{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1107",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1107,
    "subject": "Sev and Thecla in childhood + Free Live Free",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-09-22T10:30:31+00:00",
    "last": "1998-09-22T10:30:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0019-0010@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Stephenson",
        "address": "pws at ifh.de"
      },
      "date": "1998-09-22T10:30:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Sev and Thecla in childhood + Free Live Free",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Jon Camfield wrote:\n\"...I played again with pebbles in the courtyard beside the fallen curtain\nwall, as Thecla dodged the hooves of my father's mounted guard\" \n(II, XXV, 204)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I do find it hard to escape the implication that Severian's real\nfather is intended, and that somehow Severian and Thecla combined have\nworked out who he is --- what else could it mean?  No dream or\ndaydream in the Book is that alone, just as nothing real fails to have\nthe faint aura of a dream.  I'm not convinced it makes sense that they\nknow, but maybe a strong likeness with a bit of subconscious deduction\nis intended.\n\n\nFree Live Free:\n\nI didn't really like this.  Part of the problem is Wolfe's\npost-New-Sun style, which for my taste contains too much flabby and\nunenlightening dialogue over trifles (all right, so at least it's\nrealistic :-)).  To go with the offbeat story, I was expecting more\nsense that something deeper was going on, but didn't get it.\n\nOn the whole I quite liked the ending even if I didn't quite\nunderstand how it all tied in.  The fantasy element seemed\nunconnected with the rest of the novel, though that's not so uncommon\nin modern fiction (John Fowles' `A Maggot' seems to have something\nsimilar going on).  Maybe it's all down to Wolfe's wish to write a\nparticular sort of not-quite-mainstream novel.\n\nCorncrake"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Peter Stephenson <pws at ifh.de>       Tel: +39 50 844536\nWWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/\nGruppo Teorico, Dipartimento di Fisica\nPiazza Torricelli 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}