silver glass

James Wynn · 11 Jan 2005, 17:52 · from 2005-January.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Tue Jan 11 17:52:21 2005
Subject: (urth) silver glass
References: <20050112012201.EJUJ7026.fed1rmmtao10.cox.net at smtp.west.cox.net>
Message-ID: <018601c4f849$5985d2a0$4c1e4b0a at vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>

Marc says
> The big, huge problem with getting specific instances of Silk in the third
>person "HE" of RTTW whorl scenes is that they weren't written by a witness
>- they are 3rd person - and why is that?  Unfortunately, any writing of
Silk
>into the narrator can easily be relegated to the discretion of the
editors -
>making it impossible to PROVE his [psychic] identity one way or the other.

Yes. But then we have to suppose what is the motive of Hide and Co. in
putting little hints of confusion about the Narrator's identity into his
statements and references to his state of mind --unless the Narrator told
them it happened. At some point you have to say that Wolfe tells stories
from "a distance" simply because he likes to (either with a narrator who
does know how alien his own nature is, or has a such a short term memory
that he can't verify that he wrote the document, or who is insane, or who is
someone that really could only barely know the protagonist). Not because
there is some sort of secret literary clue to be provide in him doing so. If
I can't trust the veracity of the narrator even when there is no reason not
to, how am I supposed to figure anything out anyway?

Chris points out that we can't prove that Silk is anything but a creation of
Horn's. Why not Nettle as well? We also can't prove that Latro -- even if we
were to interrogate him -- wrote most of the Soldier stories. He can't
verify it. I'm not going down that road, but it is one that Wolfe has
offered to us.

>Why does the story start where it does?  Is this because Silver Silk is
>Horn's impetus for writing?  Is it just a matter of convenience?  Or is it
>because he wants to find who he is through the process of writing his
story,
>now that he has been commingled with Silk?

Most likely because he didn't have an opportunity to write until he became
"sultan" on Blue. Anyway, it is Horn who has more of a proven penchant for
writing than Silk did.

~ Crush

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