Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources

Andrew Mason · 12 Jul 2013, 21:30 · from 2013-July.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 22:30:03 +0100
Subject: (urth) Short Sun notes: Inhumi and their sources
Message-ID: <CAM3O41Jg35Fns9NYJPdCMF2hX4Fh7u8xUiDF-qDDcA6Uq+1G4A at mail.gmail.com>

Lee Berman wrote:.

>
> I find the blended identities found within inhumi to be very confusing.
> Likewise for the
> merged identities within other characters like Babbie, Oreb, Pig,
> Kypris/Hyacynth, etc. I
> appreciate and admire your fortitude in trying to map these out.
>

Thanks!  I hope to say something about some of these, especially Babbie,
later.

>
> I've been lazy, and content to take a broad-based interpretation of all
> that. For the inhumi
> I find them to be Wolfean allegory on the presence of blood-sucking
> parasites among us; the
> liars and criminals and drug addicts who only take from society without
> contributing.
>

I think I take a more two-sided view of the inhumi than that. I take it to
be very important that they have human spirits, and are capable of human
virtues as well as vices: Krait and Fava turn out nobly in the end. Jahlee
doesn't, but that's not just because she's a monster, but because of the
human emotion of jealousy. But of course if inhumi are people it follows
that people can also be inhumi; that I take it is the point being made with
Juganu and Gyrfalcon. (It has just struck me, by the way, that if Lemur is
Juganu's source, it is quite likely that Quetzal - who, as Remora rather
pointlessly points out, knew Lemur - is Juganu's father.)

>
> The conflation of inhumi with Horn's children and surrogate children seems
> a bit like the
> Shakespearean lament: "how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a
> thankless child".
> Since I think only Number 5 and Severian rival Horn as a Gene Wolfe
> literary avatar, I
> suspect there is masked autobiography going on here as well as a general
> statement on
> humanity and the difficulties of parenthood.
>

Yes indeed. With Krait I think it's fairly clear what's happening - Horn
adopts Krait as his son, and it turns out that he is in a way his son,
through Sinew. I think that Horn is unfairly judging Sinew - perhaps
because he reminds Horn of his younger self - and that through Krait he
comes to appreciate him better. But Jahlee is a real mystery. Why does the
Rajan see her, not as his sister - which would make sense if she is
Chenille - but as his daughter? You might just say 'by adoption', and
adoption is certainly taken seriously in the Vironese community, but there
are suggestions there's more to it than that; he thinks in retrospect of
Krait as his grandson, and wonders whether it was legitimate to adopt Krait
in the light of that; yet the adoption of Krait happened long before he met
Jahlee. But there's no suggestion that either Silk or Horn ever had a
daughter. There's something here I'm not fathoming.

>
>
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