Like a good Neighbor

Lee Berman · 22 Nov 2011, 15:13 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:13:59 -0500
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
Message-ID: <SNT123-W361537C008E22D0F473BD7CFC80 at phx.gbl>

>Antonio Pedro Marques: I don't think Marc has said it can't be also metaphorical. 
>It's everybody else who say it can't be also literal.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Though it isn't "everybody else". I think 
Marc could be right though I don't currently come to the same conclusion as he.
Perhaps Gene Wolfe will tell us before he passes on (or after?). But that seems
unlikely.

>Aiui James considers that the definiteness of Horn dying in the pit is  
>an important element in itself - not the death, but its definiteness.

What is "definite death"? The heart and brain have stopped working? The soul is
departed? The soul is departed with no chance of return? The soul is partially
departed and partially there? The soul has found residence in a new body, in part
or in full? A lot of options for death here.

IIRC, it was Marc who thought Horn was completely gone, and completely replaced by
a Neighbor imitating him while James thinks Horn remains in some manner. In my view,
by the end, the main narrator is a combination of identities in both body and spirit.

Most people can see at least Horn and Silk there. I see them plus there seems to be
something else. How each one got there is not really a question of much interest for
me. For me, "who" is more than "how". So I appreciate James' suggestion of a Neighbor 
to fill the gaps. It works better than anything else and makes a lot of sense to me. 
(especially considering that ring....)

>And it's a fact that in literature sometimes it's important that a  thing should be a 
>certain thing and nor other thing.

Agreed, but are you really going to argue that the death of the narrator is a certain
and clearly defined event in the Sun Series? How many times and in how many ways does
Severian die and become resurrected? (5-6 I think). Yet never does he really THINK he
died at the time, even when he sees his own dead body. He is (understandably) in deep 
denial, not acknowledging his many deaths until the final pages of UotNS.

As Horn dies (or whatever) "the Short Sun was burning gold". You could ignore that as
a not very disguised nod to Severian, the New Sun who died and came back so many times.
Or you could notice it as such. Just as Horn is obviously in denial of his Silk aspect,
he seems (understandably) in denial of his own death, like our other narrator, Severian.

You can read the story as though Horn is just some guy who gets hurt then gets better.
And you can read the story as a resurrection and soul recombination tale. I see no reason
we must restrict it to one and exclude the other. There are material and spiritual ways
of looking at the world. And we are made of both.

If intelligent, sound-minded people see that Horn was hurt and then recovered in the pit
then that's what happened. If other intelligent, sound-minded people see that he died and
was resurrected, that too happened. That is the correct way to undertand art: multi-levelled
and different when viewed from different perspectives.

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