor

Lee Berman · 20 Nov 2011, 18:33 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:33:50 -0500
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
Message-ID: <SNT123-W29AAB96EDD5DEB56CF6A93CFCA0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: The ?glittering eyes? he sees while lying semi-conscious, 

>and the ?long nosed man or spider? that he apparently sees with his eyes 

>closed are presumably Neighbours.

Hm, yep. Gerry weren't you asking for fauns a while back? I think you've

found them. Add some bristly hair on the arm to those eyes and that

snout and multi-limbs for their faerie/Pan multiple images and Neighbors

make some pretty good fauns.

Moreover, Silk(y hair)+ Horn(s) also make a nice faun equation (add Hoof

and Hide if you like). Thus the origin of Silver Silk and Silent Silk- the 

fauns Silvanus and Silenus. Silk (father-figure) is a man and Horn (son-figure) 

is a man but some third essence is needed to make him a god. A bit of Neighbor 

maybe?

>Marc Aramini: kay, I have to step in here.  I don't think they are entirely 

>fairies in that they are the "next step of man" toward the hierogrammate 

>evolution, so putting a primitive amorality on them is not consistent with 

>their "outside and beyond" reality presence in the case of short sun, where 

>the vanished gods watch the eucharist scene and where the Outsider's will is 

>being done. Just my 2 cents,

But the Neighbors do show amorality in their treatment of each other and humans,

at least in the past. They may have had cities and spaceships in the past but

now they are living like primitives on Blue. Isn't this a parallel to humans on

Urth and Ushas? 

It just seems like you have to bend and distort the story too much to get the 

Neighbors as the future of humanity, Marc.  For me, so many elements of your 

theories fall perfectly and simply into place if Neighbors can be seen as a

magical but primitive, previous part of human history and development as faeries 

and fauns are to us.

It seems clear to me that Wolfe presents us with higher beings than humans in

the form of the hiero-types, the angelic hierarchy. Can you imagine B, F and O

and/or Tzadkiel and Apheta living in the woods, hunting and gathering around a 

campfire? I think they are our future and Wolfe presents everything about them

in a manner which reflects that. 

The Green Man may (as B, F and O suggest) have more knowledge and power than they 

do. I completely agree that he is likely meant as a connection to The Neighbors

in some way. Your "tree connection" is spot on.  But The Green Man is another name 

for Great God Pan, a powerful, but primitive deity with plant associations (including

the vines of Dionysus). No matter how powerful and mystic this god is, he can never

be as spiritually advanced as we (Christians,I assume Wolfe means) are.  It is the 

angels who are spiritually superior to us, not the rustic, pagan gods of the past.

But I understand that once you have set upon a path for many years it isn't easy or 

even desirable to backtrack and reroute. But as I see it, doing that would

allow for a shorter, simpler path to what you are aiming for. Just my 2 cents,

of course. With apologies.

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