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sigh They send an apprentice or two. Done.…
04 Dec 2011, 20:55
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Well, it did seem like a rhetorical question---how do we know anything?…
04 Dec 2011, 20:23
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Absolutely not---it's one reason why I think there _is_ something there. IT'S NOT A "TWIN'S NAME." And why would they talk to the witches at all, ever?…
04 Dec 2011, 20:20
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That's what I said, except that Severian is not "a twin's name." It's just a name. Any Latinate male named can be twinned with a female form. What's convoluted about it?…
04 Dec 2011, 14:59
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Ah, I see!…
04 Dec 2011, 14:01
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Good points.…
04 Dec 2011, 02:29
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Let's step back a bit. "Severa" is merely the placeholder name of Severian's hypothetical twin sister taken by the witches. She need never have been named Severa; she need never …
04 Dec 2011, 01:42
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That's easy---it's on the book jacket. G-E-N-E ....…
03 Dec 2011, 21:00
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It occurs to me that if we can argue Jolenta is Severa *because she was a witch*, we are already accepting that Merryn is (the prime candidate for) Severa. Why? Because both arg…
03 Dec 2011, 20:59
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Good eye. But a witch who recognizes a torturer outside the Citadel might not say so; if Jolenta is some kind of escaped (or even just a failed) witch, she may not want to revea…
03 Dec 2011, 16:25
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Symmetry and the centrality of procreation does suggest that there may be some related aspect to the Katherine ritual. But birth vs death seems more likely, doesn't it? Birth = …
03 Dec 2011, 16:14
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Hardly! We should all have the Saints website bookmarked by now.... The number 3 is symmetrical, echoing the Three Maids, but otherwise, to me, they mostly seem to reinforce the …
03 Dec 2011, 14:23
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I see. That is indeed the opposite of losing your manhood in failing to procreate.…
03 Dec 2011, 04:52
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Ah, so there is precedent for it. Yes, it seems to have a mythical force, so I'm not surprised. But my point has nothing to do with any BNS culture and everything to do with the…
02 Dec 2011, 22:31
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Thinking about how "fair" Wolfe was in writing UNS to explain all the things readers missed in BNS, something occurred to me regarding Apheta, who seems impossible to predict: W…
02 Dec 2011, 21:59
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And Oedipus wasn't the only Greek hero who bumbled around through his career. Heracles was not much better. Agreed. Their mating seems quite alchemical in its result, just not i…
02 Dec 2011, 20:46
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It occurred to me that the Witches' patron saint might shed light on them. It's a stretch, because such connections usually serve to confirm a theory rather than suggest a new on…
02 Dec 2011, 20:33
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Me? No, not at all. The Cumaean does nothing visible for Jolenta but give her wine. Neither does Severian, but that is no surprise.…
02 Dec 2011, 19:33
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That's an interesting thought.…
02 Dec 2011, 19:31
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Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's why Blue is on Earth riding White. This explains the weird "no this, no that" going on in Skip's thoughts in the opening scene; the thoughts he in…
02 Dec 2011, 19:21
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Provisionally, I consider such thoughts to be largely philosophical and intended to disguise hints about Severian himself as well as the nature of time and the universe and human…
02 Dec 2011, 19:06
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With all that is going on in the rooftop scene, it seems a little narrow to focus on "Cumaean as beautician." Or even as a physician: "You do not need a physician now," Merryn sa…
02 Dec 2011, 18:39
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I have a few thoughts on that but no answers: (1) All three are different types of overlays or riders: an alien, a human-tech scanned download, and whatever kind of mysterious ac…
02 Dec 2011, 14:08
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Somewhere in between is my best guess as well. We don;t know how may used it. It may have been few. Including the chairs, which sound like beanbag chairs from the 1970s, the furn…
01 Dec 2011, 15:35
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Or at least some development. One can certainly imagine variations on "groom" and "support."…
01 Dec 2011, 15:20
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Hmm. I think they are unfamiliar, for the most part, because they are dull and therefore forgotten. Severian as much as says so. The homonculus stands out because it is the "most…
01 Dec 2011, 13:09
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Not quite. It's here: "Yet it was impossible that I should occupy a suite other than that anciently set aside for the autarchs...." Thus the suite is "that anciently set aside f…
30 Nov 2011, 22:30
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How do we know this? Is the answer somewhere here: Yet it was impossible that I should occupy a suite other than that anciently set aside for the autarchs; and impossible too th…
30 Nov 2011, 21:35
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Very nice. And again, this points me to BLS/BSS, and their multitude of riders and ridden. Regardless of how much detail Wolfe had worked out by the time he finished BNS, the con…
30 Nov 2011, 15:14
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No doubt about that. Interesting! No one has suggested that Wolfe is oblivious, though perhaps you could read it from Gerry's post. But just because the painting seems to mix a …
30 Nov 2011, 14:35
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thanks! "A sun sufficiently active to humanize...." What a suggestive line. d'oh! I'm pretty "catholic" in my tastes when it comes to connections. Ah. Perhaps. The quote: Not…
30 Nov 2011, 14:26
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I agree. That is the only way any enlightenment could be "true": all enlightenment must be true. All the various mechanics of enlightenment are too easy to explain away, after Dr…
30 Nov 2011, 00:06
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I AM impressed! Along these lines, I argue that Severian is not an important character and narrator in BNS. After all, novels usually have protagonists as well as narrators. It …
29 Nov 2011, 22:15
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Gerry has a point, however, in saying that Typhon did not have two penises. I'd put this down to (a) the propagandizing of Typhon as Pas (better to suggest the Tyrant God is a do…
29 Nov 2011, 21:22
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I thought you had forgotten that Piaton's head lolled and gasped. But obviously I can see how “You’d be him. And he’d be you.” is ambiguous in the case of a two-headed god, which…
29 Nov 2011, 21:17
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Of course, there's the problem of who decides what theories are "extravagant." For example, it's OK to describe your vision of the big picture without showing proof; how can you…
29 Nov 2011, 19:26
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Down the rabbit hole again ... To ask you "why." Gerry, I have no idea! How can I? What "reasoning"? Not quite. The point raised was whether anyone had any ideas about which he…
29 Nov 2011, 19:13
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And I cannot guess where you get the idea that I think I'm victorious, or why you think "victory" is the central point. Much of the difficulty in talking to you is on full displa…
29 Nov 2011, 18:15
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Exactly. On the other hand, I do expect commenters who *assert* that I'm wrong to *prove* me wrong. Sometimes they do in short order. Sometimes they don't and won't, and it take…
29 Nov 2011, 18:02
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Well, I'm glad that's clear. I'll assume you're thinking of Gerry....…
29 Nov 2011, 17:58
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I suppose I hoped to point out that it need not be rhetorical or flippant (and those are not synonyms) no matter who asks. But OK.…
29 Nov 2011, 17:56
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Aren't you now doing what you just told us you can't stand?…
29 Nov 2011, 17:40
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It certainly isn;t when _I_ ask it.…
29 Nov 2011, 17:39
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Thanks for reminding me why I decided to stop talking to you.…
29 Nov 2011, 17:38
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And this is after all how saints are made.…
29 Nov 2011, 17:36
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Exactly. However, Silk also narrates it as the Rajan, and it comes up a lot in BLS. So we may presume that he told Horn and Nettle. If he did not, then the end of OBW does not si…
29 Nov 2011, 16:59
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And ... drum roll ... WHY do you think that? WHY do you guess that? WHY?…
29 Nov 2011, 16:47
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29 Nov 2011, 15:29
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Whether it has meaning to Silk or not is probably irrelevant because he has seen little more of Pas than anyone else his age, but I agree that even for readers of BNS looking for…
29 Nov 2011, 15:27
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Sorry, what's the Levi quotation? It's quite possible, except that the whole cloning/in vivo/possession/scanning trope was plainly already in Wolfe's mind, and as such maybe the…
29 Nov 2011, 14:17
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