From: Peter Cash <cash@rsn.hp.com>
Subject: (urth) Cim glowing
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 10:13:00 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

> From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>

> >  Here's the Cim name quote (p 199 of the 1980 Timescape
> >  pb edition of IODDAOSAOS):
> >
> >      When I was born my father wished to name me
> >      Seven Snows, which is a common name for girls
> >      amoung our people.  But I was born while he
> >      was away in his boat; and before he returned,
> >      my mother had left her bed and seen the Cim
> >      blowing from tree to tree like a soft star in
> >      the air, and completed the naming.
> 
>         I have nothing to go on except the passage itself, but I figured that cim
> is snow. Notice that the naming is "completed," which implies (possibly)
> that the mother did not completely change the father's desires.

I hate to be always the contrarian (lie: I love it)...but I think "Cim"
is an electrical phenomenon, like St. Elmo's Fire or ball lightning.
Either could fit the description of a "soft star" moving from tree to
tree. In addition there is Cim's weapon: perhaps the totemic naming
conveys an analogous power on the named one, and thus Cim's weapon is
electrical.

Sgt. Rock