-
James Wynn wrote: . Jonas certainly says that his ship crashed. because it could not find a port, so it can't have been Tzadkiel's ship. (Nor can it have been a tender from Tzadki…
11 Dec 2010, 21:41
-
It seems to me, though, that this runs together two different things. There is the literal/symbolic distinction; these can exist together; a candle can both be just a light source …
11 Dec 2010, 19:57
-
They are also related to the sun. Iubar Street is mentioned again near the end of _Urth_, when Eata says there was a party there to celebrate Valeria's second marriage. I would tak…
11 Dec 2010, 19:26
-
Aha! This makes things a lot clearer to me,because it illuminates something I hadn't grasped earlier; you see Dionysus as a negative figure. (I take it this is so, if you put him i…
10 Dec 2010, 21:38
-
It's fairly standard in Christian tradition to see 'Lucifer' and 'Devil/Satan' as different names for the same figure. I'd agree that in origin they are different (and other diabol…
10 Dec 2010, 21:23
-
Objections to what? I'm not objecting to the idea that inhumi are connected with Dionysus. I was only questioning your specific statement that 'we agree that he's is the god of the…
09 Dec 2010, 21:39
-
Oh, of course. But the question here is not how he understands 'vine' in isolation, but how he understands 'Dionysus, god of the vine'. He presumably knows enough about the history…
09 Dec 2010, 20:04
-
I find that most improbable. The title 'god of the vine' is a translation of Greek and Latin phrases which referred to the grape vine. Dionysus was the god of wine and of grapes an…
09 Dec 2010, 17:46
-
OK, no problem, then. You seemed to be concerned about anyone who criticised your ideas without immediately producing better ideas - which I certainly haven't been doing, in genera…
09 Dec 2010, 17:26
-
Jsmes Wynn wrote: . Dionysus is called the God of Vine, literally. I know of no Historically, 'vine' means grape vine. Its use to mean any climbing plant is quite recent. That is…
08 Dec 2010, 19:47
-
Lee Berman wrote: . But once ideas have been put out in public, they are a legitimate subject of argument. You may not find criticism of your ideas helpful, if they efectively so…
08 Dec 2010, 19:43
-
It isn't just that it can make human vocalisations; it clearly means what it says (as does Oreb). Both seem to have an intelligence which is sub-human but very real. There are a co…
07 Dec 2010, 15:18
-
I am strongly reminded of the stork in _Little, Big_.…
07 Dec 2010, 15:06
-
I'm in the middle of reading OBW now, and realise it's dangerous to comment before you have reached the end of a series, but a couple of things occur to me: 1. I'm not sure anyone…
07 Dec 2010, 15:00
-
There's no doubt that literature from 'our' time has survived, in a disordered and fragmentary form, into Severian's. Indeed one of the passages used as an epigraph - the Fitzgera…
07 Dec 2010, 14:41
-
It has been discussed, I think. That there is some connection - thus making little Severian a relation of Big Severian - is not at all improbable. There is some slight evidence tha…
06 Dec 2010, 18:31
-
But does this not undemine the idea of Inire keeping a constant watch on Severian, which I thought was one of the things motivated this theory? He clearly is keeping a watch on Se…
05 Dec 2010, 17:40
-
Thanks for this, Lee. Let me see what I can make of it. Is Inire a shape-shifter? I'm inclined to say not, because in the scenes where it's most generally agreed we see him, he's…
04 Dec 2010, 18:21
-
I agree that there's more to Agia than mees the eye. There are a couple of definite indicators of this: her use of the symbol of the Jurupari (if that's what it was); Agilus' ribb…
03 Dec 2010, 22:35
-
It cerainly looks as if it means something. Can you tell me who these characters are and where they are described as monkeys, so i can check it out?…
03 Dec 2010, 22:03
-
Rudesind is a special case. Shortly after fluffing his lines he _says_ he was told to say them. There isn't a mystery there as far as I can see. I don't recall any passage where P…
03 Dec 2010, 22:01
-
Jerry Friedman wrote|: Perhaps he was an earlier Autarch. Or perhaps he was the Autarch we know, but before his testing.…
03 Dec 2010, 20:25
-
Actually, I was not perturbed at all, because I don't think the error is Wolfe's. As I read it, Silk is remembering a story from the Chrasmologic Writings. The authors of the Writi…
03 Dec 2010, 19:44
-
That is not clear if Dionysus is seen as a prefiguring of Christ, as he was by C.S. Lewis (as someone commented here recently) - also, by the way, by Wole Soyinka.…
02 Dec 2010, 22:43
-
Is it clear that Horn still sees the Outsider as a minor god? Silk stopped seeing him as one; Horn, as a devotee of Silk, is likely to have done the same. Somewhere in _Long Sun_ …
02 Dec 2010, 22:40
-
I don't think there is a place in _New Sun_ where the Increate acts _directly_. However, near the end Barbatus claims that Severian's power to recall the dead - in the same body, …
02 Dec 2010, 18:14
-
That is a fallacy, without question. However, I remain unconvinced that anyone here is doing it. If someone were to argue 'Wright has such and such motives; therefore he is wrong',…
02 Dec 2010, 14:50
-
If I understand this discussion correctly, no one is proposing to analyse an argument by the supposed motives of the arguer. What is happening is that people, having decided, by w…
01 Dec 2010, 22:12
-
Lee Berman wrote: > I have heard of this theory, but it seems very hard to believe, given that we know Typhon's doubled body part was artificial. I think Blue is the home planet …
30 Nov 2010, 19:36
-
I agree that other things being equal, what the Old Wise One says first - while he is still the collective consciousness of Shadow Children - is more reliable than what he says lat…
30 Nov 2010, 19:30
-
I think I'd agree with SonofWitz that the idea, in its original context, is meant simply to point up the contrast between the jungle hut and a cell. It's a bit odd that a theory wh…
28 Nov 2010, 18:27
-
'Pas' is the masculine form of 'all'; 'pan' is the neuter form. I believe the name of Pan, the god, has a different origin (it certainly declines differently), but the interpretati…
28 Nov 2010, 18:04
-
Lee Berman wrote: > Ouen had a noticeable resemblance to Severian while being blond, so I wouldn't rule it out. 'Commander' is a naval rank, but if it's spelt with a small c i'm …
25 Nov 2010, 01:47
-
Well, as I understand it, _Long Sun_ wasn't planned at the time, and it was only while he was working on it that Wolfe came to see it as connected with _New Sun_, so the Severian/S…
23 Nov 2010, 22:49
-
Lee Berman wrote: Plus there is a persistent character in the Sun series who If I remember rightly, you have to have _Urth_ to deduce that, so as _Urth_ wasn't part of the origi…
23 Nov 2010, 20:23
-
I think it is the Hierogrammates rather than the Hierodules who have this rather high-handed attitude. The two actual Hierodules we see most of, Barbatus and Famulimus, although th…
14 Nov 2010, 17:08
-
I sympathise with this. Severian, when he comes up with his 'first Severian' theory, believes that the first Severian became Apu-Punchau, as well as the person buried in the mausol…
06 Nov 2010, 21:55
-
Lee Berman wrote: . Yes. That I'm not so sure about. The idea of a god taking over a prophet and speaking through them, which seems to be roughly what possession means here, has …
05 Nov 2010, 22:06
-
Lee Berman wrote: But if Severian had doppelgangers who continued to Just to clarify: what I had in mind was reappearances at long intervals (thus reconciling the 'thirty thousa…
05 Nov 2010, 22:01
-
Um. Jesus is of course not essential to my theory - the Conciliator might be a composite figure whether or not Jesus was one of those who contributed to the composite. Also relev…
05 Nov 2010, 19:05
-
Lee Berman wrote: We are explicitly shown that Severian's modest I'm not sure of this. According to Dorcas's account of the Conciliator he used to disappear and reappear, sugges…
05 Nov 2010, 00:30
-
Yes, and I do think there are correspondences between 'Frog' and the life of Severian. (I do find it harder to make out with 'The Student and his Son') But on my reading the corres…
30 Sep 2010, 14:36
-
Quite so. My point, made less cryptically, is that these matters are debated withing the story, and they seem there to be treated largely as philosophical ones. Personally I have …
30 Sep 2010, 14:16
-
OK, I'm beginning to see how your theory fits together now. (Something you said earlier suggests you see shepherds as torturers - is that right?) There is some definite evidence t…
29 Sep 2010, 13:26
-
That's another possibility, certainly. It still supports the thought it's a quite a regular thing. anyway. I'd assume they would be taken out fairly quickly, just as those retriev…
29 Sep 2010, 13:07
-
That seems equally to fit my reading and yours - the heavens are where planetary travellers come from, but also where gods live. I would take it that in the original version of the…
28 Sep 2010, 14:21
-
I'd always assumed that Hildegrin was visiting the Garden of Endless Sleep, while Severian and Agia were there, to look for another such victim, suggesting it was quite a regular t…
28 Sep 2010, 14:03
-
As I understand it, what properly distinguishes an autarch is that he rules himself: that is why Ymar and his successors chose that title. However, most people probably don't know …
27 Sep 2010, 14:44
-
I think March is quite strongly associated with winds ('March winds, April showers..'). Given the need to find a name for Mars which isn't _too_ obvious, and fits in with 'Early Su…
23 Sep 2010, 19:46
-
Regarding humanity returning to the stars: this theme comes up quite a lot in the _New Sun_ cycle - sometimes in those very terms, though at other times people say 'Men of Urth' or…
22 Sep 2010, 21:24
Urth Net