(urth) Like a good Neighbor

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff
On 11/21/2011 2:53 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > Horn fell in and was badly concussed. [As with Auk before him, this was 
> > the prelude to a mystical evolution, but that’s not germane to the 
> > episode, it’s just a trope that Wolfe recycles.] The Neighbours did 
> > their best to help him but they live in another dimension and can’t move 
> > anything physical or bring him water.

> I'm not sure how you know this but I agree. Typical Faerie behavior.

I know it because we are told it in the text.  I haven't reached IGJ in my 
re-read yet, but I remember the sewer.


> > What they did was touch his forehead with a mental amplifier that 
> > temporarily gave him the ability to astrally travel and get help. 
> > Unfortunately he went to Nettle who could not help him and indeed became 
> > frightened, thinking I suppose that he was a ghost or inhumu.

> Possibly. I said much the same thing (you called it "inane sarcasm") and 
> suggested that it was a test of sorts, whether of Horn or of his 
> "recovery."

I don't think that was one of the comments I was thinking of as sarcasm.  Of 
course a "test-drive" might seem a bit ludicrous in some ways but that's 
what you get with resurrection theories.  My theory is simpler - they do 
what they can to help, but Horn isn't able to take advantage by going to 
Seawrack as he should have.  (Or she might have already left the boat, in 
which case maybe he couldn't have gone to her anyway.)

> > The only other human or quasi-human entity on the island at that time 
> > was Seawrack (Krait may have been hanging around already, but even if 
> > the Neighbours knew that, they wouldn’t have expected him to help).

[Note: I know now he was already hanging around; I hadn't spotted the 
timeline clues then.]

> Why do you think the Neighbors do not know the inhumi?

They know the inhumi very well.  They don't think asking one to save the 
life of an injured human will do anything more than give the inhumu a good 
laugh.


> > It is possible that they didn’t recognise Seawrack as human. It’s also 
> > possible that they tried to communicate with her but she fled. We know 
> > she is terrified of Neighbour constructions at least – it’s probable 
> > that she is even more terrified of Neighbours.

> Why would either Krait or Seawrack have anything to do with it? Why 
> wouldn't she have told Horn if they appeared to her?

She's the obvious person to ask for help for Horn, but they may not have 
recognised her as such.  But if they did, and she fled from them, thereby 
condemning Horn to death if Krait had not intervened, it wouldn't be an easy 
thing to admit.


> > What is their motivation in helping Horn if they are not willing to 
> > appear to his friends like Lassie barking that Tommy is down the well? 
> > Are they moral people at all, even to the extent of helping themselves?

I've proposed that they probably did try that, and if they didn't it's 
pecause they didn't recognise the possibility.  Your question would be 
better addressed to James, whose theory has considerable issues of exactly 
this kind.  Their actions according to his theory seem remarkably whimsical, 
and I think Horn would have resented them if asked.


> > It was this abandonment of Horn due to her fear that she is 
> > rationalising. Of course the simple scenario that she is ignorant of 
> > human life and ordinary death – everyone she has met has quickly died 
> > and stayed dead – is also perfectly possible.

> Easily disproved, but to you, possible.

Disproved?  How?  I am only on the next chamber, but I understand Seawrack 
(if she started human) was taken as a small child and used to lure seamen to 
their death.


> > It was his experience with the mental amplifier that initiated Horn’s 
> > subsequent development of extraordinary psychic powers. We already see 
> > that he has changed when he is going with Krait to find Seawrack – he 
> > sees the world with “a sharpness of detail born of a consciousness of 
> > detail”. He’s changed – but nothing about the change is the sort of 
> > thing we might particularly expect to associate with a Neighbour 
> > psyche – affinity with trees, consciousness of other dimensions, feeling 
> > he’s missing limbs, whatever.

> And your evidence for this expectation of "whatever" is where? Give page 
> numbers.

You've been going on about Faerie.  Everyone agrees they like trees (Mark 
thinks they ARE trees).  The Neighbours seem to live in an adjacent 
dimension.  They have eight limbs.  Is your question serious?

> > Where did he get his trailblazing ability from---is that not to be 
> > expected from association with "a Neighbour psyche"? What do you think 
> > that "sharpness" is?

I think it awakened certain powers innate in humans.  He got his initial 
jaunt as a consequence of some device pressed to his forehead.


> > He doesn’t develop superpowers just like that, it requires other events 
> > and experiences – his experiences on Green, his death, his experiments 
> > on inhumi which he is *contemplating carrying out in the future* during 
> > his time as Rajan of Gaon.
> > Anyway, that’s my working theory for the moment. I think it fits the 
> > facts and involves the swallowing of fewer camels than scenarios in 
> > which Horn died in the pit.

> Thanks, but you failed to outline in detail how the timing of events in 
> the pit helps your case, just as you have failed to detail why it hurts 
> ours.

I said my theory doesn't depend too much on the timing.  I think the timing 
(late long-nose) causes obvious problems for James's theory of an impetuous 
young Neighbour who kills Horn by accident, then decides to leap into his 
body and continue his mission.  Perhaps James will modify his theory to be 
more consistent with the timing.


> It seems to me that what you do is find the easiest path to the lowest 
> place and amaze yourself at how easy it is to defend it. You are Wolfe's 
> ideal foolish reader---you fall for every single one of his plausible 
> surface explanations, which are ALWAYS provided. It's as though he makes a 
> place where one can stand and see nothing going on in all directions; you 
> seek that place and on finding it feel you have done real work getting 
> there.

The explanation I provided is no more a surface explanation than James's. 
Little of it is stated explicitly by Wolfe.  The question is, which 
explanation works?

I've noticed that some posters don't even see explanations that are clearly 
given.  They dream up absurd farragoes based on a word here and a syllable 
there.  When challenged they take refuge in a standard mantra:   "Oh, Wolfe 
is such an incredibly subtle and ambiguous writer, nobody can understand 
him.  Let me ignore his text some more and slather out yet another great 
dollop of unsupported nonsense."

- Gerry Quinn