For Adam and James: Literary Devices, Authorship, and

Adam Stephanides · 07 Mar 2001, 15:51 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) For Adam and James: Literary Devices, Authorship, and
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 15:51:43
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on 3/6/01 1:11 PM, James Jordan at jbjordan4 at home.com wrote:

> I guess we can hypothesize that the Narrator lived among
> them for a year or so before leaving for the Whorl, and that much of
> "their" style is drawn from transcripts of "his" narrations.

No and no.  On the night he arrives in New Viron, Silkhorn makes his final
"astral journey."  Hoof tells us that "After that, Hide and Vadsig came ...
for the wedding" (397); we aren't told how long an interval this "after
that" indicates, but since Hoof goes on to say that there is nothing in this
interval to write about, it can't have been long.  And Daisy tells us
explicitly that her final meeting with Silk, the only time after the Remora
interview that any of the children see him, took place "a few days" after
the wedding. (410)  And at this meeting Silk says that they are leaving that
night.  So the overall time from Silkhorn's arrival at New Viron to Silk's
departure was almost certainly less than a month, and possibly a good deal
shorter; and for some of this time Silk was not doing any reminiscing.

No transcripts either; if there had been, the editors, who are concerned to
establish the accuracy of their account, would have said so.  All they say
is that Silkhorn "often" spoke of his time on the Whorl, and "we have
recreated [it] to the best of our ability, based upon those conversations."
(408)  While this doesn't bear out mantis's description of the third-person
sections as "fanfic," it does imply that minor details in the Whorl section,
particularly individual lines of dialogue and what is said to be passing
through Silkhorn's mind, cannot be trusted.

--Adam

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