{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1230", "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": 1230, "subject": "Miles & Jolenta", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1998-10-29T17:39:46+00:00", "last": "1998-10-30T09:58:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at smtp.emailserv.com" }, "date": "1998-10-29T17:39:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Miles & Jolenta", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One strong argument against Miles and Jolenta's being actual siblings (or\nlookalikes) is that *Jolenta* doesn't look like Jolenta. The original is a\nplain serving girl whom Dr. Talos has endowed with artificial glamour. The\nartificiality is what is attractive to Jonas.\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-10-30T00:16:45+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 17:39 1998-10-29 -0500, you wrote:\nOne strong argument against Miles and Jolenta's being actual siblings (or\nlookalikes) is that *Jolenta* doesn't look like Jolenta. The original is a\nplain serving girl whom Dr. Talos has endowed with artificial glamour. The\nartificiality is what is attractive to Jonas." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's right. Anyway, what is all this about Miles looking like Jolenta?\nSeverian doesn't show him Jolenta's face in the mirror, he shows him his\nown! That's how mirrors work, even on Urth - this is only a shaving mirror,\nnot (half of) one of Hethor's portable teleporters.\n\nCitadel, ch VI:\n\n \"What do you remember? Tell me all of it, and I'll tell you what I know,\n and what I can guess.\"\n\n \"Walking with you. A lot of darkness.... I fell, or maybe flew\n through it. Seeing my own face, multiplied again and again.\n A girl with hair like red gold and enormous eyes.\"\n\n \"A beautiful woman?\"\n\n He nodded. \"The most beautiful in the world.\"\n\n Raising my voice, I asked if anyone had a mirror he would lend us\n for a moment. Foila produced one from the possessions beneath her cot,\n and I held it up for the soldier. Is this the face?\"\n\n He hesitated. \"I think so.\"\n\n \"Blue eyes?\"\n\n \"...I can't be sure.\"\n\nCondensed, this goes:\n\n \"Seeing my own face, ...\"\n\n \"Was this the face?\" - holding a mirror in front of him.\n\nThe face that he saw, in other words. The blue eyes Severian queries\nare the soldier's \"honest blue eyes\" (next page). The soldier appears\nto remember being Jonas, and Severian is asking him to compare the\nface he remembers seeing in the mirrors with his present face. It\nisn't physically the same, of course, but it keeps reminding Severian\nof Jonas, and the soldier can be forgiven for having the same problem,\nhaving been reprogrammed with Severian's idea of Jonas's memories.\nNothing to do with Jolenta at all.\n\nSceptical Bear." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1998-10-30T01:10:02+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Peter Westlake wrote:\nThat's right. Anyway, what is all this about Miles looking like Jolenta?\nSeverian doesn't show him Jolenta's face in the mirror, he shows him his\nown! That's how mirrors work, even on Urth - this is only a shaving mirror,\nnot (half of) one of Hethor's portable teleporters." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank goodness (and evilness, to preserve duality)!\n\nI am glad that someone else interpreted this passage in the same way I did,\nwhich seems to me to be the only sensible way to interpret it. In fact, I\ncouldn't figure out what mantis was talking about when he stated his\ninterpretation, until I went back and read the passage again. I suppose it\nis possible to read the passage his way, but I think to do so is to\nneedlessly complicate matters. When Severian says, \"Is this the face?\" he\nis referring back to Miles's statement, \"Seeing my own face [that is\nJonas's], multiplied again and again\" not to his vision of (a woman who\nmight be) Jolenta.\n\nThe fact that Miles seems to have memories that belong to Jonas is mystery\nenough without creating new ones that I think Wolfe never intended or even\nthought of.\n\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-10-30T09:58:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sceptical Bear wrote:\nCondensed, this goes:\n\n \"Seeing my own face, ...\"\n\n \"Was this the face?\" - holding a mirror in front of him." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yup, that works for me. \n\nStrictly speaking, I think the passage can be read either way: when\nMiles says \"Seeing my own face, multiplied again and again. A girl with\nhair like red gold and enormous eyes\", it -can- be interpreted as\n\"seeing my own face... [which was that of] a girl with hair like red\ngold...\" But it's a complicated interpretation, and I'm only too happy\nto be wrong in favour of a simpler one.\n\nIt's interesting that Mantis and I made the same misreading, though (if\nhe'll accept that it -is- a misreading). There seem to be certain\nambiguous passages in Wolfe that you either interpret one way or another\nthe first time you read them, and that's how it gets hard-wired in your\nbrain: it never even occurs to you on further readings that it might be\nread a different way. I'm thinking of the rats' \"writing\" on the walls\nof Ultan's library, for example." } ] } ] }