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<blockquote cite="mid:SNT123-w46820E6488C4E8A0D2B072CF270@phx.gbl"
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<pre wrap="">Lee Berman-
I've been following the discussion with some interest. It really seems like
Horn died in the pit. Aside from the other evidence mentioned, the chapter is
called The End and Horn explicitly calls it his grave. Maybe I was conditioned
by Severian's eidolon resurrection but I can remember thinking even on first
reading that, "okay, this guy really just died". So something inexplicably brought
him back to life. I don't know the answer but I thought it must have something
to do with Krait since that's who Horn sees him as he regains consciousness. I
am interested in hearing more about James' theory regarding greenbuck and the
Neighbors. It would help explain that other mystery- why Horn is so instantly recognized and accepted by the Neighbors.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Once again, for Lee....<br>
<br>
Horn on the ruinous island sees a Neighbor in the form of a
greenbuck. He chases after it, falls in a pit, breaks his neck and
dies. The reason I say he breaks his neck (aside from being a likely
way to die instantaneously in that circumstance) is that Babbie and
Seawrack see him in that pit and know he is dead without having to
go down there. The Neighbor feels guilt at having caused Horn's
death (in a sense). This is the guilt that haunts our Narrator
throughout the story, and this guilt is the reason that he is
adamant on being Horn instead of Silk....if he declares himself Silk
or neither Horn nor Silk, it would mean that he had killed Horn and
that there was no way to truly repair it. At the end of the story,
he is reported to say: <br>
********************************* <br>
RTTW (HB) pg 411<br>
"We will sail tonight...Would you be willing to make my farewells
to Hoof and Hide?...I've been dreading it--in a sense, I have killed
their father, though the Outsider surely knows that I never meant
him the least harm. I don't want to have to face his sons..."<br>
******************************** <br>
The Neighbor's perspective on taking a life was detailed in the
conversation between the Rajan and Hide when they are talking about
Hide's dream of seeing Mora and (I believe) dark Fava. I suspect
there are hints about several things in that conversation, but the
part I quote below explains how the greenbuck Neighbor sees guilt
over causing the death of another being.<br>
*********************<br>
RTTW (HB) pg 24<br>
“I spoke of killing a man with this. I hadn’t intended to kill him,
but I was afraid he was going to kill us. I thought he might kill
you or Jahlee, and kept hitting him as hard as I could; when the
fighting had ended, I looked at him, and he was dead.” <br>
“It wasn’t your fault, Father.” <br>
“Of course it was, and his as well. It was—it is—my fault that I
killed him. It is his fault that I bear the guilt of killing him,
because he gave me good reason to fear him." <br>
*********************<br>
The Neighbor revives Horn by possessing and repairing the damage (or
seeming to at least). It takes three days to do that. <br>
<br>
_______________________<br>
There's a lot in this thematically. 1) Christ was dead three days in
the grave and was resurrected. <br>
2) Secondly, 'The Book of the Long Sun' is mapped over the life of
Aristaeus at related by Robert Graves. Aristaeus's son Aktaion saw
Artemis naked (Seawrack), and was changed into a deer, and torn
apart by his own hounds (Not Horn is killed by his own mutinous
men).<br>
3) Thirdly, "Neighbors" is a term for fairies as noted by a
character in An Evil Guest. One is likely to encounter a white stag
on the border of Fairieland (which is the land of the dead) at which
point --ala the Mabinogion-- find a Aelf King/changling has taken
your identity. Alternately, one enters Fairieland through a fairie
circle, in this case, Horn's circular grave.<br>
___________________________<br>
<br>
Now the "new Horn" is Horn's body and memory with the Neighbor *as
his soul*. The Neighbor, who we'll call HORN seeks to absolve his
guilt by completing Horn's mission. He-Pen-Sheep and She-Pick-Berry
seem to have a lot of discourse with the Neighbors call him
"Neighbor-man" OBW (HB) pg 261&262<br>
<br>
Later HORN meets with Neighbors who give him a ring and the deed to
Blue as a representative of his people. As he walks through the
woods, the trees get out of his way. They choose him because he is a
mixture of Neighbor and human. A Mediator--a orthodox and gnostic
Christian designation for Christ. One of the Neighbors shakes Horn's
hand and they "share blood". <br>
<br>
********************** <br>
oBW (HB) pg 272 <br>
"My name is Horn." I offered him my hand. He took it, and this time
I felt his hand and remembered hard, and seemed to be covered with
short, stiff hairs. Beyond that I will not say. "My name is Horn
also, " he told me. I felt that I was being paid an immense
compliment, and did not know how to reply. <br>
************** <br>
<br>
There's a obvious kind of mystery going on here. When he shares
blood with this Neighbor who afterward calls himself "Horn", the
Narrator has access to some of his former psyche or that of the
Neighbor. But it is clear that "Horn" has ceased to be merely that
boy who arrived from the Whorl. The Narrator says a few pages
earlier that he does not remember this event merely in fairly
accurate terms, but precisely as it occurred. This is because he
remembers it simultaneously from two separate points of view:
himself and the Neighbor with whom he clasped hands. This suggests
that the Neighbors might have a loosely communal consciousness or a
communal personality like the Shadow Children or the children who
were turned into a flock of geese in "Peace".
Or maybe the Neighbor is HORN's spiritual self. Later on Green, as
the Narrator lays dying he uses his ring to summon help to heal him
again. <br>
*******************<br>
IGJ (HB) pg127 <br>
"Through the ring a Neighbor saw him, and she came to him in his
agony. He told her what was in his heart; and when he had finished,
she said, "I cannot make you well again, and if I could you would
still be in this place. I can do this for you, however, if you
desire it. I can send your spirit into someone else, into someone
whose own spirit is dying. If you wish, I will find someone in the
whorl in which you were born. Then there will be one whole man
there, instead of two dying men, one here and another there." <br>
******************* <i><br>
</i><br>
From what she says, HORN's agony is not just in that he is dying but<i>
</i>in that he is going to fail his mission. The Neighbor's solution
solves both those problems: giving him a workable body and putting
him on the Whorl. She complicates matters in some ways by choosing
the object of Horn's mission. Silk has slashed his wrists and arms
in front of Hyacinth's casket. She sends HORN into Silk. Now he is
the Neighbor, what the Neighbor remembers of Horn's memories, and
Silk's body and memories. I call him the Rajan, because that is what
Wolfe calls him.<br>
<br>
**************************<br>
iGJ (HB) pg 122 <br>
"Was this you for real Incanto? Were you on Green? By Echidna's
babies, I think you were!" I shook my head and told him it had been
someone else, a man whose name I have forgotten, a man who wore a
ring with a white stone. My own name is Horn, no matter what Oreb
may say. *********************** <br>
<br>
You see, there is Horn and there is HORN and there is the
Rajan...the man who begins writing the Book of the Short Sun,
Incanto, Pike's Ghost. At the end of the story, he ultimately
realizes that he is neither most truly Horn nor Silk, but the soul
inside or, perhaps, something entirely different from all three.<br>
<br>
And if there were any other doubt, there is "Silk's" inhuman but
very Neighborly new abilities such as dream-traveling and "sharing
blood"<br>
********************<br>
iGJ (HB) pg 267<br>
" 'We're going to attack you within an hour, Incanto. You'll be--'
He fell silent, staring at me. 'Can you hear something I don't?'<br>
'Sing song,' Oreb suggested; and I did, following Seawrack's own
intonation and pronunciation to the best of my very limited ability.
[snip] <br>
'That is the language of the Neighbors, whom you call the Vanished
People,' I said when I could no longer sing for weeping.<br>
'I can--' Terzo began. Then again, 'I can almost hear it myself.' He
fell silent.<br>
_I put my hand upon his shoulder_ . 'Listen, and you will hear her.
Those who truly listen do.'<br>
He heard the music then, I know..<br>
*******************************<br>
<br>
u+16b9<br>
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