silk, the dancing toy, gods in the tunnels

Lee Berman · 27 Aug 2013, 17:58 · from 2013-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 13:58:02 -0400
Subject: (urth) silk, the dancing toy, gods in the tunnels
Message-ID: <BLU175-W50BEF2A28325528F40DA17CF4A0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: Is Silk not allowed to have whimsical thoughts that do not 
>embody hard literal facts about the system, even when he is almost dreaming? 
>Or does he exist only to convey details from Wolfe's pen to the reader's eye?

Silk does only exist to convey details from Wolfe's pen to the reader's eye.
We can never forget that, nor, I think, does Wolfe want us to.

This does not preclude Wolfe from wanting to depict Silk as a "realistic"
person who sometimes has wandering, meandering thoughts which have no
purpose or meaning in regard to the big picture of the story.

It is the goal of many authors to create humanistic, "real" characters who 
are relatable to the reader.  Somtimes this character development takes 
precedence over the plot and overarching themes. Is Wolfe is one of those 
authors?

I don't think he is, especially in writing  the Sun series. In this 12 book 
series, Wolfe is loathe to invent names or terminology, preferring instead to 
draw upon existing archaisms, obscure nature references, etc. By this principle
I tend to think that Wolfe doesn't aspire to invent Silk a "real" person by
endowing him with pointless but realistic human attributes and thoughts. It is 
just my personal opinion but I think everything about Silk has a story-specific
meaning at some level (including autobiographical). 

In addition to what has already been posted about dogs as gods, I tend to 
take a meta-interpretation of it in addition to the other suggestions.

Many agree that Wolfe inserts dogs and wolves throughout his stories as a
sort of self-reference.  Perhaps these dogs as gods is a reference to his
own status as the creator of the universe we are inhabiting as we read.

Wolfe's familiarity with gnostic principles seems unquestionable, so I don't
think it escapes him that as he writes, he is functioning as a Demiurge. 
Perhaps the dogs/gods are a recognition that while he is the creator of this 
universe, he acknowledges that he is a false (and perhaps evil) god and that
the one true, spiritual God above all should always be recognized foremost.

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