RTW: Hoof and Horn made this bit up

Michael Straight · 17 Feb 2002, 02:42 · from urth-v0202.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: (urth) RTW: Hoof and Horn made this bit up
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 21:42:48 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <urth-v0202-165 at digest.urth.net>
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Near the beginning of RTW, "He" (the person whose adventures are
chronicled in the third-person passages) has a dream that had me quite
confused.  I'm refering to the one He has the first night He and Pig
sleep at Hound's house, when Hound and Pig talk about how they think He
is Silk after He has fallen asleep (p. 83). =20

It features several specific events that have not happened to Him yet: the
black pen case, Jahlee as Krait's mother, Olivine's eye, the opening lines
of OBW.  At first I thought it must be a dream of Incanto's, taking place
in the 1st person storyline, but no, it's definitely one of the
third-person passages.

How can this be?  Did Horn-in-Silk have prophetic dreams in the Whorl? =20
Most of the other dreams in the book seem related to the Narrator's dream
travelling, not prophesy, (there's also the dreams the Narrator has about
Scylla which are a third thing).  When the Rajan/Incanto writes about
Jahlee, he never mentions having dreamt about her in the Whorl.

Then I realized that this part was written by Hoof and Hide.  I have a
hard enough time believing that the Narrator recounted whole conversations
to them verbatim, much less that he told them in detail about all the
dreams he had in the Whorl.  So I'm guessing that they made up this dream,
for "literary" reasons, forshadowing Silk-in-Pig, etc.  Maybe its a way of
putting into the narrative ideas that didn't fit elsewhere.  For instance
the parts of the dream about the Narrator first starting to write
(including the first draft of the beginnin of OBW) could be based on the
Narrator telling Hoof and Hide how he got started writing.

One of the most interesting passages in this dream, is at the beginning:
"He...began to write furiously, conscious of how short--how terribly
short--a time was left to him."  Is this Horn's spirit, knowing that he
only has a limited time in Silk's body, urging him to write before Horn's
spirit fades away?

-Rostrum

--=20

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