Clute's Revelation

Fernando Q. Gouvea · 16 Aug 2000, 11:00 · from whorl-v0011.mbox · original

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From: "Fernando Q. Gouvea" <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Clute's Revelation
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 11:00:20
Message-ID: <whorl-v0011-0111 at digest.urth.net>
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Nah... Even Clute hedges his bets, by saying maybe he's an inhumu (spells
it wrong, as "inhuma"... or does he mean that?), maybe he's an aquastor,
maybe something else. My main reaction is why should Wolfe repeat his
effects? He's already written "Fifth Head" and The Book of the New Sun.=20

I agree completely with alga that having Horn become a better human being
seems to be central to this novel. One might even imagine an
Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso triptych in Severian/Silk/Horn.=20

Finally, the evidence is all against it. Horn is shown writing, riding
horses, using weapons (even the azoth, at one point), all sorts of stuff
that inhumi don't do. Oreb likes him. He eats (not much, but he does).  To
sustain Clute's idea one would have to assume not only an unreliable
narrator, but a positively misleading one.

Fernando

--=20

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