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From: <akt@attglobal.net> Subject: (whorl) Horn ain't dead Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:27:01 > From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net> > >Though I should add an amusing personal note. Wolfe has read and deeply > >appreciates John Clute's > >SF Weekly Review of RTTW. > > Well, that being the case, I must bow and admit that Horn is dead and Silk > lives. I was never certain, but I thought a case should be made for the > Horn Lives standpoint. I'll have to rethink a few categories... I've been staying out of most of this because (a) I have other things on my mind and (b) I don't have a copy of RTW handy to refer to. Though I am on record as one of the disappointed ones. But I can never resist Ratty: It seems more and more repetitive to say so, but you just can't ignore the computer model that GW has been enamoured with from the start of LS. Yes, he has used dual (multiple) personalities before, as was clear with Sev, but the whole idea of uploading and downloading very palpably took his fancy at the point where the PC entered his life. So I will argue for the Horn Lives viewpoint--quite vehemently, actually. You could say that Horn's spirit was a very successful virus taking over the Silk functional operating system (body). Or some other metaphor. But it seems to me completely clear that whoever this person thinks he is at the end of the book, Horn is *still there*. He will not, cannot, be erased from the system completely. It might be like Sev being able to access Thecla or the Autarch or whomever. Or not. Somewhere in LS there is an explanation of how, after a god has possessed someone, the god is never completely erased, and this is similar. It seems to me that, if GW should want to write another book about these people (my guess is not, because he seems so tired of them at this point--but you never know). it will be important to the plot to have the dual Silk/Horn interface. Like having Windows and Linux on the same machine. -alga *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