From: Mark Millman <millman@heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Subject: Re: (whorl) for joe- horn in babbie
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 03:58:02 -0500 (EST)

Joe,

Welcome to the list; we're very glad to have
you aboard.

I'm afraid that Mr. Wolfe give Babbie glasses
as one of his jokes; Babbie (presumably like
many other Bluvian creatures) not only has a
doubled set of limbs compared to the Urth
model, he also has a doubled set of eyes.
Yes, folks, you've guessed it; Babbie has
four eyes--thus, his astral self, which ap-
pears human, is made to wear glasses.

All together now:  -groan-.

Is there a deeper meaning to this?  There may
be one, but I've never seen it.  Then again,
Wolfe did once say that his sense of humor
"makes women scream and strong men faint" (I
paraphrase, but I believe it's pretty close).

Marc, I don't believe that this has very much
at all to do with the spirit in Babbie (ex-
cept in so far as it causes him to appear
recognizably human when traveling astrally),
and thus doesn't affect your argument--which
I, for one, find pretty convincing.

Nacre


On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote:

> For Joe, who said:
>
> > If Horn is in Babbie,
> > why have him in glasses?
> > Silk is more likely to
> > be in glasses, no? I do
> > think there is something
> > to this, but re-reading
> > the relevant chapters
> > didn't help me work it
> > out
>
> In a previous post, I talked at great
> length about the various clues of Horn
> in Babbie: Maytera Marble's prophecy,
> right in On Blue's Waters, when she
> says, after horn will experience
> wealth and command (ie, being Rajan of
> Goan): "I see you Horn, riding a beast
> with three horns." OK - Babbie has two
> horns,  and with Horn riding him, he
> has three.
> Then at the end of On Blue's Waters,
> like three pages from the end, Horn
> says  goodbye to everybody and hears
> someone calling for Babbie on the
> shore and  knows that they are calling
> for him as Horn, then the narrator
> BECOMES Babbie  for a few seconds (the
> text says, I couldn't see him, but I
> put my head on his  knee, or something
> like that) as the largest fragment of
> Horn's spirit flees  into Babbie, ac-
> counting for the great shift in narra-
> tive concern from On Blue's Waters,
> which happens almost entirely in the
> past, to In Green's  Jungles, where
> the story of Horn is told in bits and
> peices and in large part in the third
> person at Inclito's house as a story
> that happened to someone  else (be-
> cause, in large part, it did), now
> that most of Horn is in Babbie.  Read
> chapter 17 of return to the whorl
> again. See how he treats Hoof.  He
> hugs  him, picks him up, comforts him,
> and tries to say huh huh huh at two
> points: once pointing to his mouth at
> his horns, another time right after
> he realizes  his son is there.  (Has
> everybody just not been reading my
> posts?  Maybe I  should organize them
> better.  sorry if they are hard to
> follow :( ?)  Sorry  for repeating
> myself so many times for those of you
> who have followed me all  along.  I
> think this outweighs the glasses a bit.