From: Alex David Groce <Alex_Groce@gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) more grist for the "enhanced Horn hypothesis"
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 12:10:32 

>Given the Wolfean "unreliable narrator," it makes you start to wonder
>if the Silk of the BOOK OF SILK is something of an exaggeration, which
>would certainly fit in with the Christ parallels.  Silk is portrayed
>as a kind of Father Brown, but perhaps in "real life" he was more of a
>Father Ted.

I'm a bit confused here--fits in with the Christ parallels in that Silk
couldn't possibly be that Christ-like, or fits in that the _gospels_ are
exaggerations?  I would think the first would be a more likely approach for
Wolfe than the second, but even then, there's Silk's Englightenment (which 
works two ways--(A) it might make Silk better than he would be and (B) maybe
he got Enlightened because he had a tendency to be a Very Good person anyway).
Also going against the exaggeration theory is that other people who knew
Silk very well (Marble, Mucor, etc.) seem to have seen him as an
extraordinarily good man.

I think a telling note in LONG SUN is that Horn is generally noticed much more
than Nettle--is Nettle even listed as "Author of the BOOK OF SILK" in the 
Persons, Places & Things section in Exodus?  It seems her role is secondary in
the actual composition--scribe and organizer (given OBW, there is no telling
what order Horn might have put things in...)

Horn does mimic Silk beautifully long before any possibility of possession or 
anything, so as usual in LONG SUN, any possession is well in keeping with his
original tendencies.


"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+@cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

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