{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1502",
    "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": 1502,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v025.n003",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-04-08T20:06:20+00:00",
    "last": "1999-04-08T20:06:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0025-0031@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-04-08T20:06:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v025.n003",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Thank you for your kind words about the Lexicon.  It doesn't give the\nname of the boatman, I don't think, but Robert Borski and I are in\nthe habit of calling him one version or another of \"Charon,\" since he\nis so obviously linked to the ferryman of the dead."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis favors Charonus, if I remember correctly, while I like Caron,\nbecause there's a saint by that name. I also believe it's possible that\nBecan's father is named similarly. Granted, he's no ferryman figure; but\nhis son and granddaughter do wind up being eaten by the alzabo, a houndlike\nbeast that in all probablity has come to Urth from Saint Anne, one of the\nsister worlds in Wolfe's THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS. So the Stygian\nconnection, although different in context, is still preserved.   "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I suppose when we all grow up and get serious we will call him\n\"Boatman I, XXII\" (\"boatman eye-twenty-two\") in contrast to \"Boatman\nI, II.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Actually, I argue elsewhere they're both the same--Severian having an\nenormous amount of difficulty in recognizing members of his own family\n(which may explain the Contessa in the Path of Air enigma, since with raven\nhair and a dark complexion she resembles Mom). And the woman Boatman 1 asks\nabout may be (or so he hopes) Dorcas, who if she's drifted free of the Lake\nof Birds (since he can't find her there) may have wound up in the river."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "    She not only grasps his hand, she is pulling him _down_. Next thing\nwe\nknow, he is near-drowned at the edge of the water, with barely enough\nstrength to save his sword. Dorcas is already out of the water and helps\nhim\nto safety. When Sev raises the dead it always weakens him, and the\nnewly-risen dead are always befuddled. So what happened between chapters,\nwhen they were both underwater?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Roy raises an interesting point here, and my take on it is unorthodox. I\nbelieve that the hand pulling him down belongs to Juturna or one of the\nother undines--remember, we've already been told \"There's been some sort of\ntrouble on the river\" (similar words underscore the appearance of undines\nlate in CITADEL) and what others describe as manatees--the very human faces\nof which may have inspired our legends of mermaids--may be one of the\nBrides of Abaia. The same attempt to mate may also  have been extended\nlater to Baldanders (remember the dream Sev co-opts when they're sleeping\nin the same bed?), only Baldanders accepts, and the result is the child\nSeverian later describes as Baldander's catamite. At least this makes more\nsense to me than arguing that the hand which is pulling him down is also\nthe one that later pulls him up.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "    She regurgitated some of the lead weights on the night she and Sev\nparted ways in Thrax."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Anybody willing to buy that this may also be symptomatic of morning\nsickness? Severian and Dorcas have been having sex long enough for her to\nbe entering this stage of pregnancy, and it's interesting to note that nine\nor so months later, when Severian sees Dorcas for the last time in Oldgate,\n\"on the floor near her was a basket, not small yet not large either.\" Could\nthis basket perhaps contain a baby?\n\nAnd last but not least let me add my welcome to Dr. Gevers (I loved the\nNova Express review, and like all good reviews it made me want to reread\ntBotLS) as well as applaud the new Laidlow project. Long may you both\ncontribute to the fruitful study of Gene Wolfe.\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}