Digest whorl.v001.n024Whorl

A bit of a red herring, I suspect. My Greek friends tell me that Triskele is a common name for a dog in Greek. (Sort of like "Fido" in English, which actually comes from "faithful".) I am a bit surprised at the number of people who see Silk as a Christ-figure. It was "obvious" to me that he is more similar to Moses or perhaps Abraham. He is called by the Outsider to lead the people to a promised land, a promised land which he never sees. But Wolfe is not writing a heavy-handed allegory; there is no one-to-one correspondence. I think Wolfe succeeds in The Long Sun books and Old Sun because even when one does not get all the allusions and subtleties, the story remains interesting. Sometimes I think he goes over the edge into puzzle-making; for my tastes it is possible to overdue these things (This was my experience with The Fifth Head of Cerberus, which I still don't understand). Wolfe's brand of theological sf is interesting in that all events can be interpreted in a strictly atheistic sense (such as Crane's explanation of Silk's revelation). It is up to the reader to decide if there is any truth to the religious claims. James Blish writes the same way in some of his works (i.e. A Case of Conscience). Kieran Mullen Kieran Mullen email: kieran at phyast.nhn.ou.edu Dept. of Physics and Astronomy phone: (405) 325-3961 The University of Oklahoma FAX: (405) 325-7557 Norman, OK 73019, USA http://www.nhn.uoknor.edu/~kieran/ Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com