time travel in Short Sun (and Chenille on Blue)

maa32 · 02 Jan 2002, 02:20 · from whorl-v0013.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: time travel in Short Sun (and Chenille on Blue)
Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 19:20:38 -0700
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All right, this will be my last post for tonight.  (I guess I have nothing=20
else to do - I keep thinking of new stuff - hopefully someone will find=20
SOMETHING worth discussing).
Near the end of the first person narrated sections of Return to the Whorl, =
the=20
narrator says there is "no returning to the past save in dreams." =20
The description of Astral Travel that the narrator offers when he first=20
discovers its repeatability identifies it as "a dream in [his] sleeping min=
d".
 Is there any indication that time travel occurs during those "astral trave=
l"=20
experiences?  At first, I was sure that Blue and Green were Ushas and Lune=20
(albeit a Lune that had been somehow cast from its orbit into a heliocentri=
c=20
orbit and in which the green terraforming had gotten out of control, but it=
 is=20
still close enough to effect the tides of Blue), but I find that stance=20
untenable in light of the accurate pasage of time between the Nessus that=20
Rigoglio remembers and the actual progress of the city. (does anybody else=20
remember the part in Nightside the Long Sun where Marble's internal clock i=
s=20
off by a factor of ten?  That would make the time elapsed in the whorl 3,00=
0=20
years rather than 300 or so, but that is an untenable supposition as well, =
due=20
to all sorts of other evidence that the time in the whorl was only a couple=20
hundred years.)  All the cities of the neighbors that exist under the water=20
(according to Seawrack)would at least seem to indicate that a similar flood=20
has occurred on Blue as the one that heralded the birth of Ushas.  Also, wh=
y=20
does Jahlee make a big point about Merryn having problems with animals, too=
? =20
Are we to buy that the Cummean and Merryn are inhumi, and that they have=20
always been with mankind (or, if time travel is possible, always will be?)

Ok.  I kind of like the idea that the astral travel can be time travel, and=20
could explain the presence of Silk in Inclito's mother's story. =20
But on the other hand, what about the narrator's ability to influence Fava'=
s=20
story?  He claims he can change her story and enter it.  Can he exert the s=
ame=20
influence on the accounts written by his family after he is gone (the even=20
chapters of Return to the Whorl), to change things and make it more or less=20
reliable according to his whims - steering Hide away from an event which he=20
does not want revealed?

One more random thought.  At the end of Chapter 7 in Return to the Whorl, t=
he=20
narrator keeps seeing Auk in his chair and he confuses Jahlee for Chenille=20
because she fed on a "big woman" who was drunk or on rust outside the bar. =20
Could the astral travel that the narrator undertook towards the very end of=
 In=20
Green's Jungles, in which he visited his body with his son Sinew and gave h=
im=20
the white ring, have included a freeing of Auk and Chenille, and their trav=
el=20
to Blue in Horn's Lander?  Could Jahlee have fed on Chenille as she wandere=
d=20
around Blue, seeking drink to cope with the probable death of her adopted=20
children at the hands of the inhumu?  Perhaps the narrator didn't simply le=
ave=20
Auk and Chenille at the mercy of the Triviguantis on Green.

OK, enough for now.  I hope someone will have something to say about some o=
f=20
this stuff.
Marc Aramini

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