From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) 2 U by the letter M
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 97 15:44:00 GMT


[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #3960884 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Xury,

Not to be mean or too flip, but we don't know the real name of a lot
of characters and gods (sure, Pas is Typhon, but is Tartaros Erebus
[<g> at alga for firming up this one, too, with Tartaros Rex!],
and who is Echidna?).  Maytera Marble might be the major symbol of
why we don't.  If you can figure out how Mint gets melded into the
identity Marble/Rose (as happens toward the end of EXODUS), then maybe
you are on the path.

The situation is very convoluted.  For one example, the issue of Marble's
lies is complicated by the fact that the one lie we know most about
doesn't seem like much of a lie.  That is: she "lied" that she had
posed for the goddess in the painting that hangs on the wall.  Then it
turns out that the artist's mother posed, and the chem maid (future
Marble, in whole or in part) stood in for her.  So she =did= pose for
the goddess, though not for the face of the goddess.  This is a
=lie=?  Yumpin Yimini!

As a result, I question the degree of mendacity in the "Marble is
Moly" train.  It would be easy as an either/or, black/white,
dead/alive.  If Marble's original name is Moly, then it is true.  If
Marble's original name is not Moly, then it is false.  But if one of
Marble's fingers or eyes is from Moly, then what?  False, I guess.
And yet.

Hey, anybody--how come Rose's door was smashed open/down at around
the time of her death?  And nobody fixed it?  Talk about surreal . . .

=mantis=

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