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From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu> Subject: (whorl) Silk & Horn Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 23:59:00 If Silk was used to fasting and eating very lightly all his life, then Horn/Silk would probably get sick if he tried to eat as much as Horn was used to eating. Thus all the fuss about not eating -- Horn wants to eat, but knows he'll regret it if he does. If Horn is always trying to think/act like Silk, and all we know of Silk is what Horn (and Nettle) wrote about him, then it's real hard for us to tell the difference between Horn acting the way he thinks Silk would act and Horn being influenced by whatever's left of Silk in his body (apart from that weird bit where he mention's hearing Hyacinth singing in the distance). I submit that if we see Horn/Silk acting in some way that is out of character for both Horn and Silk-as-Horn-describes-him, then that is likely bits of the real Silk that Horn never knew. In that vein, I've wondered if the reason Horn doesn't seem to want to admit that he's in Silk's body is that he found himself in what appeared to be an attempted suicide, and he can't believe that Silk would do such a thing (as some of us can't believe it -- but then we've only seen Silk through Horn's eyes). It's been long enough since he last saw Silk that looking in the mirror might not be conclusive. Maybe part of him strongly suspects it, but another part wants to believe that it's really someone else. -Rostrum *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