Subject: (urth) Can it be?! It is! Another Batch of Infrequently Asked Questions

From: Talarican <exultnttalarican at mindspring.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 23:21:57 +0000

Severian, Dorcas, and the abandoned Jolenta, Sev argues with Dr. Talos to
allow him a short time alone to attempt to heal Baldanders. Talos humorously
retorts to Severian that Baldanders isn't ready to die yet. Sev replies that
it is life, not death, he offers. Talos' sarcastic reply: "Where's your
friend?". (- as in- I don't see your life-giving counterpart anywhere
around?! )

At no point has Jonas, long since departed to Mirrorland, been mentioned.
But later, Severian tells Dorcas that Talos was asking about Jonas.

Is Wolfe signalling us that Jonas is somehow to be considered "life" to
Severian's "Death"? (Not Talos, as Talos probably wasn't intentionally
referring to Jonas; indeed, he probably had forgotten the inquisitive
stranger at the Piteous Gate. Not Severian, who connects this remark to
Jonas only by failing to comprehend the doctor's sarcastic wit as such.)  If
so, what is the point?

V:XXXVII What's up with the _Alcyone_'s cook and her silence (except the
one "please")? She looks at  Declan "with a significance [Severian] did not
understand" after he announces that they will speak to the magistrate on Sev
's behalf, and "meantime do what we can in other ways". What else did Declan
intend to do (aborted in any case by Sev's summons to Typhon) and what was
the significance of the cook and her glances?

I:XIII When Master Palaemon starts to explain to the newly disgraced
Severian the terms of his exile, he mentions "_Twice_ before members of the
guild have been dispatched to outlying towns, though whether those were such
cases as this the chronicles do not say." (Emph. mine) Well of COURSE the
chronicles do not say, Master, the point of all this is to sweep this
scandal under the rug! Don't want an Inquisitor getting interested in
matters mentioned in the chronicles, do we?
And what a neat evasion on Palaemon's part. I suspect he knows all too well
the circumstances of at least one of those two previous cases, right? But he
said the chronicles do not say, not that he doesn't know!
What happened in the _other_ case of a journeyman being sent forth from the
Matachin Tower? Was he anyone we ever heard of?

III:XXXIII At Castle Baldanders, when Famulimus and Barbatus set Sev
straight regarding their lifespan, Baldanders interjects with "These things
live only a score of years, like dogs". His tone "told [Sev] more than is
written here, for each word fell like a stone dropped down some deep
 cistern". Aside from the contempt obvious in B's choice of words, what did
his tone convey to Severian?

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/