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I'm looking forward to it. And I know for a fact you took a camera and used it! Surely someone here has web space to put the pictures up for all to see. Meanwhile, here are some m…
20 Jun 2007, 22:01
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Great, Nigel! Mantis is good at writing that sort of thing. But that doesn't relieve Rostrum -- far from it; it only adds to the burden. We need his perspective, and Crush's, too, …
20 Jun 2007, 18:30
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And Mankiller's tendon was cut by Cutthroat. Mankiller's throat was cut by wolfish Longknife. So, when you mix Greek, Roman and Hebrew mythologies with Jack London and Wolfe, what…
19 Jun 2007, 05:10
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I have no trouble accepting the animal origins of the various beastmen tribes or the retention of species-specific attributes as manifested by their use of tools and weapons. But, …
18 Jun 2007, 04:55
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He's sitting on his own head? "Sitting in the very center of it [the Sleigh track], in a massive, high-backed chair of dark wood, was a man bigger than I had ever conceived that a …
17 Jun 2007, 07:57
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One of Nashhwonk's fingers was as large as Cutthroat's wrist and his legs were longer than Cutthroat was tall, so it depends. Allowances have to be made for size differences due to…
17 Jun 2007, 07:55
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Again, contradictory thoughts, but I can't seem to help it. Then our views of this story are further apart than I thought. We agree that Cutthroat is not the same type of being as…
16 Jun 2007, 23:48
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Some scattered, even contradictory thoughts. Good. I relented and read CotW, not a book I could honestly recommend to anyone much past puberty. But there can be no doubt it influe…
14 Jun 2007, 18:12
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I won't know until I see the pictures! -Roy…
13 Jun 2007, 20:23
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Mantis plans to be there. I hope you're taking a camera. -Roy…
13 Jun 2007, 18:15
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and I won't be bored, and anyone who would be shouldn't be reading this stuff anyway. -Roy…
11 Jun 2007, 04:41
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Disclaimer: I have not read _The Call of the Wild_, and I'm not going to just to analyze this story. But I've read a synopsis, and that was more than enough to convince me that wh…
10 Jun 2007, 06:37
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I don't buy the Cutthroat-as-dog theory. This story smacks of moral and religious overtones that have no relevance to a dog. Even granting genetic manipulation that transformed ani…
09 Jun 2007, 07:30
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Looking at that again, that's a misrepresentation of his theory, which is not so much about the Fall as it is about the Cain and Abel story. Just to clarify. -Roy…
08 Jun 2007, 21:04
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(There's Funny, that parenthetical part was part of an argument I made here years ago concerning who switched the Christmas gifts at Den's maternal grandfather's house. There's no…
08 Jun 2007, 07:27
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I don't remember what I may have said about this story in the past, but I read it again, along with Borski's comments. It's hard to argue against his interpretation of a bastardize…
08 Jun 2007, 07:22
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(Daniel D. Jones, in a subsequent post, has anticipated some of my points or at least implied them, but I'll say this anyway.) It's funny how tastes differ even among those who re…
02 Jun 2007, 15:56
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Looking back at the above, I hope that my meaning was not construed as somehow insulting to the members of this list; far from it, as I am obviously in the same boat. What I meant …
19 May 2007, 15:48
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I've read the book again. about what exactly happens at the end of Castleview. In the archives, the two most compelling versions were that 1) the whole Arthurian “good vs. evil” t…
16 May 2007, 19:25
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material doesn’t seem to be here: [. . .] I’ve always wondered with this book if I’ve been shown enough of the Arthurian myth that the rest is supposed to be there as well. I’m sti…
09 May 2007, 06:02
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Welcome, Jessica. The confusion exhibited by newly revivified persons has been termed "resurrection shock" by someone, probably mantis. Severian himself experienced it at the Sang…
23 Apr 2007, 05:54
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The alien must have known that the blast from his engines would kill the native, so the question becomes: Was it his *intention* to kill?, and, if so, why? The alien had been safe …
19 Apr 2007, 06:34
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It is less important to know which story Wolfe was trying to "fix" than it is to know why he thought it needed fixing. Given that he is a religious man, it might be assumed that he…
18 Apr 2007, 06:14
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A key to understanding this story is the exact nature of the glamour cast over the people in asteroid memorial #19. It causes people to look better than they really look; the very …
06 Apr 2007, 06:30
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Sue was admittedly guilty, which brings up another point. Male-female relationships, more specifically, marriage, have a lot to do with this story. I mean, March, out in the boondo…
05 Apr 2007, 21:39
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Seeing the statue of the "Founder" in a fake paradise as representing Wolfe has an obvious appeal, but . . . what about the larger part of the story, the relationships among the f…
05 Apr 2007, 04:37
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Only one of the essays really touches on the first two SOLDIER books, if that's what you wanted to know. The rest is similar to SL, but isn't concentrated on the Urth Cycle. -Roy…
03 Nov 2006, 19:38
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I should probably just let this go, but . . . As I have said, there are no contradictory statements in the text about breast feeding. I will try it one more time. I notice that no…
02 Nov 2006, 09:16
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The apparent contradiction about who suckles whom and when played a large role in why I theorized that Severian might not have been born in the tower. I'll set aside for the moment…
29 Oct 2006, 21:04
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The complete cited sentence was: "Two children borne by her earlier were already grown." The presence of the verb "were", following "borne", changes the sentence structure, making …
29 Oct 2006, 04:30
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I guess that what I get for being economical and not repeating myself. <g> My "Baby Severian" post of the 18th dealt with much of your argument. Most of the criteria for acceptance…
28 Oct 2006, 04:57
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Gentlemen: The dictionary citations both of you have given support my reading. This is the sentence: "Perhaps I was too distant from myself, from the Severian of bone and flesh b…
28 Oct 2006, 02:53
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Precisely. My _Webster's_ says the same thing. That's why Wolfe didn't write "born by"; he wrote "borne by". "Born" has nothing to do with the sentence in question. The word isn't …
27 Oct 2006, 07:27
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That on-line dictionary isn't worth the paper it's printed on. <g> It takes a right turn and makes Catherine the focus rather than Severian. I think he's referring to Catherine a…
27 Oct 2006, 04:17
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Damn. I may have done Wolfe and myself an injustice by conceding too quickly. <g> Wasn't there a similar discussion not too long ago about "forebears" or some such? "Borne" is the…
26 Oct 2006, 19:59
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Ah, yes, so it does. It also contradicts the passage I quoted earlier: "[ . . .] a breast running with warm milk. It was my mother's breast then, and I could hardly contain my ela…
26 Oct 2006, 19:25
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Correct. The saint never existed and was removed from the canon in 1969. -Roy…
26 Oct 2006, 19:24
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It may have come from his memory of her annual feast appearance. It may have come from one of his extra-textual time trips to the past. It may have come from some other person. Hu…
26 Oct 2006, 04:43
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Eidolons were not mere projections. They were flesh and blood so long as the machinery used to sustain them was in operation (witness the motley bunch who fought for Severian again…
26 Oct 2006, 04:28
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Okay, I'll bite. A friggin' 'female' android as Holy Katharine? Are you serious? That would really screw up Severian's family tree. <g> While checking a spelling just now, I took …
21 Oct 2006, 07:10
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Neither did he recognize her as the maid who played Holy Katharine, which he could hardly have failed to do. Exultants weren't usually buried in the necropolis at all. They were b…
20 Oct 2006, 21:50
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I think it would be rather strange that the torture and death of a woman who looked just like the maid who annually played Holy Katharine would have gone unnoticed and unmentioned …
19 Oct 2006, 05:54
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I know of no examples in the books of any class other than exultants having khaibits. The maid who played Holy Katharine was not as tall as Thecla. The other women who are presumed…
16 Oct 2006, 07:26
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I'm glad you brought this up. I was going to post about it but didn't. It wasn't until I read "Books in _The Book of the New Sun_" in PE, then looked at the two places in the text …
16 Oct 2006, 05:27
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Come to think of it, I might be wrong about that. There is another way that Thecla's family tree can have something to do with Severian without his being related to her by blood. I…
12 Oct 2006, 19:24
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You just ruined what I was writing! <g> I was bringing up some of the same points, even the King Arthur bit. I agree, it would help if we knew who the parents were of the half-sist…
07 Oct 2006, 19:24
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Severian did not speak, in Canog's hearing, of his life before going to Yesod and winning a New Sun, of his rise from apprentice to autarch. He spoke as the Conciliator. He talked …
03 Oct 2006, 16:51
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Well, Severian was writing ten years after he became autarch. So the gap between his becoming "king" and the "Cataclysm" was actually fifty years for those who remained on Urth. I …
01 Oct 2006, 19:26
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I don't really have much to add except to point out that when the incantation is repeated near the end of CITADEL, "glass" has been replaced with "grass". I don't know if it is a t…
18 Sep 2006, 05:12
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[snip] The rose, most directly, symbolizes the Claw. The Claw symbolizes the "Eternal Principle", all that is sacred and holy. (CITADEL, chapter XXXI) [snip] I don't think so. I…
11 Sep 2006, 06:43
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