{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1452", "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": 1452, "subject": "Ascians", "messages": 6, "voices": 6, "first": "1999-03-29T01:22:46+00:00", "last": "1999-03-31T12:48:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1999-03-29T01:22:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ascians", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From SWIMMING WITH THE UNDINES, Excerpt #4:\n\nIn THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH, the concluding volume of Gene Wolfe's New\nSun quartet, a very strange scene takes place. A battle between the Ascians\nand the Commonwealth has been raging; during a temporary lull, however,\nSeverian, our narrator and the novel's protagonist, notes the following:\n\n\"The savages seemed to have vanished. A new force appeared in their place,\non the flank that had now become our front. At first I thought they were\ncavalry on centaurs, creatures whose pictures I had encountered in the\nbrown book. I could see the heads and shoulders of the riders above the\nhuman heads of their mounts, and both appeared to bear arms. When they drew\nnearer, I saw they were nothing so romantic: merely small men--dwarfs, in\nfact--upon the shoulders of very tall ones.\" (CITADEL, 180)\n\nOnly later, as Severian immerses himself in the fray, does he realize the\neven more bizarre aspect of these ridden tallmen:\n\n\"One of the tallmen dashed forward...As he drew nearer he slowed, and I saw\nthat his eyes were unfocused, and that he was in fact blind.\" (181)\n\nPossibly, dear friends, these passages sound familiar in a déjà lu kind of\nway--especially if you've traveled the larger Wolfe universe. Because these\nblind tallmen with their dwarf riders actually first appear in \"'A Story,'\nby John Marsch,'\" the middle novella of THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS. John\nSandwalker, along with his newly-made allies, the Shadow children, is being\nstalked by four marshmen at this juncture. Fortunately, Sandwalker and\ncompany are anything but defenseless:\n\n\"A man loomed in front of him and Sandwalker kicked him expertly, then\ndrove the head down with his hands to meet his knees; he took a step\nbackwards and a Shadow child was on the man's shoulders, his fleshless legs\nlocked around the throat and his fingers plunged into the hair. 'Come,'\nSandwalker said urgently, 'we have to get away.'\n\n\" 'Why?' The Shadow child sounded calm and happy. 'We're winning.' The man\nhe rode, who had been doubled over in agony, straightened up and tried to\nfree himself; the Shadow child's legs tightened, and as Sandwalker watched,\nthe marshman fell to his knees.\"\n\nSomewhat later, then:\n\n\"The marshman who had dropped to his knees a moment before rose shakily,\nand guided by the Shadow child on his shoulder's staggered away [back\ntoward the pit]... The four men were there, three of them with riders on\ntheir shoulders, the fourth moaning and swaying, scrubbing with bloodied\nhands at the bleeding sockets of his eyes.\" (p.104-105, Scribners).\n\nGiven that the Shadow children of FIFTH HEAD are pygmy-sized, and the\ntaller, ridden marshmen have been blinded--the same particulars being\nrecapitulated with the tallmen cavalry in CITADEL--is Wolfe trying to tell\nus something about the Ascians--that, in fact, they're Annese in origin?\nSurely, this is not that subversive an idea; remember, according to Wolfe,\nthe abos of Ste. Anne are actually deracinated Adamic stock, having come to\nthe green world in several earlier migratory waves. Could not, at some\nfuture's remove, the Annese, aided and abetted by the reintroduction of\nspacefaring, make their way back to the mother planet? Indeed, Severian\nhimself claims such returns are quite normal in THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN, as\nhe's travelling from Briah to Yesod. \"In ancient times,\" says he, \"the\npeoples of Urth journeyed among the suns. [And while] many others stayed on\nthat world or this, many came home at last.\" [1] So it's certainly well\nwithin the Wolfean range of ideaspace that such a repatriation may have\ntaken place. But other than the tallmen riders, is there any other evidence\nfor this?\n\nWell, consider the alzabo. Somehow, it manages to makes its way from Sainte\nAnne to Urth (this, of course, presupposes you accept the ghoul bear =\nalzabo notion). It's possible the Annese may have brought it back with them\nas zoetic transport--imported fauna from home to populate a vivarium and\nperhaps provide a study or nostalgia base for future generations.\n\nThen there's green Lune. Might not the original impulse behind its\nforestation be to remind the displaced Annese of their home world? It's\nalso been orbitally shifted, if we're to believe old Rudesind, who\ndescribes a painting of a smaller, grayer moon thusly: \"Doesn't seem so big\neither, because it wasn't so close in.\" Again, by moving the moon in to\nmake it appear larger--a faux sister world--could this have been done by\nthe heartsick Annese, pining for Sainte Anne?\n\nThen there are several passages in CITADEL that echo either implicitly or\nexplicitly similar passages in FIFTH HEAD. Witness, for example, Ava's\nremark to Severian in the lazaret where she is a Pelerine postulant and he\na recovering patient: \"Ascians are not human.\" Compare this with the\naccount of Mrs. Blount in 5H, who describes the native Annese with similar\ndispassion: \"We called them the abos or the wild people. They weren't\nreally people, you know, just animals shaped like people.\" And for\nsomething almost directly echoic, consider Dr. Hagsmith's remark about how\nthe abos are \"not...really human.\"\n\nMeanwhile, back on Urth and still in the thick of battle, Severian apprises\nus of yet another salient detail: \"I think I must have cut down half a\ndozen Ascians before I saw that they all looked the same--not that they all\nhad the same face, but that the differences between them seemed accidental\nand trivial...All had large, brilliant, wild eyes, hair clipped nearly to\nthe skull, starved faces, screaming mouths, and prominent teeth.\" This too\nhas a parallel in FIFTH HEAD, where, as we're told by Number Five, because\nof the small population base, \"most of us have a kind of planetary face.\"\nAnd how very much like some mad machination of Maitre, whose outsourced\nWolfe clones, especially if they're allowed to reproduce, might well come\nto dominate the Sainte Croix gene pool. Indeed, though the words are\nAppian's, the following might well summarize the end, if subconscious,\nresult of Maitre's cloning experiments--even more so if they're continued\nby Number Five and his successors: \"They [the Ascians] wish the race to\nbecome a single individual...the same, duplicated to the end of number.\"\nGranted, the Wolfes of Saint Croix are hardly Annese autochthons (except\nfor possibly Aunt Jeannine); but even if refractive, I still maintain the\nparallels are germane.\n\nBut what about the abos' characteristic lack of manual dexterity? Is there\nanything in the New Sun books that seems to indicate the Ascians are any\nless impaired? In my opinion, no. From what Severian tells us the Ascian\nregulars are equipped with energy spears--not exactly weapons that appear\nto require a great deal of cheiral finesse. And while the dwarf tallriders\nalso utilize bows-and-arrows, if the marshmen of Sainte Anne can weave and\ndeploy fishing nets, it does not seem that big of a stretch to imagine them\nnotching an arrow and pulling back a bowstring (recall as well Victor's\nexpertise with ropes and knots--Dr. Marsch being most impressed with this\nif we're to believe his diary entries).\n\nEven Severian the Great eventually seems to realize the Ascians are\nsomething other than simple battle foes. At least that's how I interpret\nhis asking Appian, \"Who are they?\" Or as he elaborates in asking for yet\nfurther clarification from the old autarch, \"I asked who they are, sieur. I\nknow they're our enemies, that they live to the north in the hot countries,\nand that they're said to be enslaved by Erebus. But who are they?\" What\nexactly, however, isn't covered by Severian's précis? Could it be planet of\norigin? A not-so-much who are they, but what are they? At any rate he's\ntold by Appian, \"Who they are you will discover in due time,\" although we\nnever hear Severian disclose any such result within the New Sun narrative\nframe. (And yet he does spend a year with them later. Is this a clue?)\n\nBut if indeed the answer to Severian's triply-asked question is that the\nAscians are our old friends and lost cousins, the abos of Sainte Anne,\nlet's consider the delicious irony of this. In classical mythology, because\nthey live in the torrid zone, the Ascians have no meridian shadow twice\nyearly (Ascian actually means 'without shadow'). If we accept the notion\nthat shadow represents soul--a popular motif in fairy tales--and that\nhaving souls makes us uniquely human [1], it seems possible to connect the\nshadowlessness of the Ascians with their enslavement to Erebus, one of\nUrth's alien great monsters. Having apparently returned to their mother\nworld in some glory (imagine the resources needed to terraform and shift\nthe moon), rather than be content with this, the Annese/Ascians have chosen\nto cast their lots with megatherian Erebus, a being named after the\nunderworld darkness beneath Hades through which all dead must pass. In\nother words, now soulless, the former Shadow children have gone apenumbral,\nbecoming in a completely different sense, well, yes, shades--and by so\ndoing forfeit both humanity and future.\n\nBut then in many respects this is what FIFTH HEAD is about, even if it does\nunofficially conclude in a series about transcendence and resurrection: a\ndescent through various levels of darkness, and ending in hell.\n\nFor surely, repatriated to Urth, but mocked by forested green Lune in the\nskies above them, this is where the Shadow children and their brethren have\nwound up--enslaved by an alien overseer, condemned to speak in stock\nphrases, shadowless in the dying, sun-impoverished inferno of home. In\nwhich case Severian's year-long sojourn among them might well represent not\nso much diplomatic niceties, but the harrowing of hell itself.\n\n[1] Actually, I reversed clauses for effect here. Your indulgence is\nbegged. \n\n[2] Wolfe as Master Ash seems to endorse this view when he has Ash relate\nthe tale about how \"a man sold his shadow and found himself driven out\nwherever he went.\" Why? \"No one would believe that he was human.\"\n\nRobert Borski" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1999-03-29T14:46:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ascians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Another possible link between Ascians and abos from St. Anne?\n\nNAME LANGUAGE\nUrth English (phonetic form of Earth)\nVerthandi Old Norse\nSkuld Old Norse\nLune French\n\nNot only does the orbit of the sister worlds Urth/Lune replicate that\nof St. Anne/St. Croix, but the language \"French\" is used to name the\none (presumably the last of the terraformed worlds; presumably\nterraformed or at least named by a different civilization than the\none that terraformed Mars and Venus) and spoken by abos on the other\n(\"remember, you're =French=\").\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-03-29T16:19:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: Ascians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nNAME LANGUAGE\nUrth English (phonetic form of Earth)\nVerthandi Old Norse\nSkuld Old Norse\nLune French" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Urth is also Norse. It's another name for Urd, the third of the three\nNorns. Verthandi was the Fate of the Present, Skuld Fate of the Future,\nand Urth Fate of -surprise surprise - the Past." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Rabin", "address": "danrabin at a.crl.com" }, "date": "1999-03-30T23:11:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ascians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski has pointed out some very close correspondences between\nWolfe's treatments the Annese of _Fifth Head_ and of the Ascians of _New\nSun_. I don't, however, find myself persuaded to his conclusion that they\nare the same race in the subcreated (to use Tolkien's terminology) world of\nthe books. Rather, I think the correspondences are a manifestation of\nWolfe's tendency to use the same motifs repeatedly.\n\nOne of Wolfe's most consistent concerns is to probe the boundaries of what\nit is to be human and to remain human. Not just the cloned line and\nshape-changers of _Fifth Head_ and Erebus's slaves in _New Sun_, but also\nthe narrator of \"The HORARS of War\" and of \"The Other Dead Man\" and Dr.\nTalos and Baldanders and the gods (and inhumi) in _Long Sun_ and the\nroomful of corpses in \"The Packerhaus Method\" all represent Wolfe's\ncontinual prodding at this thin line. If Wolfe employs similar inventions\nto treat a recurring theme, must we interpret these recurrences as multiple\ndescriptions of a single feature of the subcreated world, or can we just\nassume that he finds the imagery compelling? I generally prefer the latter\nexplanation (although I'll be the first to admit that I leaped to\nconclusions about a certain \"Twice-Headed Pas\" when reading _Nightside the\nLong Sun_).\n\nIn the specific case of the Ascians, I find it more satisfying as a reader\nto think of them as being actual Urth humans who made a bad deal with\nErebus, thereby losing their humanity (in the view of the Pelerines). I\nthink that \"Loyal to the Group of Seventeen's Story\" establishes the\nessential humanity of Ascians: Severian notes that the ability to tell a\nstory cannot be crushed, and perhaps we are to take storytelling as a proxy\nfor Wolfean humanity. In _New Sun_ itself the encounter with the Ascians\nis preceded by an encounter with zoanthrops, whose nonhumanity is asserted\nby Severian to little Severian and never contradicted.\n\nI'm certainly glad to have these recurrences pointed out, but I don't think\nthey imply identity.\n\n -- Dan Rabin" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-03-31T12:48:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ascians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Another connection, to augment rather than contradict the ideas so far:\n\nIn Vance's _The Dragon Masters_, the human beings breed dragons from\ntheir reptilian alien enemies, who in turn breed mounts from humans.\nThey are farther from the human form than the blind Ascians, but very\nreminiscent all the same. And we know Wolfe is a Vance fan.\n\nPeter." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-03-31T09:35:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ascians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, Dan Rabin wrote:\nIf Wolfe employs similar inventions\nto treat a recurring theme, must we interpret these recurrences as multiple\ndescriptions of a single feature of the subcreated world, or can we just\nassume that he finds the imagery compelling? I generally prefer the latter\nexplanation (although I'll be the first to admit that I leaped to\nconclusions about a certain \"Twice-Headed Pas\" when reading _Nightside the\nLong Sun_)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Am I right in understanding you to mean that you feel you leaped to that\nconclusion too soon, rather than that you disagree that Pas=Typhon?\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }