(urth) Like a good Neighbor

[James Wynn]

    On 11/20/2011 7:17 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
     > [Seawrack] nows nothing about human life except that humans
     >die easily and are eaten.  She saw it happen her human, and she
     >turned away without investigating.  She didn't go down in the pit.
     >How *could* she have known he was dead?


Well, if say his head were turned at a wrong angle.
Yeah, she's no doctor. And yet she doesn't seem to doubt her assessment 
even when Horn comes marching back alive.

     > Get real.  She didn't get within twenty feet of him.
     >Silk thought Oreb was dead when he had him right in his hands,
     >and he's a professional animal sacrificer.  Do you think Oreb was
    dead then?
     >Smart bird!  Play dead.  No cut!


I believe Oreb was possessed. Whether he was clinically dead for a short 
time is beyond our ability to discern from the text. I believe he was 
close enough to dead that even an experienced augur could not tell the 
difference. Pas (or whatever other god was possessing him) did not want 
to be sacrificed. You're right that it doesn't make sense that he was 
faking or fainted.
Are you saying that a god or Neighbor was possessing Horn so he could 
escape from, uh, Seawrack?

    On 11/20/2011 7:29 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
     >  When the long-nose man bent over him, he was already suffering
    thirst,
     >so if he died then it happened *after* this time, in which case
    Babbie saw him alive.
     > How do you make sense of that?  The long-nose man bends over a
    Neighbour?  Who and why?
     > When does Horn die?


Full text for analysis:

    ***************************
     From OBW, end of Chapter 8, "The End"

    I threw my slug gun to my shoulder and was able to get off one quick
    shot. The greenbuck broke stride and stumbled to its knees, but in
    less than a breath it had bounded up again, cutting right and
    running hard. It vanished into brush, and I sprinted after it, all
    my fatigue forgotten, guided by Babbie's agitated hunck-hunck-bunck!
    Very suddenly I was falling into darkness.


Ambiguity is inextricable from Wolfe's stories, but I am going to posit 
that he dies right here.


    Here and thus baldly I had intended to end both tonight's labor and
    this whole section of my narrative. I wiped this new quill of Oreb's
    and put it away, shut up the scuffed little pen case I found where
    my father must have left it in the ashes of our old shop, and locked
    the drawer that holds this record, a thick sheaf of paper already.


The following three sentences is why I think Horn died at this point. I 
think the rest of the story is essentially told from the POV of a new 
character, whom we have previously met only as a greenbuck. In this, 
Wolfe has perfect the first-person ambiguity  that he had been 
experimenting with at least since the Fifth Head of Cerberus. But 
whatever one believes, there has clear been a traumatic break in the story.


    *But it cannot be. It cannot be a mere incident like Wijzer's
    drawing his map and the rest.*
    *Either that fall must be the end of the entire work (which might be
    wisest) or else it cannot close at all.*
    So let me say this to whoever may read. With that fall, the best
    part of my life was over. The pit was its grave.
    It must be very late, but I cannot sleep. Somewhere very far away,
    Seawrack is singing to her waves.
    *********************************

    ***************************
     From OBW, from the beginning of Chapter 9, "Krait"

I posit that the rest of the memories are during the time Horn's body 
was being repaired by the Neighbor. Thus they are memories from Horn's 
perspective. But he is not truly revived yet.


    When I regained consciousness it must have been almost shadelow. I
    lay on my back for a long while then, occasionally opening my eyes
    and shutting them again, seeing without thinking at all about
    anything I saw. The sky darkened, and the stars came out. I remember
    seeing Green directly above my up-turned face, and later seeing it
    no longer, but only the innocent stars that had fled before it and
    returned when it had gone.

    It was at about that time that I felt the cold. I knew I was cold
    and wished that I were not. I may have moved, rubbing myself with my
    hands or hugging myself and shivering; I cannot be sure. Glittering
    eyes and sharp faces came and went, but I appealed for no help and
    received none.

    Sunlight warmed me. I kept my eyes closed, knowing that it would be
    painful to look at the sun. It vanished, and I opened them to see
    what had become of it, and saw Babbie's familiar, hairy mask peering
    at me over the edge of the pit. I closed them again, and the next
    time I opened them he had gone.
    I think it was not long afterward that I came to myself. I sat up,
    cold, full of pain, and terribly thirsty.

    [...]

    This is what I least wished to write about last night, but I am
    going to try to write it down this evening. Once, as I lay there at
    the bottom of the pit, it seemed to me that a man with a long nose
    (a tall man or an immense spider) stood over me. I did not move or
    even open my eyes, knowing that if I did he would be gone. He
    touched my forehead with something he held, and the pit vanished.


This fellow with the prominent nose is our narrator. When this scene 
occurs is not stated. Perhaps it occurred in the seconds before Horn 
died. It might have occurred after Horn was repaired but just as the 
Neighbor took the final act to reanimate him. For the sake of argument, 
I'll say the former.

    ****************************************

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