{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1946",
    "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": 1946,
    "subject": "lazaret stories in context",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-11-09T09:01:06+00:00",
    "last": "1999-11-09T09:01:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0444@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-11-09T09:01:06+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) lazaret stories in context",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hallvard's Story--\"The Two Sealers\"\nMelito's Story--\"The Cock, the Angel, and the Eagle\"\nLoyal to the G17's Story--\"The Just Man\"\nFoila's Story--\"The Armiger's Daughter\"\n\nWe can and do isolate the four lazaret stories to illustrate various points\nabout this, that, or the other thing.  Even Severian does (I'm thinking of\nhis later use of Melito's story).\n\nMany people (nobody posting on this list, mind you) seem to take these\ntales as pleasant little idyls, discursive tangents to the main thrust.\nAnd they might well be.\n\nBut there is a context to these four tales, a context that is relatively\nclear and easy (compared with the context of, say, the brown book--which is\nboth a \"Best of\" anthology and an oracular device): a competition among\nsuitors for a bride.\n\nThe point is, therefore, to \"win the girl\" for the suitors (and to allow\nher predetermined decision to be revealed in a soft-yet-firm way, for the\nbride-to-be; because yep, as so often in Wolfe fiction, the \"fight\" is\nrigged).\n\nWe know something about the suitors, and they reveal more about themselves\n(how each sees himself, what each offers to the maiden, why each one is the\nbest candidate) through their stories.  Seducing Foila =and= Severian (or\nbetter, seducing only Severian, since he is the \"judge\"--Foila is beyond\nseduction).\n\nWe can pore over every nuance and detail of these different male\nlove-songs, seeing how each slights the other, what gift each promises,\netc.  A delicious mystery, the heart tanglements of a courtship rite.\n\nOr we can take the female path of stone cold sobriety:  Foila gives her\njudgement of the suitors in \"The Armiger's Daughter.\"\n\nSlam dunk; home run; game over.  The fight was rigged from the start.  But\nthat didn't make it unworthy to participate in.\n\nOf course (to return to the notions of the earlier paragraph), we can apply\nthis interpretation of a facet (the lazaret stories) to the gem (Severian's\nnarrative) as a whole.  But we need not.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}