From: douge@nti.com (Doug Eigsti)
Subject: Re: (whorl) Pike/Quetzal, and other ?s
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 12:51:58 


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


Vance, 

	Welcome. I have a couple of thoughts on your questions:
	
> 
> Does Rose have a daughter? We know that she has a son, but what about 
> 1:69hc?
> "At times Maytera Rose, kneeling before her daughter's image,..."
> 

	This is part of the Rose/Marble/Moly mystery. I have come to the
conclusion that Rose and Marble (et.al.) never were the "same person" but
have a lot of shared memories. For this reason Rose/Marble often considers
herself to have lived through the experiences she remembers. We know that
when a god possesses a person they leave some of their personality behind
after they "leave", (II, p118 hc). We also know that marble remembers more
after getting new parts from Rose, (IV, p118.-7 hc). Rose and Marble must
have been possessed by the same god. Perhaps, for Marble, even on the
Short Sun Whorl by the entity that gave birth to Echidna.  Thus she, Rose,
is found kneeling before her daughter's image. 
	For more on this shared memory dilemma see Philip K. Dick's story 
"We can remember it for you wholesale" or Larry Niven's novel WORLD OF 
PTAVVS. The latter has a character that thinks he is an alien after 
sharing it's memories, with hilarious results.


> 
> And what's up with that scene with Urus and the Trivigaunti officer, 
> where they rendezvous for a clandestine meeting? And how would Horn have 
> known of it to write about it, and why?
> 
	Back to Horn's artistic license. Could this be another example of 
a scene he made up just to fill in the gaps in his story?

=Talon=