From: maa32 <maa32@dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: liana staff
Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 18:22:59 -0700

Since it seems like there is very little going on in the discussio lately, 
I'll continue posting my crazed observations.

What have we made of the narrator's staff in The Book of the Short Sun?  I 
know mention was made of Cugino's cutting stroke as conceivably multi-limbed 
in nature.  Here are a few other interesting things:
In On Blue's Waters, the narrator reveals that the most horrible things on 
green where the huge trees that ate each other, and even more horrible were 
the strangling liana vines, the "female" aspect of the cannibalistic foliage.  
Cugino cuts the staff from a vine resembling the lianas.  Are there lianas on 
Blue?  It would seem that there are, for the following reasons:
In On Blue's Waters, the narrator reveals that the scary island he tarried 
upon before reaching Pajarocu was actually made up of huge, huge trees.  When 
the storm hit, he could see that they bloomed from the ocean and separated.  
The pit he fell into was covered by vines.  These vines might have been the 
lianas that were so awful to him on Green.

Now, if these liana vines are wicked, and Cugino made his staff from one, how 
are the neighbors related to lianas?  Remember that fellow in the town of 
Blanko who went into the forest to cut wood, and said that the neigbors were 
looking at him in so unfriendly a fashion that he had to turn around?  Had he 
threatened the vines?  What powers does the staff really have, with its little 
face?  Why does the narrator always ask for it, but seems to never possess it, 
when he partakes in that astral travel.  Remember, too, that the neighbors 
first take notice of Horn after he falls into the pit on Blue when he disturbs 
the vines that hide the pit.  (of course, he has also looked through the blue 
glass - but which is the true trigger of their attention?)
Marc