Digest whorl.v010.n101

Alice Turner · 09 Apr 2000, 21:11 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <akt at attglobal.net>
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n101
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 21:11:58
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0313 at digest.urth.net>
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Ratty remarked:

> >Adam asked:
> >
> >.> Is there textual evidence from TBOTLS that Silk may be in a two-headed
> >> Pas body? (It's been a while since I reread it.)
> >
> >Near the end of the last book Kypris appears in a Window and says
> seductively, "Silk, wouldn't you like to be like Pas? We'd be together
> then....They can scan you in at Mainframe. As I was scanned, Silk, with
> him. He held my hand....You'll go on with your life, Silk. Just as it is.
> You'd be Pas too. And he would be you. Look."
> >
> >And she shows him the image of a "bronze-limbed man with rippling muscles
> and two heads." One is Silk's.
> >
> >But there isn't the least textual evidence that he took her up on it.
>=20
> There's no evidence that he didn't either, of course, which is also most
> lupine. I suppose we'll eventually find out.=20
> Given the "theology" of the narrative, which is never far from the
> surface, I've wondered about this. Silk's ascension to "heaven" (past the
> "border mountains," to quote an old hymn), following his death and
> resurrection and preceding his return in the final conflagration of (his
> part of) the Whorl, closely follows the New Testament narrative. In the
> cited passage, Wolfe at least alludes to Silk's ascension to "the right
> hand of the Father," with Kypris as a surrogate for the Holy Spirit.=20

Not so closely as all that. Twenty-two years, IIRC, intervene. We have to a=
ssume, from the logic of fiction, that Silk has been alive and active, eith=
er on the Whorl or on Green (or on Blue, possibly) during that  entire time=
. My vote puts him on the Whorl.

>  The question raised in my mind is this: Is the Pas of the Whorl the "evil
> Typhon" of earth? Clearly he originated there, but he actually seems to be
> the "good god" of the Whorl. If this be the case, then for Silk to allow a
> transcript of himself to be entered into Mainframe would not be out of
> accord with his character. On the other hand, this might be something like
> "The Last Temptation of Silk," which he should reject. I've never sorted
> this question out. I suspect that time will tell, and we'll find out
> eventually.

I think we probably will find out. But, as I said earlier, I think Pas is m=
ostly dead. Nor is there much evidence that he was good. Kypris liked him, =
but he was her ticket to the movies, wasn't he? None of the others seemed t=
o like him, and I doubt that you and I would have, either.

> "Bronze limbed" is right out of the Bible, I suspect. The ascended Christ
> appears as a man of bronze in Revelation chapter 1:15, and compare Daniel
> 10:6.

Well, hell, you can apply it to Brad Pitt too. Didja see how he appeared in=
 "Fight Club?"

And, btw, Tim, long before a little hedgehog was named an echidna, the name=
 was applied to a frightful monster, half woman, half serpent, who ate men =
raw and bore a brood of monsters to Typhon. The name means "she-viper." Che=
ck it out in any Greek mythology compendium, or go to the source, Hesiod.

-alga

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