[SPOILERS] In Green's Jungles, first thoughts

Fernando Q. Gouvea · 23 Jul 2000, 15:28 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: "Fernando Q. Gouvea" <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) [SPOILERS] In Green's Jungles, first thoughts
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 15:28:28
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**** On Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:55:35 -0700, Adam Stephanides <adamsteph@earthl=
ink.net> said:

Adam> Fernando Q. Gouvea wrote:

>=20
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>>  My impression is that he does know he is in Silk's body

Adam> But, IIRC, at the start of OBW Horn is looking for Silk by
Adam> circulating Silk's physical description.  Even if Horn believed that
Adam> Silk's spirit had somehow been transferred to another physical body
Adam> (as opposed to Mainframe), there's no reason for him to think that
Adam> this new body would look like Silk's old body.

True, there's something here that's unclear. But it's impossible to imagine
that Horn hasn't looked himself in a mirror!

>> Fava is not really an inhuma, as the "astral projection" sections
>> reveal.

Adam> Fava is really an inhuma, as is Jahlee.  Their spirits are human in
Adam> appearance because they absorb their intelligence and personalities
Adam> from the humans whose blood they drink.

Yes, of course. I was using "really" in the sense "not physically, but in
spirit", just as Horn is Horn, not physically, but in spirit.

>> There's a lot of Christian imagery too, from the "unknown God" of the
>> Neighbors to the Eucharist at the stone table.

Adam> Why do you see the Neighbors' unknown god [it's lower-case in the
Adam> book] as Christian?=20

My point was just that using the phrase brings in Christian associations
and images, not that one should literally read it as Christian. When
St. Paul preached in Athens, according to the book of Acts, he was
disgusted by the polytheism of the Greeks but noted that one of their
temples was dedicated "to an unknown god". In his sermon, he explains that
this is the God he is talking about. So the phrase rings a bell, especially
when used in a context where one is talking about religious contact between
two different cultures.

Fernando

--=20

Fernando Q. Gouvea                     =20
Department of Mathematics               Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online
Colby College                           http://www.maa.org
Waterville, ME 04901
fqgouvea at colby.edu                      http://www.colby.edu/math
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