First impressions of IGJ (possible spoilers)

William Ansley · 23 Jul 2000, 23:40 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) First impressions of IGJ (possible spoilers)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 23:40:50
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0409 at digest.urth.net>
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Well, I finished _In Green's Jungles_ today. Wolfe is certainly is=20
full of surprises. All I can say is that I hope _Return to the Whorl_=20
is released with no more of a delay than there was between OBW and=20
IGJ. It is really very difficult to make any judgement about the=20
first two volumes in the absence of the third. Not to mention the=20
fact that I'll have to read IGJ again before I will feel competent to=20
make too many definitive statements about it.

At 11:17 AM -0700 7/15/00, Adam Stephanides wrote:
>4.  I found it harder to follow the story here than in OBW.  This is
>partly because the plot is more complicated, partly because there is no
>strong narrative thread like Horn's quest for Pajarocu in OBW, and
>partly for another reason which I'm afraid it might give too much away
>to reveal.

Interesting. I found it easier to follow IGJ than OBW. It seemed to=20
me that the second volume was considerably less fragmentary than the=20
first.

At 2:37 AM +0000 7/21/00, Christopher Culver wrote:
>3) Horn tends to sound in several places like Alden Dennis Weer. I=20
>wonder if this is just because people who have died tend to think=20
>like this in Wolfe's mind, or Wolfe is simply reusing a previous=20
>mode of narration.

I think that Weer is Wolfe's "default voice." In my opinion,=20
virtually all of Wolfe's first person protagonists "sound like" Weer=20
at one time or another, if they are allowed to talk long enough.

At 11:19 PM -0700 7/22/00, Dan Rabin wrote:
>It seems pretty daring to me that Wolfe builds up to the recognition=20
>scene between Horn/Silk and Auk and Chenille, and then yells "Cut!",=20
>only confirming our suspicions in the conversation afterwards back=20
>on Blue.

This doesn't seem daring to me at all, for Wolfe. "It's what he does.=20
It's all he does!" Wolfe's preferred method for dealing with pivotal=20
scenes is to leave them out and then refer to them later briefly and=20
fragmentarily.

At 10:29 AM -0700 7/23/00, Adam Stephanides wrote:
>Now that we know how Horn got into Silk's body (assuming it is Silk's)
>the question I asked about IGJ remains: why doesn't Horn know he's in
>Silk's body?  Why doesn't he recognize whose body is in the grave
>(assuming it's the obvious person, whose name I'm hiding from accidental
>readers of this post)?  Even if he doesn't recognize Silk's body, didn't
>he meet anyone on the Whorl who addressed him as Silk?  Of course, maybe
>he does know he's in Silk's body, and is hiding the fact from his
>readers (while leaving obvious clues).  But then why was he continuing
>the search for Silk at the start of OBW?

I agree with Adam here completely. This is a real sticking point for=20
me and I hope Wolfe resolves it satisfactorily. It seems very=20
*unlikely* that the body Horn's spirit is put into is Silk, judging=20
from the description in the text. But, if not, how does Horn get into=20
Silk's body before he is shanghaied into becoming the Rajan of Gaon=20
(if he actually inhabits Silk's body at all). Does he continue body=20
hopping in _Return to the Whorl_?

>The Horn of OBW resembles the non-apotheosized Severian: someone who
>feels strongly, suffers greatly, and is very human, to the point of
>being unsympathetic.  The Horn of IGJ is much more like Silk in more
>than a physical sense; he's clearly a good man, and a dispenser of
>wisdom and good counsel, while humbly insisting all the time that he is
>no such thing.  I have to admit that as a protagonist I prefer the first
>model to the second.

I agree that the Horn that narrates OBW seems to be significantly=20
different from the Horn that narrates IGJ. This makes me wonder what=20
happened to cause the change. It seems to me that it may have=20
something to do with the very odd section towards the very end of OBW=20
where Horn's identity seems to become confused with Babbie's and Horn=20
meets the little boy and girl who are named Brother and Sister. I=20
readily admit that I didn't understand the section of OBW at all and=20
that I am disappointed that it wasn't explicated at all in IGJ.

--=20
William Ansley

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