From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@siriusfiction.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Exodus from the Long Sun
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 08:43:41 -0800
 <200201041349.g04Dn3I67324@lists1.ba.best.com>

Hello there Huw,

Welcome aboard!  We hope and trust that ranjit will have the list-move
completed at his earliest convenience, and we thank him for hosting this
whole thing for so many years.  Hooray!

Huw responding to Jason wrote:
>From: "Jason Voegele" <jason@jvoegele.com>
>> This is Wolfe's (intentional) ploy to clue us in that Horn is the narrator
>> of the book.  And yes, it has been discussed. ;)
>
>If so I'm not sure I understand the ploy too well - so much of the book is
>not in the presence of Horn and would be speculative.  When you say that it
>was Wolfe's intention to clue us, was that something that Wolfe has said or
>was it a conclusion arrived at in discussions here?  I would like to get at
>those archives and read up on this but I keep getting 'the page cannot be
>found' when I connect to  http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/   Am I going to the
>right site?  I've only recently joined the list so haven't quite found my
>way round yet!
>

We discussed it a lot because we (well, those who were discussing!) loved
it a lot, and retrospectively it (that one sentence) heralds much of the
sequel-series, THE BOOK OF THE SHORT SUN.

It seemed like everybody and his brother was telling Wolfe in letters or in
conversations how much they liked that one bit, and I don't recall him ever
saying it was a mistake.  All told, it certainly does not =seem= like a
mistake.

OTOH, Patrick O'Leary (one of the original posters on TBOTLS) some months
ago told me that he was reading another edition of THE BOOK OF THE LONG
SUN, I think it was the omnibus edition?  Anyway, he said that the much
beloved line had been changed from the first person "I" to the third
person.

Maybe Patrick was just joking?  I have not yet tracked the text down,
especially since the idea of such a change makes me sad.

>> I had a lot of trouble understanding Tick as well, but I think the above
>> translates to "Bad, bad bird!  Lady, don't be scared."
>
>Why couldn't I see that?!
>
>> Someone here went to the effort of translating many of Tick's phrases,
>> which you should be able to find in the archives somewhere.

Yes, that someone is vizcacha, and he did a lot of translation work for all
of us.  Hooray!

=mantis=


Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
http://www.siriusfiction.com/