From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Mother Godspeak
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:07:36 

on 3/14/01 1:53 PM, Robert Borski at rborski@charter.net wrote:

> <What the Greater Scylla taught Horn was how to summon the Mother, as Alex
> David Groce says.>
> 
> Call me an ignoramus* by default, but I still do not understand how the
> Greater Scylla of Urth knows how to summon the Mother of Blue  _in any
> language._
> 
> We're all of us a little chagrined, I believe, by the use of coinicidences
> in Wolfe's fiction--e.g., Horn randomly picking to disinter Jahlee, who just
> happens to be the mother of Krait. Such coincidences seem unnatural and
> forced when confined to a small enough (relative scale) venue like an entire
> planet. But to have the Whorl travel over 300 years, put into orbit around
> twin planets, land colonists, and then learn that one of the indigenous
> goddesses of Blue can be summoned by a sea monster from the Whorl's original
> point of destination seems more than a little incredible to me.

It may not be a coincidence.  We know that Cilinia had pledged herself to
the Greater Scylla, who undoubtedly knew of her sister's presence on Blue.
Cilinia could have somehow convinced or tricked Typhon into choosing
Blue/Green as the Whorl's destination.

In any case, this has nothing to do with my original point that Typhon
doesn't need to have been a Neighbor for Horn to be able to translate
Seawrack's song.

> Now if Horn had employed his ring to summon up a few of his Neighbor
> friends, and they told him how to summon the Mother, that I would buy; but
> to have Horn make the astral journey back to Urth, however many
> light-or-dream years away it is, and then be told by Greater Scylla how to
> summon up sister-of-convenience-the-Mother seems more far fetched than I'm
> ever going to be willing to accept. But I guess that's just me, apparently.

What, then, is your interpretation of Horn's statement "I asked the Greater
Scylla on the Red Sun Whorl how I could find Seawrack again.  She taught me
how to communicate with her sister here"?  It can't be that Scylla taught
Horn to speak the Neighbors' language, as your earlier post seemed to imply,
because:

1) Horn doesn't need to speak the Neighbors' language to communicate with
the Mother;

2) According to your reading Horn already knew the Neighbors' language (and
in any case the translation scene was prior to the meeting with Greater
Scylla).

--Adam


*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