Horn Dies

Alex David Groce · 26 Feb 2001, 15:02 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: Alex David Groce <Alex_Groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Horn Dies
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 15:02:42
Message-ID: <whorl-v0012-0356 at digest.urth.net>
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Blattid:

> That's you, me, and Alex ... is anyone else on this list explicitly
> Christian? (Is _anyone_ but me on this list explicitly Catholic?)

I am, and as a fairly recent convert should probably be expected to be
obnoxious about it or something...

> More fun for me, in many ways, is noticing Wolfe's non- Biblical
> sources -- for example, Silk as a pretty darned blatant hommage or
> pastiche or whatever of GKC's Father Brown. (I strongly suspect that
> Chesterton stands to Wolfe much as MacDonald is Lewis: "I fancy that
> I have never written a book in which I did not quote MacDonald.")

Although, unless I missed something (which seems fairly certain),
there is nothing that yells "G. K." in BOTNS itself.

On a sidenote: even if the Horn in SilkHorn is a Thecla-ish ghost, is
it really that hard to understand why Nettle goes back to the Whorl,
even if she sees our narrator purely as Silk?  She is a widow whose
children are grown (two have married, one has left the planet, for
goodness' sake).  She's also the coauthor of the Book of Silk.  Silk
shows up.  She and Horn left one world because Silk told them to, is
this not perhaps an easier trip to make, to return "home"?

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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