Posted from 6 addresses as thalassocrat, Andrew Bollen, Mr Thalassocrat, Ed EDson
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Last week saw the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anthony Trollope, probably not a big anniversary for most Wolfe readers, given that on most measures the two are about as differ…
29 Apr 2015, 16:32
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Gerry wrote: *"You can argue that the Old Wise One is confused at one point as to which of the two peoples in the story is which, but it can be explained in a straightforw…
21 Aug 2014, 13:25
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If the troll in Weer's walled-garden dream is indeed linked to gnome-prince Peacock, then its interesting to think about why it has "fallen from his little pedestal". Maybe there'…
24 Nov 2012, 00:22
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Many moons ago I worked out the chronology below & posted it to this list. Having just re-read PF I think this can be elaborated in interesting ways. The idea starts with my obser…
03 Nov 2012, 11:24
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I think it’s possible that Wolfe scattered red herrings around as fake clues to Severian’s family tree, with the intention of driving overly-attentive readers insane. But it’s a q…
26 Jan 2011, 05:27
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I had the same kinds of question. Plus one other: Why was Rick so determined to kill Chelle? On another tack, "Sea shell" is surely some kind of literary shadow-cousin to Seawrack…
25 Jan 2011, 22:27
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A Borges story I hadn't read before, about a man with perfect memory: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/borges.htm Nice to ponder on what use Wolfe might have made of …
24 Jan 2011, 07:36
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& not succeeding very well. Apart from anything, I keep dreading the appearance of the next deli sandwich. Which is a pity, because normally food in Wolfe novels sounds like someth…
19 Jan 2011, 03:26
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Recent posts about what Sev might or should have discovered about his mother/sister/himself at the end of BOTNS remind me of something which has bugged me for a long time: How come…
10 Aug 2010, 08:21
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(The name of Jonas' ship.) This may well have been pointed out a gadzillion years ago, but I don't remember ever seeing it. Apparently a "lucky cloud" is a very common traditional …
12 Jul 2010, 14:12
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Finally got around to tracking something down which had been nagging me. When I first came to the conclusion that Tzadkiel was a liar and a no-good, it put me vaguly in mind of a s…
09 Jul 2010, 00:35
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Griffins were supposed to guard gold. Not exactly dragons, but as Jake Jacobson says (p214), "Sort of like a dragon". Not wedded to the idea, but I like it more than Ted = Ambrosi…
29 Apr 2010, 22:56
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Or something. - The only time discrepancies we get told about explicitly involve him: messages around his birth, and his ethermail message to Cassie. - He wears a watch but doesn'…
28 Oct 2008, 10:20
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Andrew returning with a new email address, in another attempt to avoid spam deluges. Just some quick random thoughts after a couple of readings .... - The bat people surely assis…
30 Sep 2008, 21:34
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http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/wolfe_interview/ Talking about writing.…
04 Aug 2008, 00:40
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The Terminus Est discussion raises a tangential issue which has bothered me: how does Palaemon come to have such a valuable antique in his personal possession? Not by inheritan…
04 Jul 2008, 06:39
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Sev's lineage is a problem which I'm sure Wolfe intended people to drive themselves crazy over, and I don't think there's enough info to get really definitive. But on the flip si…
29 Jun 2008, 05:25
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This has probably been pointed out multiple times, but surely by the end of UOTNS Sev knows his mother's story. We're told explicitly that Gurloes and Palaemon must know the pare…
21 Jun 2008, 12:56
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While trying to think up a devasting rejoinder to Roy's cogent critique of my cosmic theory I took a break to wander through the quagmire of Sev's parentage. If his Sev-mojo wa…
16 Jun 2008, 10:55
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Looking back through the scenes in UTONS following Sev's return to Urth from Yesod, I do get a strong impression that the sun has already been in decline for some time. As far …
11 Jun 2008, 00:39
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One of the first things Sev does in BOTNS is kill an innocent man who is fighting to prevent the violation of his dead, who presents no danger to him and with whom he has no quar…
05 Jun 2008, 10:52
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This is dump of some of my efforts to make sense of UOTNS, long but I hope reasonably coherent. First, the New Sun, the White Fountain and Sev's powers. I take it that the physi…
20 Jan 2008, 06:36
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Following just fwiw. "Hierogrammate" seems like an odd title for a being which purports to be in charge of the universe or whatever Tzadkiel's claim is. The Greek is hierogramm…
09 Jan 2008, 12:36
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In UOTNS, the Hirarchs and Tzadkiel lie repeatedly and harm Sev and other humans in ways which range from displays of petty malice to near-genocide. There is no evidence whatso…
06 Jan 2008, 05:18
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I just find it really difficult to match up the NS and LS/SS scenarios. If you just took LS/SS by itself, you'd have something like this: Typhon was a guy who quickly rose to t…
20 Dec 2007, 12:28
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There are some things which make Burt an attractive candidate as Chris' father - somehow or other. - Burt takes to Chris early on for no very apparent reason (although there's a…
14 Dec 2007, 05:11
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Start with Lesage. Burt gives him command of the little sloop Windward after depositing Chris on Hispaniola. He's still in command of it when Chris puts into Port Royal after t…
14 Dec 2007, 03:57
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Chris says: "The artists of the Middle Ages painted allegories, we say. What really happened was that they saw more clearly than we do, and painted what they saw - angels and dev…
09 Dec 2007, 04:08
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I come to the following conclusions: - Chris1's "birthday" is around about now; 2007. - Chris2 is writing in about 2017. - Chris2 appeared from the past around about the same time…
08 Dec 2007, 13:57
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Some quick musings after a first run through .. Can we take it that Chris is a clone? He says his father told him he'd "engineered" Chris for height; there is no hint whatsoever,…
30 Nov 2007, 05:26
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Just thought I'd toss this in to see if anybody can find an answer better than I can ... When Setr/Garsecg meets Art/Able, he speaks…
12 Sep 2007, 04:46
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This has probably been kicked around long ago, but I couldn't find it on a quick archive scan. Anyway ... Little Sev's first words to Our Sev after getting over the shock of see…
02 Nov 2006, 09:52
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Wikipedia reckons that "Katharine" comes from a Latin mangling of the original Greek, which is closer to "Catherine". Of course this is consistent with Ouen's belief that the lat…
29 Oct 2006, 09:12
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Wolfe's PE revelation that Thecla's "fourth book" = TBOTNS is just so unconvincing on internal grounds. It's obviously ludicrous from a narrative perspective, if it refers to our…
23 Oct 2006, 05:10
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Probably been pointed out before, but Wolfe seems to have made a slip juggling his books. When Sev gets the 3 volumes from Cyby, the green book is "no thicker than my index finge…
15 Oct 2006, 06:53
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Besides "Theoanthropos", Agia calls on another entity in Shadow: "Well, high Hypogeon help you." (Ch 18) "Hypogeon" presumably means something like "the one under the earth", a…
23 Jul 2006, 08:12
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There's a nice piece about it in the latest NY Review: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19031 Anybody interested in this stuff has probably noted the resonance of Jesus' last wor…
29 May 2006, 01:59
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It is hierodules who are supposed to travel backwards through time, right? I always get the various hiero-levels mixed up. Whatever, it's a really annoying plot device & I'm gla…
25 May 2006, 06:48
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One of the many little things which bugs me about Long Sun: where do talus brains come from? We get the long scene where the director of the talus works explains bronze casting a…
03 May 2006, 02:04
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On the same theme as before ... In Ch IV of Shadow, Sev says of his finding Triskele: "I felt that it could have & should have changed everything, but it was only the episode of…
08 Apr 2006, 07:39
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Just that it's not showing up on Amazon anymore ...…
07 Apr 2006, 14:16
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Well, not really. But I continue to obsess about the apparent reconciliation with the pelagic foe at the end of UOTNS. Don't have the book handy but most of this occurs in the la…
05 Apr 2006, 04:05
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It seems to me that themes running through Wolfe's later works have much to do with these two qualities. It would probably be more exact to say "the positive attributes of Aphrod…
06 Dec 2005, 03:26
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On p146 of IGJ, Fava talks about her supposed past in Grandecitta, the city in the Whorl where Inclito was born. "Back in Grandecitta, where I lived as a girl ..." Although it'…
21 Aug 2005, 05:54
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OK, so Sev isn't supposed to be Jesus. He's just a guy who happens to have been selected to be the transcendant saviour of humanity's potential and who along the way recapitulate…
17 Apr 2005, 04:23
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The status of Abaia et al with the coming of Ushas has bugged me. They survive (as far as I know), there's lots of water for them, and if they want to create a race of slaves it …
10 Apr 2005, 05:29
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The big difference between Ushas/No-Ushas is surely that Ushas leads to transcendence - humanity evolves into some kind of angelic state, beyond the clutches of time & above this…
03 Apr 2005, 05:38
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Andrew here, digging himself out of a spam deluge as Thalassocrat ... I see from the archives that Roy a while back had some comment…
27 Mar 2005, 01:04
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Been far too busy to really follow the interesting discussion on Wolfean soul dynamics here recently, but think it's worth pointing out that he is perhaps more explicit about some …
10 Dec 2004, 05:06
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I've just started Wizard & I won't talk about it very directly, but it did reinforce a notion I've had about the inhumi. In the future, I think it is quite obvious that humans on G…
03 Dec 2004, 00:56
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