{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1453",
    "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": 1453,
    "subject": "\"Eschatology and Genesis\"",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-03-29T04:13:34+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-29T12:52:53+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0095@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-29T04:13:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"Eschatology and Genesis\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "    When, in chapter XXXVII of _Urth_, Herena, Declan, the mate, and the\ncook visit Sev in his cell and ask him to relate to them how old Urth will\nfare when the New Sun comes, he knows scarcely more than they. He therefore\ndraws upon his knowledge of Dr. Talos's play for the information. Dr.\nTalos's play, many centuries later, is based upon the myths and legends\nextant from the time of the Conciliator, that is, from Sev himself as he\nrelates it in his cell. Never mind Canog, who also wrote the story down; he\nwas just a scribe.\n    My question is this: Whence the story? What is its genesis? Who was the\noriginal author in this chain of story tellers?\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0096@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-29T12:25:50+00:00",
      "subject": "re: (urth) \"Eschatology and Genesis\"",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0024-0095@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\n    My question is this: Whence the story? What is its genesis? Who was the\noriginal author in this chain of story tellers?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, like the note the protagonist gives to himself in \"The\nTechnicolour Time Machine\", or the poems of William Ashbless in \"The\nAnubis Gates\", the joke here may be that no one quite originates the\nstory, that it's a closed loop.\n\nBut the \"original\" author is Severian himself. He's the one who actually\nwitnesses the end of Urth and lives to write about it. Sev witnesses\nUrth's last day, Sev writes about it, Sev presumably casts his narrative\ninto the seas of Time. (I say \"presumably\" because I can't remember if\nhe ever actually says he is going to do this or not - but surely the\nimplication is there.) If you can accept that Severian's narrative\nconstitutes, either wholly or in part, the \"lost\" Book of the New Sun on\nwhich Dr Talos says his play is based, rather than Canog's text, then no\nparadox exists."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0097@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-29T12:52:53+00:00",
      "subject": "re: (urth) \"Eschatology and Genesis\"",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0024-0096@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\nMy question is this: Whence the story? What is its genesis? Who was the\noriginal author in this chain of story tellers?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, like the note the protagonist gives to himself in \"The\nTechnicolour Time Machine\", or the poems of William Ashbless in \"The\nAnubis Gates\", the joke here may be that no one quite originates the\nstory, that it's a closed loop.\n\nBut the \"original\" author is Severian himself. He's the one who actually\nwitnesses the end of Urth and lives to write about it. Sev witnesses\nUrth's last day, Sev writes about it, Sev presumably casts his narrative\ninto the seas of Time. (I say \"presumably\" because I can't remember if\nhe ever actually says he is going to do this or not - but surely the\nimplication is there.) If you can accept that Severian's narrative\nconstitutes, either wholly or in part, the \"lost\" Book of the New Sun on\nwhich Dr Talos says his play is based, rather than Canog's text, then no\nparadox exists."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}