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... You're wrong. Proof 1: I don't think you're ignorant or stupid. QED. Proof 2: I've said I was wrong (not just on trifles such as my former views on the Annese), and I don…
07 Jan 2011, 21:25
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In fact, according to the NSOED, all monkeys were once called "apes"; that was the only word in English. "Monkey" first appeared in the 16th century. It doesn't give information…
07 Jan 2011, 18:35
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Sorry, it's bad threadiquette to experiment with options and accidentally click Send. Jerry Friedman…
07 Jan 2011, 03:28
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*groan* What may well be? As for the Above and Below settings, it doesn't fix the cursor in place, does it? You can begin with the cursor either place and still direct it to the …
07 Jan 2011, 03:27
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From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> ... ... I'm not going to try to check whether I've said this when you made similar statements--I'm just going to point out that i…
07 Jan 2011, 02:57
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Whereas it's okay to be sure you're right some of the time, as on Veil's Hypothesis? The "relaxation" method Marsch describes is not about refinement by comparison with actual r…
07 Jan 2011, 02:45
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Thanks--I don't think I'd read that interview. So "'A Story'" isn't maximally unreliable--V. R. T. didn't make it up out of whole cloth. However, it seems to me that the word "l…
07 Jan 2011, 02:18
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Quite right. ... In first-person stories, a theory like that is hard to refute. Any evidence against it might have been planted by V. R. T. (Some will see this unfalsifiabili…
06 Jan 2011, 21:47
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Thank you. List membership has its rewards. Jerry Friedman…
06 Jan 2011, 21:30
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A: Well, Tolkien had no knowledge of hobbit culture. But in any case, Wolfe has called the halt, and you're right. He said in his interview with Lawrence Person, ""'A Story,' b…
05 Jan 2011, 20:42
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I'm interested to see people taking "'A Story', by John V. Marsch" as a source of factual-in-the-fiction information. I took the title to be a strong indication that it's maxima…
05 Jan 2011, 19:02
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In Ch.XXVII of SotT, Severian says that his mask is leather stiffened with bone, and he snaps it open. "Luchador" (although there's apparently a WWE wrestler known as "El Gran L…
05 Jan 2011, 02:08
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From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> ... Well, if you want to use the harsh word "prejudice" for that, you can, but don't expect everyone to understand you. For me, "…
04 Jan 2011, 18:49
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From: Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> ... ... I know part of his mouth is supposed to be hidden, but does his chin have to be? If not, how about some variation of …
04 Jan 2011, 18:34
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You're familiar with the Chekhov quotation, just not with its authorship. "From this period comes an observation of Chekhov's which has become known as "Chekhov's gun", noted by…
04 Jan 2011, 06:30
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I'm sure I've read that 666 is a hint that the Gene Wolfes, having egotistically cut themselves off from humanity by cloning, could become the Beast. The author's use of his own…
03 Jan 2011, 21:55
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> Thanks. I would never have concluded that that yellowish ball by Severian's legs is the sun or that that pale, almost uniform moon is new. …
03 Jan 2011, 17:41
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From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> ... Interesting. I wasn't ready for a lot of their work then. In fact, it was probably in seventh or eight grade that I bounced o…
03 Jan 2011, 16:52
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From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> [Principle of parsimony in fiction] But of course the human imagination can find false patterns in human-created phenomena too, a…
03 Jan 2011, 16:44
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> [cover painting] Even more reasonable. But in any case, Lune has to look green. Maybe it's my partial color blindness. Just out of curios…
03 Jan 2011, 05:00
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There has to be one. We don't worry about whether all the characters in BotNS are Talking Beasts that Severian misleads us about, or Holmes's deductions about his clients are fa…
03 Jan 2011, 04:46
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> That's sunlight? Maybe I have no idea what the cover is supposed to show, beside Severian and Lune. It certainly seems reasonable, but the…
03 Jan 2011, 02:52
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Not a bad way to handle it, I think. I though you might be exaggerating till I looked at the picture. http://www.amazon.com/Book-New-Sun-Gene-Wolfe/dp/1568658079 (Which is insuf…
02 Jan 2011, 23:25
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Oh, goodness, not me, though I like them far better than the covers of the old Timescape paperbacks I have. But of course that's one of the problems--people see books so differe…
02 Jan 2011, 21:16
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<>something someone else said. But people are saying that the Outsider was the son of Thyone, that You're right, I did miss that, so thanks. I still think the Outsider is the …
17 Dec 2010, 04:39
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Sorry, I didn't read a lot of the posts about Dionysus, so I may be duplicating something someone else said. But people are saying that the Outsider was the son of Thyone, that …
16 Dec 2010, 14:00
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Interesting, Dan'l. I was going to ask which Person the Outsider was. Is it correct in Catholic theology to say that the Second Person or Logos has existed eternally but didn't b…
16 Dec 2010, 00:13
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... I'd never noticed the irony that when Severian tells us the appearance of the glyph but doesn't know its meaning, and when we wonder what the glyph looks like exactly, "We are…
14 Dec 2010, 17:13
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I don't think we'd expect it to be wildly futuristic. On Urth, we expect working technology to be ancient. I think the transporter room is from Jonas's time but not from his ship.…
14 Dec 2010, 01:11
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From: David Duffy davidD at qimr.edu.au [/The Trial/] Thanks. I can see definite similarities. Of course, there's also the possibility of young Wolfe sitting in a waiting room a…
14 Dec 2010, 00:58
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DAVID STOCKHOFF- Common in Ohio where I grew up, though anglers were more likely to shorten "northern pike" into "northern". And there's a memorable pike (fish) in /The Sword in…
13 Dec 2010, 21:54
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From: Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com [snip things that I find convincing] Thanks for noticing! Sometimes. You and me both. Jerry Friedman…
13 Dec 2010, 20:16
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... Would you mind making the connection for me among those three disparate nouns? (Not the connection among the characters.)? Or point me to someplace in the archives? If we're…
13 Dec 2010, 17:04
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From: David Duffy <davidD at qimr.edu.au> Sorry, I haven't read _The Trial_. What's the homage? The architecture of the antechamber? The possibility of waiting indefinitely? (…
13 Dec 2010, 05:27
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... Me neither. I agree. Everything we know about the antechamber seems normal for a palace in which an underground waiting room was expanded as Jonas describes. ... Not so m…
13 Dec 2010, 02:21
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... Actually, he does reveal it. "Beyond it I saw a network of slender metal bars, and through them a vaulted ceiling with many moldings and a flaking painting [of] clouds and …
11 Dec 2010, 20:12
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What I think is the best piece of evidence is in chapter 11 of /Soldier of the Mist/, after Oior saves Latro from the bowman Spu (which Borski says Jeremy Crampton glossed as "ey…
10 Dec 2010, 23:07
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No kidding. I guess when that Fripp plays it, you have to capitalize "Guitar". Jerry Friedman…
10 Dec 2010, 00:12
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... ... Sorry to be unclear. I was joking, as I said in my postscript. Robert Borski, you told us, took "Pie Club" as a clue for apples. Well, the word "apple" isn't even the st…
09 Dec 2010, 23:08
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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> [missed-chances theory] I think that if you imagine that unknown supernatural forces are causing all this it works, except for Kidd's in…
09 Dec 2010, 22:53
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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> ... I forgot to mention the idea of the author as Creator or Subcreator, which people have quite rightly brought up here recen…
09 Dec 2010, 14:41
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No matter what else is going on, climbing an immense stair while being attacked by one flying monster after another strikes me as kind of "videogamey". ... I'm not sure I do. I…
09 Dec 2010, 06:26
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... Heh heh. ... ... I pretty much agree with this--it's "the dislocation of all we expect from nature and probability"--but I suspect supernatural intervention. I see no con…
09 Dec 2010, 04:46
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I think so too. Someone with Silk's training referring to a story possibly altered by the Chrasmologists that took place in a universe where the Second Person may never have bee…
02 Dec 2010, 23:48
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I liked it much better than my least favorite, TUotNS. According to somebody, possibly with the initials J. W., Wolfe seems to be very proud of it and especially proud of Cassie …
02 Dec 2010, 14:33
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From: Mark Millman markjmillman at gmail.com ... LB> If there is a Dionysian deity popping up in LB> various guises throughout Severian's story, [snip interesting comments, inclu…
01 Dec 2010, 16:59
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... I must say I was very disappointed by that interview. I think I'd decided that all the abos were human, and I liked that. (If we trust Juganu. Just kidding.) I certainly …
01 Dec 2010, 05:44
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From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> This got me interested. In a bit of looking around, I found there's no agreement on this passage (Gen. 6:1-4): what the wor…
28 Nov 2010, 02:14
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Legend has it that the tree had white flowers, but blushed when J. I. hanged himself on it (saying, according to a reliable source, "When he's cold and dead, will he let me be? D…
14 Oct 2010, 21:33
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... Sorry, where does he say that? In a quick look, I could only find where Daisy writes it five times at the very end of the book. Jerry Friedman…
16 Sep 2010, 05:27
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