From: "Dan'l Danehy Oakes" <DDANEHYO@us.oracle.com>
Subject: (whorl) Whorl Name and a theory...
Date: 15 May 98 09:16:17 

Rostrum Rote:

> There are lots of passages where people use the same syntax
> as if they were going to say "world" but say "whorl" instead. 
> Stuff like, "She's the most beautiful woman in the whole
> Whorl!" or "Unlike Pas and Scylla and the other gods, the
> Outsider exists outside the Whorl."

-- in fact, in the language of the Long Sun, the word "whorl"
has replaced the word "world" entirely; they talk about Urth
as the "Short Sun Whorl", ask questions like, "What in the
Whorl are you talking about?", etc.

I think there's something more going on here than meets the
eye (With Wolfe?  Heaven forfend!), but I'm not quite clear
on _what_ it is.

A thought does occur, of a sudden, though ... the Outsider
(= God, the one-and-only God of Abraham and Moses, of Jesus
and Peter) made the World; the gods (= Typhon et famille) 
made the Whorl.  The Whorl is not the World but isolated 
from it, a place where Typhon et alia can _be_ gods (because 
God is specifically _excluded_).  

But they couldn't _quite_ pull it off.  This (if this theory
proves out -- I think it warrants a good look) is where one 
of the most interesting pieces of narrational twisting in all
of Wolfe takes place.  We are told (by whom?  Can't recall!)
that Typhon and company were unable to completely erase memory
of _them_ from the starcrossers' brains.  But they wouldn't
want to do that; it's totally against Typhon's utterly self-
aggrandizing style.

Rather, I suggest, they tried to erase memory of God from
the starcrossers -- and were unsuccessful (as they were also
unsuccessful in keeping Him out), so that He made it into the 
prophetic "chrasmologic" writings (as He also made it into 
the Whorl by enlightening the sacrificial vessel Silk).

Just a thought,

--Roach

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/