{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1436", "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": 1436, "subject": "Death of the Navigator", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1999-03-17T03:25:17+00:00", "last": "1999-03-17T03:25:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1999-03-17T03:25:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Death of the Navigator", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From SWIMMING WITH THE UNDINES, my latest on-going project, Chapter 16:\n\nAfter Severian and Jonas are arrested on the grounds of the House Absolute,\nthey're confined in an underground antechamber, where a large remnant\nprison population already exists. Unlike themselves, however, many of their\nfellow inmates have never known a single day of freedom. Quite a few, in\nfact, appear to have been born there, as have their ancestors before them,\nperhaps even as far back as fourteen generations. Consequently--and small\nsurprise, given such long-term isolation--prisoners' perspectives about the\noutside world tend toward the skewed, ludicrous side. Bees--\"animals that\nmade their own sugar\"--carried \"poisoned swords\" and \"were the size of\nrabbits.\" So reports cyborg Jonas at one point, having in addition to say\nthis about the oral, passed-on nature of such misapprehensions. \"Family\nmemories, I suppose, you could call them. Traditions from the outside world\nthat have been handed to them, generation to generation, from the original\nprisoners from whom they are descended. They don't know what some of the\nwords mean any longer, but they cling to the traditions, to the stories,\nbecause those are all they have; the stories and their names.\" \n\nAnother one of these stories is later relaid to Severian by a little girl\nwhose name is never given, but which we later learn in URTH is Oringa.\nAsked why he wears black clothes, Severian attempts to explain, prompting\nthis response from Oringa: \"Burying people wear black. Do you bury people?\nWhen the navigator was buried there were black wagons and people in black\nclothes walking. Have you ever seen a burying like that?\"\n\nSeverian, quite honestly for his experience, tells her that no one wears\nfuligin clothes at funerals because it would mark the wearer--and\nscandalously so for the deceased--as a torturer. He then attempts to change\nthe subject. But we as readers are still left with several questions. Is\nthere, first of all, any relevence to this tale of the navigator? Who, for\nexample, might this mysterious figure be that details about his funeral\nhave been transmitted down through the ages, from one generation of\nprisoners to the next? Is he a true navigator in the denotative sense? Or\nis 'navigator' one of those words that the prisoners have lost all sense\nof, except perhaps metaphorically? Initially, given Jonas's history--he's\nthe patched survivor of a spaceship crash--it's tempting to see the\nnavigator as part and parcel of the same crash, only as a casualty. But how\nlikely is it that the survivors of such a mishap could organize a funeral\ncortege like the one described, especially since it appears they've landed\nin extremis, not only in the future, but subject apparently to life-long\narrest by the autarch's representatives? And why does Wolfe seem to place\nsuch special emphasis on not only the blackness of the wagon, but the fact\nthat people walked behind it?\n\nThe answer is not that difficult if you think about it. Gene Wolfe, after\nall, is a staunch Catholic. And the Book of New Sun is filled with\nindelible memories. So it's seems only fair that author Wolfe be allowed to\ninclude one of his own--especially since it also comprises one of this\nnation's most searing. Ergo, for those of you not yet born, or too young to\nremember, let me reprise the circumstances of that dark weekend (while\nthose of you who were of age try, try, not to recall where you were when\nyou heard the horrible news).\n\nOn November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, Catholic President John Fitzgerald\nKennedy--he who attempted to steer us through the perilous straits of the '\n60s--was shot dead by an assassin's bullet. Three days later, in\nWashington, DC, Kennedy's coffin was transported to Saint Matthew's\nCathedral atop a black horse-drawn caisson, followed by the rest of the\nfuneral entourage on foot, because the widow of the slain president refused\nto ride in a \"fat, black cadillac.\"\n\nJFK as navigator. Assassinated to be sure, but never forgotten, even after\nuntold milennia. Especially by present-day, Catholic sf writers.\n\nBut now then, you say--how is it possible that people from our times--the\noriginal generation that passed on the tale of the navigator--wound up\naboard the universe-crossing ship of the Hierodules? I believe Wolfe\nattempts to address this in URTH. Gunnie, at one point, is discussing\napports, the creatures occasionally caught in the ship's massive specular\nsails. \"Not all apports are animals,\" she says, \"though there's a lot more\nof those than anything else. Sometimes they're people, and sometimes they\nlive long enough to get inside the ship where there's air. You know, the\nothers on their home worlds must wonder where they went when they were\napported. Especially when it's somebody important.\"\n\nSo perhaps Wolfe's suggesting these people have been apported from our time\nto the ship--along with possibly such famous missing personages as Amelia\nEarhart, Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa!\n\nRobert Borski" } ] } ] }