From: Alex David Groce <Alex_Groce@gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v011.n002
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 08:46:42 

William said:

>alga,

>I think you are missing the point here. The writer of both OBW and 
>IGJ is the same version of Horn, the one that has come back from _The 
>Whorl_ looking a lot like Silk, however he got that way. But his 
>narrative voice differs considerably, at least to me and Adam and 
>Ian, from the first book to the second. So whatever happened to cause 
>that change (if the change is real) had to happen between (or close 
>to) the end of OBW and the beginning of IGJ.

I agree with this strongly.  In my opinion the change stems at least
partly from something (fairly) simple: Horn is no longer ruling a city
"as Silk."  Horn is freed to become something more like a holy man
precisely because he is no longer in the false position of officially
_being_ Silk.  Horn's reluctance to identify himself with a man he
sees as, unlike himself, good is key to his actually becoming a very
good man himself.  Another couple of things: (1) he's come very close
to death by the inhumi--Wolfe's characters always grow quite a bit
when they willingly face death and (2) I think he's much more at peace
now that he's without his concubines and is being faithful to Nettle
(and Seawrack!)


--
"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

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request@lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth@lists.best.com