From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Last questions on Short Sun
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 07:18:11 -0400


From: "Stephen Case" 
>>The first struck me over and over as I was reading On Blue's Waters,
though perhaps it was partially answered in Return to the Whorl.  It is
this: why does Horn hate Sinew so much? <<

For those of us who get the Digest, this was an interesting one because Tony
Ellis was also speculatiing why Victor hated Roy Trenchard so much. And of
course #5 hates his father too, with good reason. This does seem to be a
recurrent theme in Wolfe's books, and a somewhat unusual one. Either you can
take it as sheer soap opera, something that Wolfe considers a suffiently
good plot device to use over and over, or you can wonder darkly about his
relations with his own father. I'm not confusing father/son here, it's two
sides of the coin. In IGJ, which Wolfe dedicated to his daughters, rather an
effort is made to emphasize father-daughter affection, but I couldn't help
thinking that it *was* a conscious effort, possibly to defray criticism,
though I was still touched by it.

>>Okay, last and most troubling question:  Why doesn't Silk/Horn eat?<<

This was my big question too on first reading the series. I don't think you
can conclude that Horn/Silk is an inhumu, though that is a (somewhat clumsy,
IMO) red herring tossed out. I think it is a little simpler. Horn was a big,
hearty man used to eating and drinking heartily. His lifelong instincts are
to do the same in his new slimmer body, but the body, used to more frugal
fare (as we know from several scenes in SS), rebels. Hence the constant
conflict. I'll inject a personal note here: as I get older I find that I
simply cannot eat as I did once, and I have noticed that really old people
often tend to pick--the body does make rules. (Of course, seeing pictures of
GW, I don't think he has that problem.)

-alga





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