Digest whorl.v010.n101Whorl

No doubt half a hundred people will write to you that the definition of echidna: echidna \E*chid"na\, n. [L., a viper, adder, Gr. ?.] 1. (Gr. Myth.) A monster, half maid and half serpent. (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary) Is probably the one you want. Unless of course Wolfe meant: Echidna: Constraint logic programming embedded in an object-oriented language. The syntax is an extension of Edinburgh Prolog. ["Hierarchical Arc Consistency Applied to Numeric Processing in Constraint Logic Programming", G. Sidebottom et al, TR-91-06, CSS-IS, Simon Fraser U, and Comp Intell 8(4) (1992)]. since she is a computer construct... Nah... ;-). *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Ratty remarked:

Not so closely as all that. Twenty-two years, IIRC, intervene. We have to assume, from the logic of fiction, that Silk has been alive and active, either on the Whorl or on Green (or on Blue, possibly) during that entire time. My vote puts him on the Whorl.

I think we probably will find out. But, as I said earlier, I think Pas is mostly dead. Nor is there much evidence that he was good. Kypris liked him, but he was her ticket to the movies, wasn't he? None of the others seemed to like him, and I doubt that you and I would have, either.

Well, hell, you can apply it to Brad Pitt too. Didja see how he appeared in "Fight Club?" And, btw, Tim, long before a little hedgehog was named an echidna, the name was applied to a frightful monster, half woman, half serpent, who ate men raw and bore a brood of monsters to Typhon. The name means "she-viper." Check it out in any Greek mythology compendium, or go to the source, Hesiod. -alga *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

oh my goodness. big oops. all this time I had been thinking of Echidna as Echinoderm without realizing it.

(Replying to Adam) I wasn't suggesting that Silk is two-headed. Though this is a fascinating idea and quite in the spirit of previous Wolfe writing ("Did I forget to mention that the narrator is <unexpected adjective>? Oh, silly me!"). Typhon was grafted onto Piaton(?) to preserve his life. His excuse to Severian was (AFAIR, again) that his followers needed to see his face to keep their faith in him(*).

I am cut to the quick. But even I wouldn't dignify my suggestion as a "theory" - merely a speculation. And "easy, trite"? Curious. It would seem to me to be interesting indeed if Horn merged somehow with "Silk" and struggled with this - and the denial of it - for a book-and-a-half, before Silk himself turns up... ("With hilarious results", or perhaps not). (old) newt (sadly not even remotely young anymore) (*) Mind you, I'm not at all sure that I believe Typhon's explanation (assuming that I recall it correctly). Because: a) It's not entirely rational. The idea that his followers would cheer for him after a mysterious absence followed by his reappearance as a two-headed monster seems a triumph of optimism over common sense. b) It's not entirely rational. And Typhon probably knows this. Megalomaniacs are frequently (invariably?) extremely superstitious. But he may well not want to admit this to Severian. c) Typhon seems to me to be the kind of chap who will gratuitously lie just for kicks. I.e. the anti-Oreb. He is - after all - the Satan analog. *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.