From: Joel Priddy <jpriddy@saturn.vcu.edu>
Subject: (whorl) Question(Final Draft)
Date: Fri, 16 May 97 10:38:28 EDT


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Okay, here's my question. Thanks for the input. I'm immensly
curious about the Pas-Typhon head thing, but I think this is
probably the question that will shed the most light on the
series.

mantis, I'm including a short form and long form version of my
question. I'll let you decide which is more appropriate to send.
BTW, thanks for setting this up, bringing christmas in May.

long form:
   What is the source of information for the auguries? Silk reads
a lot of the series plot from a pile of guts at Orpine's funeral.
Some options that I can come up with for the source of Silk's
very accurate divination are: chance (lucky guess by Silk);
divine (the Outsider); mechanical (Mainframe beams information
into the augurs head); genetic (the animals are genetically
manipulated fortune cookies, each with a different message built
into them); mystical (the gods have become real greco-pagan style
gods); psychic (Silk, the former frozen embryo, has precognitive
abilities); or historical (Horn, or his sources, add in the
details later).   

or
short form:
Silk makes a very accurate divination at Orpine's funeral. Are
divinations usually this accurate on the Whorl? What source
informs a divination by augury?

JOEL
-cephalothorax-