Urth Net
The Revelation: John Clute to the Whorl list
Earlier today I asked John Clute to clarify or
substantiate his speculation as to Horn being an
inhumu; this is his reply:
3 quoted lines
--- John Clute wrote:
Dear Nick,
Thanks for message.
1) My guess that Horn/Silk might be an inhumu, as
well as
36 quoted lines
sharing other conditions of being as his Corridor
branches, is the kind of
tentative shot you lay into the dark in the midnight
middle of a Wolfe
novel.
2) I kept getting haunting echoes of _The
Fifth Head of Cerberus_
, and before I reread the entire _Book of the Short
Sun_ as part of the
process of reviewing the final volume, I'm going to
try to reread
Cerberus too. Specific haunt: at what point does
Horn/Silk begin to find
it difficult to eat human food? It would be a moment
like (but almost
certainly not identical to) the moment in Cerberus
when the shapechanger
native takes over the human's diary and records his
difficulty with
handwrting.
3) When Horn/Silk warns somebody (Hide?
don't remember at the
moment) about inhumi, he specifies identifying
signs, such as a
disinclination to eat normal food, a moment which
has all the ring of a
Wolfeian revelation.
4) Obvious things like his calling Krait and
Jahlee his son and
daughter. Obvious counterindications: hair on head.
5) My reading of the Short Sun is very
superficial, so far; what
do you guys think is going on?
Best,
John Clute