From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kmaroney@ungames.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) textual support for Silk suicide hypothesis
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 19:42:38 

At 05:52 PM 3/27/01 -0500, Dan P wrote:
>On page 66 of RTTW we get this after a trip to Green and some dream
>analysis: 

>	"Perhaps her husband goes the gods, as Legerman Leeuw
>suggested, perhaps only out into darkness.  For the moment, it doesn't
>matter.  My point is that he leaves the home she made for him, never
>to return."

I still tend to interpret this as a profound grief to the verge of death
rather than actual suicide. But....

>	I told him, "If you mean you wish to diea when I do, Oreb, I
>sincerely hope you don't.  In Gaon they tell of dying men who kill
>some favorite animal, usually a horse or a dog, so it will accompany
>them in death; and under the Long Sun their rulers went so far as to
>have their favorite wives burned alive on their funeral pyres.  When I
>die, I sincerely hope no friend or relative of mine will succumb to
>any such cruel foolishness."

... this is stronger. I'm not sure why this isn't proof, but it still seems
unconvincing. Maybe I'm just in denial.

>I wouldn't rule out that Silk may not have been thinking
>clearly and simply thought "slash my wrists" without thinking about
>the proper technique (this is apparently quite common in failed
>suicide attempts).  I think Silk the Augur was more accustomed to
>cutting the jugular vein.

Yes, but Silk is a Wolfe hero who knows everything. :-) Also, wouldn't he
have slashed his own throat?

-- 
Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney@ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://www.nyrsf.com

*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