{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2", "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": 2, "subject": "Map of Severian's journey on foot", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-04-10T11:41:34+00:00", "last": "1997-04-12T22:00:55+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1997-04-10T11:41:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Map of Severian's journey on foot", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, here's my contribution to Urth-mapping. Mantis was quite right when he\nsaid I hadn't even begun writing it up formally, but there may be an\nadvantage in presenting it to you guys informally, so that you can savage\nit with your sharp teeth, and I can then perhaps correct some weaknesses.\nThose of you who purchased mantis's addenda to Lexicon Urthus have already\nencountered a version of this map (though it's not correct).\n\nThe map is, in the main, psychological and associative (and it may be more\nan indication of my psychology than Wolfe's intention). At any rate, it\nrequires two large geological assumptions. The first is that the continent\nof Africa has pushed north to the point that the Mediterranean, mostly dry,\nhas dwindled to a river, Gyoll, flowing southeast from an origin somewhere\nin the Alps. If you squint at a current map of the area, you can make out\nGyoll flowing down through the Red Sea and its tributary, Acis, descending\nfrom the Black Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardenelles to join it. The\nsecond assumption is that the entire area has migrated around the world to\nwhere South America is now. \n\nNow lay a ruler northwest across that map from the Red Sea to Switzerland,\nand you'll have a rough path of Severian's journey from the Matachin Tower\nto the camp of the Pelerines. He starts at Alexandria (associations are the\nLibrary and St. Catherine, with the towers of the Citadel somewhat echoing\nthe ancient Pharos). The next major stop is Crete, where the House Absolute\nechoes the labyrinths of Knossus, and the vaguely Louis XVI aspect of the\nantechamber echoes the frequent comparison of the women on Cretan vase\npainting to the court ladies of Versailles. Next is the Stone Town, Athens\n(I remind you that the Cumaean—who may be an inhumu—and Merryn are also\ntravelers, so it's certainly not Cumae), and here imagine that the Stone\nTown is at the exact latitude and longitude that Machu Pichu (or\nwherever—choose your own Latin-American stone town) occupied at the time of\nApu-Punchau.\n\nAfter this, Severian deviates from the ruler, and travels up Acis in a\nnortheasterly direction to Thrax, the old Thrace—Istanbul, from the golden\ndomes on the palace and the vaulted underground cistern. He then travels\noverland to the west, and things take on a distinctly Slavic aspect:\nCasdoe's little cottage and the alzabo itself seem almost to come from some\nSlavic folktale. I placed Mount Typhon originally at Etna on Sicily, but,\nfollowing Graves, I could be argued into placing it at Mount Haemus, in\nThrace. This, however, would spoil my assumption that the sorcerer's\nvillage is in Albania (see below). \n\nStill traveling overland, Severian arrives at Lake Diuturna, which covers\nRome. That may seem curious to you, but in fact mantis and I together\nresearched the real Lake Diuturna quite thoroughly, and came to the\nconclusion that Urth's Diuturna almost surely (in this schema) covers Rome.\n(Note too, that the undine, Juturna, has the same name, indicating,\nperhaps, that she was once the nymph of the lake before she grew so large.)\nFinally, Severian ends up at the Pelerine camp, in Orythia, Switzerland,\nwhere their Red Cross flag mirror the white cross on red of the Swiss flag,\nas well as symbolizing neutrality and medicine. It is true that Master Ash\ncomes from a more northern tradition (Scandinavian), but he too is a\ntraveler from elsewhere.\n\nWeaknesses: One of you pointed out that Holy Katharine and the Library,\netc. refer only to a small district of Nessus, and that is true. When I\nfirst began to think about this mental map, I thought that Nessus was a\nkind of amalgamation of all the ancient and fabled cities of the eastern\nMediterranean, and in a sense it is. But you have to start somewhere, and\nthis is where I started. Hey, it works for me.\n\nI hesitated a long time over Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantium. The\ndistinctly provincial nature of Thrax seemed a long way from that ancient\ncourt of emperors, and the topography of the City of Crooked Knives seemed\nso different from that of the Golden Horn. But everything has changed\neverywhere. The geography fits, and I finally decided to blame it on\nearthquake.\n\nAlbania: Putting the sorcerers' village in Albania is based on something I\nread somewhere that gave a very colorful account of how isolated and\nbarbarous and witchy the Slavic Albanian tribes were. I thought it might\nhave been in the 1914 Russian Baedeker, but it isn't. Lord Byron's letters\n(1809) are certainly colorful about Albania, but that wasn't it either, nor\nthe Britannica. I will continue to look—if anyone has a clue, perhaps from\n19th-century travel writing or from a Roman writer, I'd be grateful. The\nold name is Illyricum, if that helps. (And of course I know how foolish it\nis to assume that Wolfe has read something I can't even place and had the\nsame reaction to it.) \n\n-alga-" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "revjack at radix.net", "address": "revjack at radix.net" }, "date": "1997-04-12T22:00:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Map of Severian's journey on foot", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Thu, 10 Apr 1997 11:41:34 -0400, Alice Turner wrote:\n\n: OK, here's my contribution to Urth-mapping. \n\nSay, got any five-way intersections on any of those maps there? :)\n_________________\nrevjack at radix.net" } ] } ] }