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In THE SILENCE OF THE LANGFORD, Dave Langford discusses British critic Nick Lowe's (presumably not the rock musician) observation that some science fiction novels circumvent tireso…
04 Aug 1998, 20:59
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[snip] I didn't see anything either in the scene in Valeria's throne room, or in Severian's later talks with Odilo and Eata, to indicate that there is any domestic instability ove…
20 Jul 1998, 16:26
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The confusion was partly my fault; I should have been more explicit. My initial post asserted no positive model because, aside from believing that Severian abdicated, my reconstru…
13 Jul 1998, 16:53
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I'm still not sure why you say this. First, I don't see any evidence for it in the text. Second, he knows that since he returned to Briah, he's been bouncing back and forth in ti…
12 Jul 1998, 14:30
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What a daunting task, pitting my feeble knowledge of the New Sun cycle against mantis's! But I still think I'm correct on the regency issue. Since I believe that Severian stopped…
11 Jul 1998, 10:34
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I recently bought _Lexicon Urthus_--an amazing feat of erudition, both concerning the New Sun cycle and in general. But there are a couple of things in it I had questions on. The…
08 Jul 1998, 14:34
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My heretical thought regarding Severian1, the Severian whose life was not intervened in by time-travellers (or less so than our Severian) is: did he exist? Severian says he did (I…
07 Jul 1998, 15:47
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Without having reread this story, I would put my money on this view. The masters' society is precisely the sort of bureaucratized, effete society that Wolfe has attacked in other …
07 Jul 1998, 14:37
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I was the original questioner, and I was aware of the islands in the south of SA. My question was based on my belief that Severian was asserting that the Commonwealth consisted en…
05 Jul 1998, 13:57
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But my point was that "confessing" to be an Annese impersonating Marsch wouldn't draw suspicion from his spying, but to it. My reading was that he was first arrested on the ground…
25 Jun 1998, 19:22
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In _Castle of Days_, in an essay orginally published in 1990, Wolfe complains regarding careless readers: "I have had them tell me (for example) that they were completely baffled w…
24 Jun 1998, 10:38
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My main objection to this theory is that it makes for a worse book, IMO. But apart from that, I see two major problems: 1) Pretending to be an abo impersonating an Earthman would …
24 Jun 1998, 10:34
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Well, as you say it marks a stage in Severian's moral development. He's taking responsibility for the consequences of his earlier lack of forgiveness, and it's the only sequence I …
23 Jun 1998, 10:58
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There were some very interesting responses on the subject of Severian's reticence, as I called it. I like Peter Stephenson's interpretation of this as Severian pigeonholing people…
21 Jun 1998, 13:46
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I neglected to say that I basically do agree that the answers to interpretative questions about a work of fiction should ideally be deducible from that work itself. Thus I prefer e…
20 Jun 1998, 13:52
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Well, the Ste. Anne interviewees have a vested interest in portraying them that way, as R.T. points out. V.R.T. may even have internalized this view, as shown by his assertion tha…
20 Jun 1998, 13:34
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William Ansley writes: You said so clearly; the misapprehension was my fault. When I wrote that post I was in a sleep-deprived state, so my brain was not at its best. Likewise, …
20 Jun 1998, 13:08
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I gave the citation earlier, but I'll quote what Wolfe says about it, because it's brief: "David [Hartwell] felt that I should add one more paragraph saying, Okay, Severian went to…
19 Jun 1998, 16:58
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Could you be thinking of the passage in Shadow, ch. 33, in which Severian gives us his thoughts on authorship? But here he compares the relationship between authors and readers no…
19 Jun 1998, 16:16
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Given Wolfe, I wouldn't swear positively that Sev and Thecla were lovers. Sev does tell us more than once he may be insane, and I'm also beginning to entertain the possibility that…
18 Jun 1998, 17:01
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Wolfe attacking PC doesn't surprise me at all, given his frequent populist and anti-academic remarks. (Which rouse a certain irritation in me, I confess. Despite his sneers at ac…
18 Jun 1998, 15:40
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A few days ago I finished rereading BotNS and UotNS and skimming through the archive's posts on the books. (Whew!) I've already posted a few of my thoughts. I have some more que…
17 Jun 1998, 20:54
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I'm morally certain it was written by V.R.T. (See below on the "amalgam.") As you and others have pointed out, Marsch is far too insensitive, especially regarding the Annese, to wr…
17 Jun 1998, 20:18
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One of Severian's quirks as a narrator, and one which makes it quite difficult to get a grasp of his character, is his sometimes withholding an important fact about a situation unt…
16 Jun 1998, 15:07
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Or a lot extra: amazon.com often charges very high prices for out of print books. Try www.mxbf.com or www.bibliofind.com first. I've used the former myself, and found it very hel…
16 Jun 1998, 10:12
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A while ago there was a discussion here taking off from Wolfe's revelation in Plan[e]t Engineering that one of the books Severian and Thecla read in the cell was The Book of the Ne…
15 Jun 1998, 21:14
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I had been planning to put 5HC behind me for now, unless someone replied to one of my posts, but mantis's discussion of eye colors reminded me of one of the most enigmatic passages…
15 Jun 1998, 12:01
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My remark about Michael Mauss being Mickey Mouse in a metaphorical sense was just an afterthought, but thinking it over I realize that it is true and important. Michael Mauss, not…
15 Jun 1998, 11:41
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A couple of examples I've recently come across: In CASTLE OF DAYS, p. 225, he explicitly states his belief in Lamarckism. In URTH OF THE NEW SUN there's a brief passage that seem…
14 Jun 1998, 13:58
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Me too! Of course, V.R.T. doesn't mention the pants or the gloves, but they could have fallen off in the struggle. I've been meaning to post about that story for a long time, and…
14 Jun 1998, 13:48
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Here's my stab at the "Puss in Boots" passage. I can't explain it completely, but I have a few comments (which may strike everyone else as obvious). I'll quote the passage first,…
11 Jun 1998, 17:36
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What account? Is there material in other editions absent from my Ace edition? In my edition, the only statement quoted by "Mr. D" which has any bearing on the 15-year figure is "…
11 Jun 1998, 17:18
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Even if the implements Roy and V.R.T. sold were eoliths, I don't think that's the reason why V.R.T. is looking for them now. He hates his father, and he's assumed the identity of …
11 Jun 1998, 16:33
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Wolf is the name for one Shadow child--he says so explicitly (140, Ace edition in which "A Story" runs from 83-146). The names for three Shadow children are Foxfire, Swan and Whis…
02 Jun 1998, 17:49
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But this is a less extreme version of Veil's Hypothesis, not a reversal of it, which "Liev" implies. And it doesn't explain the bit about our thoughts influencing reality. --Adam…
02 Jun 1998, 17:25
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mantis writes: Oh, I agree. I didn't mean to imply that I thought Robert Borski was wrong about the symbolism of the shrike. Incidentally, I apologize in advance if anything I w…
02 Jun 1998, 17:17
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This is something that bothered me when I reread 5HC. I'm no biologist, but given the possible variations in the amino acids used, the genetic code used, the number of chromosomes…
01 Jun 1998, 21:09
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Earlier this year (in vol. 9 of the archives) the question was debated: assuming, as the consensus seems to be, that Number Five's designation arises from his being fifth in a seri…
01 Jun 1998, 20:56
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I've also been reading a book entitled _The Heads of Cerberus_, by "Francis Stevens" (a pseudonym for Gertrude Bennett). It was originally published in 1919, I would guess in maga…
01 Jun 1998, 16:02
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I just finished rereading _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_, so the recent turn of the list's collective mind towards that topic is timely for me. In addition to the comments I've post…
01 Jun 1998, 15:22
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Robert Borski writes: Actually he just "glanced at the first few pages..." I think the officer puts down the journal because he remembers "Marsch's" changed handwriting (i. e. VR…
01 Jun 1998, 14:27
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Palliser's subsequent book, entitled "Betrayals" IIRC, is also rather Wolfeian, in that it consists of a series of seemingly unrelated narratives, the connections between which mu…
28 May 1998, 17:02
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Quite aside from my own contributions, I enjoyed the discussion of "Suzanne Delage." It provided some variety from the discussions of a few major works, especially BOTNS (not that…
24 May 1998, 14:56
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Several hours after posting this, I realized it made me sound as if I thought that anyone seeing my reasoning would be convinced by it, which wasn't what I had meant at all. What …
24 May 1998, 14:55
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I think it's a great idea (though I'd like to know how much of the original posts will be cut). It was indeed fascinating to see how many divergent interpretations there were of s…
21 May 1998, 11:16
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I would recommend highly to any Wolfe fan who hasn't already read them _Engine Summer_, _Little, Big_, _Aegypt_, _Love and Sleep_, and "Great Work of Time" (in the collection _Nove…
10 May 1998, 13:25
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I was lying in bed this morning and came to the conclusion that this was correct. Based on it, I developed a reading of the story. It explains the text; it is consistent with W…
10 May 1998, 13:17
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I don't know how Borgesian it is, but there's a story by Henry James whose title I forget based on that very premise: that (as best I can recall) there are two people who somehow n…
09 May 1998, 20:48
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I hadn't thought about those works, but THE CASTLE is an obvious source for THERE ARE DOORS. Klamm, of course, is directly from THE CASTLE, and there are parallels between the sit…
27 Apr 1998, 14:33
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A recent example of this (though on a lesser aesthetic plane than Fifth Head) is two short stories, "Bluesberry Jam" and "Ain't You Most Done?" The first of these appeared in an an…
17 Apr 1998, 11:01
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