Subject: (urth) New Sun! New Sun!

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 23:01:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #5828452 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

 . . . but just to show that I am still being chant caught, vatic in
the vortex, consider the appendix to CLAW.  Wolfe says there are
seven social classes in the Commonwealth.  I've read that appendix
several times at least, yet this time I suddenly said, "Seven?!"
Because even the non-wooly can see that seven is an important number,
for instance, the days of the week (and yes, this does tie back into
THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY but I promise, I pledge not to go that far).

So I looked at the social classes with an eye: exultant, armiger,
optimate, commonality, servants of the throne, religious, cacogen.
The first one to jump out was the warrior class of armigers, so I
assigned them to Mars and Tuesday; then the optimates to Mercury
and Wednesday; and the religious to Apollo/Sun and Sunday.

The others took a bit more thought.

Exultants, being the deposed aristocracy, fit well with Saturn and
Saturday (Typhon being Satan--er, "Saturn" himself); if this is the
case, then the servant of the throne go with Jupiter (traditionally
The Emperor) and Thursday.

Since the Moon has a sometimes adversarial role with the Sun
(eclipse) I set the cacogens to Moon and Monday, which works wonders
when we consider the shifting between poles of light and darkness
(full moon to new moon and back) as similar to the cacogens aiding the
Commonwealth at times and the Commonwealth's enemies at other times
(Baldanders, for instance); leaving the commonality to Venus and
Friday.

Wha-hoo!

=mantis=