Oannes

James Wynn · 20 Mar 2012, 18:54 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:54:57 -0500
Subject: (urth) Oannes
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On 3/20/2012 12:42 PM, Antonin Scriabin wrote:
> In that case, the statement "The same way that one group of humans 
> could have a better grasp of science, or economics, or poker," isn't 
> true at all, because we don't advance in our understanding of these 
> subjects by revelation.
>
> "Third person omniscience" doesn't exist in real life; is it possible 
> that Silk is delusional, and that his theophany was some combination 
> of hallucination and wishful thinking?  I think so.  We are reading, 
> after all, a sort of belated account written by Horn, right?  What I 
> am getting at is that there is no narrator that arbitrates experiences 
> here on earth (religious or otherwise), and can tell outside observers 
> (like Wolfe tells the reader in /Long Sun/) whether or not someone has 
> experienced a revelation. 

So you agree with Crane. Actually, Crane could be right about the brain 
aneurism and yet Silk's experiences with the Outsider could still be 
100% valid. Remember that Latro's ability as a bridge between the divine 
and the mundane is precipitated by a wound to the head. Someone tells 
him that his wound is actually a curse-blessing from Demeter. I'm saying 
that perhaps a physical change in Silk's brain is exactly how the 
Outsider opened him up to communicate with him. Crane sees it as damage, 
but the Outsider understands it as a modification.

Again, in the Latro books, Io compares (I believe) the gods to 
characters in a play. The actors are all wearing masks but the 
characters in the play (the gods) are not aware of it. Even so, the 
Whorl gods are not aware that by their presumption, they have become a  
mask for the Outsider. I think this is a similar theme presented in "A 
Toy Theater" in people go to see a puppet show but it turns out that 
THEY are in the show...the puppeteer and the audience and the narrator 
are all puppets.

That said, the implication in all this is that Wolfe the author believes 
there IS an actor behind the mask, a puppeteer pulling the strings, an 
Outsider subsuming the powers of the Whorl.

J.

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