OBW: a minor mystery

William Ansley · 23 Jul 2000, 22:59 · from whorl-v0010.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: (whorl) OBW: a minor mystery
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 22:59:24
Message-ID: <whorl-v0010-0410 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0010/0410.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I have just finished IGJ. Although I hadn't intended to, I re-read=20
OBW in its entirety first. I certainly noticed several things that I=20
hadn't the first two times I read it but one trivial point stuck in=20
my mind. I am going into great depth about this point, even though I=20
say it is trivial because Wolfe must have had something definite in=20
mind here and it seems as if it is possible to figure it out, to some=20
degree, at least.

It is a matter of the units of measure Horn mentions in OBW. The most=20
common unit mentioned is the "hand". I did a little horseback riding=20
long go and seemed to recall that that a hand was 4 inches (10.16=20
cm). Webster's Third International Dictionary confirmed this and=20
didn't reveal any other measurements associated with hand. Horn also=20
uses cubit as a measurement frequently. According to the dictionary=20
(and my own memory) the historical length of a cubit is uncertain but=20
it is generally agreed to have been about 18 inches (45.72 cm).

The problem I have with this is that the way Horn uses hand it seems=20
as if it must be a unit closer to 8 inches (20.32 cm). Otherwise=20
certain passages in OBW don't seem to make sense. For example (I have=20
added my own notes in square brackets):

----------------------
Earlier I wrote that she [Mucor] is not tall, but that was=20
misleading. Majesty is not a mere matter of a hand or two over the=20
eight.
----------------------
OBW, p. 106, lines 4-6

----------------------
The blade [of Sinew's hunting knife] was a hand and two fingers in=20
length, two fingers wide [...]
----------------------
OBW, p. 144, lines 30-31

----------------------
My own height, I should say was three cubits and two hands at that=20
time -- a good deal less than it is now.
----------------------
OBW, p. 196, lines 3-4

Now, I interpret the first passage I quote above to mean that eight=20
hands is the average height for a woman (or person in general) and=20
that a hand or two over that would be (majestically, to shallow=20
thinkers) tall. But eight traditional hands is only 32 inches (81.28=20
cm), far too short for a full grown woman, unless being on _The=20
Whorl_ has somehow turned all the colonists into midgets. But if we=20
say a hand on Blue is 8 inches, then eight hands becomes 64 inches=20
(162.56 cm), a much more reasonable average height for a woman, at=20
least by modern standards. If it is 7 inches (17.78 cm) then eight=20
hands becomes 56 inches (142.24 cm), short by modern standards, but=20
still reasonable.

The second passage describes Sinew's hunting knife, which Horn refers=20
to as long at least once.

----------------------
I loaned Maytera the long hunting knife Sinew had given me, and held=20
my fish steady for her.
----------------------
OBW, p. 9,1 lines 30-31

If a hand is the traditional measure, and assuming a finger is an=20
inch (which is not necessarily a safe assumption), then the blade=20
would be 6 inches (15.24 cm) long. Now, I don't think that qualifies=20
as a long hunting knife. However if a hand is 8 inches, then the=20
blade becomes 10 inches (25.4 cm) long. If 7, then 9 inches (22.86=20
cm). A hunting knife with a blade of this length seems to me to more=20
appropriately be described as long.

For the third passage I am assuming a cubit is 18 inches (45.72 cm),=20
which is certainly questionable if hand represents a non-traditional=20
measure, but if Wolfe has redefined all units of measure then nothing=20
definite can be established. With this assumption, Horn's height is=20
62 inches or 5 feet 2 inches (157.48 cm) using the traditional=20
measure for a hand. Surely this is a bit short. If we assume that a=20
hand is 8 inches then Horn's height is 70 inches or 5 feet 10 inches=20
(177.8 cm) which seems more like it. If we have a 7 inch hand then=20
Horn is 68 inches or 5 feet 8 inches (172.72 cm) tall.

Now all the units of measure used by Horn are based on the lengths of=20
parts of the body. A 'finger' is probably the width of a finger,=20
between 0.5 (1.27 cm) and 1 inch (2.54 cm). A cubit is the length=20
from the elbow to the tip of the longest outstretched fingertip (18=20
inches). A traditional hand is the width of the palm of the hand (4=20
inches). But perhaps Wolfe is thinking of the distance from the tip=20
of the thumb to the tip of the pinkie when the fingers are spread as=20
far as possible. This is traditionally known as a "span" and is=20
traditionally 9 inches (22.86 cm). Or perhaps Wolfe version of 'hand'=20
is measured from the base of the hand the the tip of the middle=20
finger (which might well come to between 7 and 8 inches).

Another thing we need to know before we can reach any definite=20
conclusions is whether the units of measure Horn is using are=20
standard (like current English units such as the foot) or not. In the=20
latter case, each person would use his or her own foot to measure out=20
a length, to continue with the same example.

Well, I have gone on far too long about this, so I'll stop here.

--=20
William Ansley

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.=
com

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net