{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1157", "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": 1157, "subject": "Valeria and Catherine and Peter and Doug", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-10-10T20:31:32+00:00", "last": "1998-10-12T07:46:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Charles Dye", "address": "raster at highfiber.com" }, "date": "1998-10-10T20:31:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Valeria and Catherine and Peter and Doug", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, that would require original thinking, and since it's much\neasier and cheaper to shoot at other people's clay pigeons..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Touche; that's fair, I guess. I'd hoped to simply delurk and plug a\nclay or two, then relurk; but I guess it's not to be. Okay, here are\nwhat I see as the most parsimonious explanations. (Call it \"biblical\nliteralism\" with a lowercase b, or perhaps \"lupine fundamentalism.\")" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "raster does not like the Corridors/Atrium of Time escape clause, but I'm\nsticking with it. Or to quote the LEXICON URTHUS entry for A of T: \"A time\ntraveling structure, like the Last House, located in the heart of the\nCitadel. Inhabited by at least Valeria and her old servant, it may also\nhouse Catherine.\" Like mother, like daughter, eh mantis (whose second larva\nhas recently emerged: Congrats!)? Of course we could both be wrong." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems to me that the Atrium and Valeria are time-travelers, but only\nin the sense that the Acropolis and William F. Buckley are: fossils,\nreminders of a distant past. Severian can enter the Atrium from below,\nbut can't find it from the air: sure, this is reminiscent of Master Ash's\nabode, but there are simpler explanations. Severian is not a veteran\naviator; he has difficulty with directions; the Citadel is a big place,\nand the Atrium is a small place, and none of the old maps fit.\n\nSeverian enters through the tunnels, but it doesn't appear that he exits\nthrough them. He seems to get back to the Matachin tower he knows anyhow.\n\nSecond larva: Why haven't we heard this from mantis? (Not that I\nautomatically reject everything you write, Robert.) Congratulations\nfrom me also." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "raster also brings up the-claw-has-never-vanished argument. To my mind, if\nsomeone steals my wife's wedding ring and I knew who it is, the ring has\nnot vanished. It's been stolen by a definite individual (as opposed to it\nsimply dematerializing, or burning, since diamonds, the hardest substance\nknown to man, are flammable). I also think the answer to the Hierodule's\ntwice asked question (it's even repeated once in italics)--\"Where did you\nget it?\" (I.e., the Claw)--and which is later revealed to be a test that\nSeverian has failed--is: \"I didn't get the Claw, it got me.\" It gets\nCatherine in the same way, I'd argue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I truly don't think the Pelerine uses \"vanished\" to mean \"dematerialized\" --\nshe knows someone has it, she just doesn't know where. I also get the\ndistinct impression that this has happened in the past, perhaps more than\nonce (the Pelerines regard it as part of the Master Plan), just not recently\nenough for Severian's mom to have been the culprit. Unless we invoke time\ntravel, of course.\n\nThen too, in the tradition of American statesmen, I have to ask: How do\nyou define the word \"is?\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also in regards to Caesidius resembling Severian (as Eata notes), this is\nbecause he is Severian's maternal grandfather. And Catherine, his daughter,\nis easily adult-age when the deluge strikes. Severian's been gone several\ndecades, after all." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Caesidius clearly does resemble Severian. This could be because of some\nfamily connection. It could also be pure coincidence -- my boss and I\nlook similar enough that folks mistake us for brothers, but it's not so.\nBut the solution that makes the most sense to me is that Valeria simply\npreferred, consciously or unconsciously, to remarry someone who looked\nlike her first husband. It couldn't have been too difficult; there are\non the order of 1500 noble families extant in the Commonwealth. Call me\nold-fashioned. I prefer my causes to precede my effects, only invoking\ntime travel where absolutely necessary.\n\nI noticed the other day that Peter Falk strongly resembles detective\nColumbo. A close cousin, perhaps? Which brings me to:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Question for raster, then (or Kieran M or anyone else.): who's the woman\narrested by the Praetorians in the loggia when Severian returns to the\nHouse Absolute (Urth, Ch. 41) since you seem to think my theory's full of\nballoon juice? I still say it's the *original* Katharine, she of canonical\nfame to the Torturer's guild. Who do you?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I nominate the Contessa Carina.\n\n\"But she's a fictional character!\" Yes. So are Severian, and Thecla and\nDorcas and all the rest. They are all creations of Gene Wolfe. Why\nshouldn't they meet one another?\n\nOr, if you prefer, she is a metafiction: a story within the story which\nis Severian's \"reality.\" If Severian can billypilgrim through time,\nsurely he can also slip between the \"layers of reality beneath the reality\nwe see\" which he mentions in Chapter 16 of Shadow. This contact between\nmetafictions has a definite Borges or Douglas Hofstadter feel to it. On\na more prosaic note, it could simply be an early warning sign of Severian's\ndeveloping messianic insanity. [1]\n\nI'd also like to point out that two of the actors in Dr. Talos's play go\non to live the roles they previously acted. Perhaps the play is the\n\"reality,\" and Severian's entire life a fiction constructed around it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, I'd be very happy to entertain anyone's elses notions of who Sev's\nmaternal grandparents might be. Of course, that would require original\nthinking, and since it's much easier and cheaper to shoot at other people's\nclay pigeons... " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Many of the puzzles in the Book have answers, but I don't think that all\nof them do. What's the name of the mason outside Jader's hovel? And even\nif we can all agree on a canonical set of grandparents (unlikely), is it\nnecessary to go further and name the great-grandparents?\n\nShort answer: I don't know. I'm not sure we're meant to.\n\nraster at highfiber.com\n\n[1] Has anyone seen Bruce Willis in \"Twelve Monkeys?\" I thought that flick\nhas a pronounced wolvish feel to it. I spent most of the movie wondering\nwhether Willis's character was a time traveler or just insane, before\nrealizing that he could be both...." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-10-11T02:46:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Valeria and Catherine and Peter and Doug", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Raster spoke:\n\n\nYes, and Severian does mention that he must have seen the place he sought many\ntimes.\n\n\nAnd continued:\n\n\nThe events of the latter half of the UotNS are indeed in Canog's Book of the\nNew Sun, from which Dr. Talos drew his play. I favour the idea that Severian,\nwho can now walk the corridors of time, met Canog once again and filled him in\non the latest happenings.\n\nTo Kieran: As for the idea that Wolfe is making use of cheap writing elements\nwhen he makes Severian's family the way it is, I offer this explanation: Wolfe\nis fallible. Aren't we all? And he does much the same thing in the BotLS.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html\n------------------------------------------------\n\"The darkest dreams are the ones that come true.\"\n-Warren Defever" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it" }, "date": "1998-10-12T07:46:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Valeria and Catherine and Peter and Doug", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Charles Dye wrote:\n[1] Has anyone seen Bruce Willis in \"Twelve Monkeys?\" I thought that flick\nhas a pronounced wolvish feel to it. I spent most of the movie wondering\nwhether Willis's character was a time traveler or just insane, before\nrealizing that he could be both...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For a time I thought so, but I finally found the film wasn't ambiguous\nenough: there seemed to be just the one interpretation that finally\nworked, unless he had some impressively consistent fantasies. Maybe\nI've read too much Wolfe? But it's normal for films to be much more\nexplicit than books, it's the nature of the medium. That would be the\nreal problem with a New Sun film, even more than the casting. The\nonly ambiguities filmmakers tend to let through are wallopping big\nones made with a sledgehammer, _this_ _is_ _ambiguous_. I felt that a\nbit about Blade Runner, for example: it doesn't make any kind of sense\nto me for Deckard to be a replicant but look! We've made an\nambiguity. (Too cynical? Never mind the cyn, write it anyway.)\n\ncorncrake" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Peter Stephenson Tel: +39 050 844536\nWWW: http://www.ifh.de/~pws/\nDipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarotti 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy" } ] } ] }