From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) "hus" <> "inhumu"
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 97 21:31:00 GMT


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

Reply:  Item #4687542 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Was there a comment before about some spot in the text that says
inhumi are only as intelligent as dogs?  I think I remember reading
some message like that and wondering where in the whorl that might
have come from.  Just now I think I've found it.

"No doubt many will object to my writing _character_ in such a
context, urging that a monster of that kind [inhumu] can no more have
character than a hus [animal native to Blue]; but those who trap hus
and tame them have told me they differ at least as much as dogs
[differ from each other, i.e., have character]" EXODUS p. 374.

If this is the passage in question, then it is really about character
(human/inhumi/hus/dogs) rather than intelligence.

Tercel,

There are some indications that Trivigaunte has fought a couple of
different wars in the last few years.  Presumably they won.  But
against whom?  Their tricolor flag _might_ reflect the addition of two
other cities (the red triangle seems the core symbol, used on the
side of the airship) but these hypothetical client states are never
mentioned. The other city states must be further away from Trivigaunte
than Viron--but maybe not (just because Trivigaunte is the closest from
Viron doesn't mean the opposite is true).

Re: Flambeaux in "early" stories.  Whoops, right--I should have said,
"early in the collection that I read, which was probably not the
first by internal chronology; and I emphasise `early' because, if I
remember right, Flambeaux is killed off after a few stories and thus
never seen again in the later stories."

=mantis=