Not the Torah, but Torah-like

Nicholas Gevers · 11 Apr 2001, 01:08 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Nicholas=20Gevers?= <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
Subject: (whorl) Not the Torah, but Torah-like
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 01:08:12
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Alga wrote:

"Oh, honestly, what nonsense--this isn't the Torah!
It's not my fault that Wolfe abandoned Mucor, murdered
Jahlee, sent Nettle and Seawrack off on a Star Trek
menage a trois with the saintly Silk, ditched Babbie,
gave us no word of Oreb and in general tossed his
whole story out the window--or off-planet as the case
may be. Leaving both Blue and Green to go to hell
together, Neighbors, inhumi and whatnot. Tra-la, let's
be off."

TBSS isn't the Torah, no; but as we've given PEACE,
THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, and THE FIFTH HEAD OF
CERBERUS many years to resolve and settle themselves
in our minds, perhaps we should give TBSS more than
just a few months.

As for this repeated criticism about TBSS's "hurried
ending": it's not hurried at all. It's simply that GW
has spent seven volumes building up characters and
scenarios, and he rightly assumes that readers who
have stuck with him this far know those characters and
situations well enough by now to infer their final
motivations and destinies. To invoke Kim Stanley
Robinson again: GW is the king of the slingshot
ending; his texts move on and work on beyond the page;
read in the spirit of the enterprise. Thus, to repeat
what I and others have pointed out: Mucor is now old
enough to look after herself; just in case, Babbie
remains on Blue to keep many eyes on her; Jahlee is a
predator and jealously in love with Horn to boot, and
is fully capable of a crime of passion on Lizard
Island, just as is Horn himself, a mere human when all
is said and done; Oreb accompanies Silk to the Whorl
again, as you would expect; Nettle ditto, because the
only remnant of her husband is in Silk, Old Viron is
her old home anyway, and her children are all grown up
on Blue and Green; Seawrack ditto, because she and
Silk form an archetypal couple once Hyacinth is out of
the way, and Horn (again) is still in Silk; and Blue
and Green are left to their own devices because that
is how God governs the Earth and its humans, giving
them free will.

--Nick Gevers.

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