(urth) Silk's origin

[Marc Aramini]

--- On Sun, 10/23/11, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:


From: Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Silk's origin
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Sunday, October 23, 2011, 3:39 AM





 


 

From: Marc Aramini 





--- On Fri, 10/21/11, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:





What exactly are the things we need to explain?
>  The bumps in the night with the staff, the trees that eat trees, why the 
> vanished people react hostilely to people cutting down wood, how the 
> narrator can astral travel with no ihumi present but with his staff, why 
> he aways feels watched around the forest or when Babbie is pushing a 
> log, why Babbie gets defensive around horn's sons when they are 
> threatened and says huh huh huh, why the narrator seems to show up in 
> an ancient story (not just the surface explanation), why the staff has a 
> face, why the islands are made up of giant herbs and this scares the
>  narrator, why the tone changes between OBW and IGJ, why the vanished 
> person is shown on  a tree at the end of RTTW when the man looks 
> through the ring.  the tree in Long Sun quetzal calls a parent tree that
>  is his shelter and comfort.  the myth of man climbing up the tree but
> not coming down yet in Long Sun.
 
Can’t we just say the Neighbours (and the Inhumi for that matter) *like* trees, without them having to actually *be* trees?  They both come from heavily forested planets, after all.  Lianas can certainly be a metaphor for inhumi.  I don’t think they are inhumi.  Jugano tells us that baby inhumi swim in the water. 
 
If Wolfe wanted them to be trees, wouldn’t he have had some farmer on Blue talk about how the animals there seem to turn into plants, or whatever?  Why would he hide such a key fact of Blue (and Green) biology?
 
As for Short Sun, I’ll need another read before I am very confident of my interpretations, and I suspect it is the most difficult part of the Solar Cycle to interpret anyway.  That mysterious psi abilities on the part of the Neighbours, the Inhumi and others play a role, I am certain.  But identifying the plants with the animals seems to me a leap too far.
 
 
> But none of that stuff is important to the text in a straight, non explicated 
> reading, Gerry, so, once again, let's agree to disagree.  I just know that
> when I write my unpublished dereliction of art stories, sometimes things
> are implied like that and they are not explicitly stated, and let's be honest
> if it is a misprision it was directly inspired by my interpretation of Wolfe's
> style.  Wolfe implies a lot.  he even says the vegetable matter was a waste, 
> that Pas would have a better plan for it.
 
You see, for me that’s just the way that somebody brought up in the Whorl would naturally think.  Just as Silk’s dreams, though they reveal certain things, are also the dreams Silk might dream.
 
I don’t think you allow enough for character and metaphor in Wolfe; it seems to me that you sometimes interpret things which are intended to be part of that sphere as statements of fact about the world (which even can supersede things that are more overtly statements of fact). 
 
- Gerry Quinn
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Gerry, the opening chapter is all about how corne hybrids create species suited to a new environment.  That staff is INEXPLICABLE as anything but a proto-inhumi if you believe in the RULES of astral travel and when it occurs in the text.
 
Gene implies things.  Is Pig identified as a godling?  He's big.  Is he?  Gene says yes.  Why?  Because he has claws.  That's Gene's reasoning.  straight up.  "OF COURSE Pig is a godling, he has claws on page XX."  
Keep in mind THE TREES EAT TREES EAT TREES on Green, and the lianas are the only problem on Green the trees haven't solved.  That's almost a direct quote. Is that not a mixing of animal and plant life or am I just crazy?
 
Gene elides.  After sending him a card with a Christmas tree with eyes and teeth drawn in it and a little staff with a face many many years ago, here was his response.  At the very least we shouldn't ignore that those TREES ARE HERBIVOROUS!!!!! and that the pit island might be composed of giant herbs, and if they can cause astral travel, well, a lot of mysterious transportation is explained.  
 
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc282/maramini/IMG_0464.jpg
 
You simply always prefer the straight surface reading and believe that Wolfe spells everything out.  He doesn't.  Nor does Nabokov, as his name came up.  Those guys love being clever.  That's what it is: great cryptic artists at times tend to put that crafty crypticism to work.  Gene deals in mysteries, but as a spiritual person perhaps is inclined to think that under the impossibilities the mysteries have concrete realities, perhaps MORE CONCRETE than the surface reality.  I would wager it IS important to Wolfe that Weer is dead instead of dying.  I don't think that's important to you.
 
 
 
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