{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2183",
    "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": 2183,
    "subject": "Brothels",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-04-06T17:52:35+00:00",
    "last": "2000-04-06T17:52:35+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0889@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-04-06T17:52:35+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Brothels",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "<excerpt>At 02:08 PM 3/30/00 +1000, you wrote: \n\n  \n\nFinally, does Wolfe have a thing about brothels or what?  Featured\nprominently in 5HC and the Long Sun series, and also in TBNS, especially\nShadow.  Where does this interest come from I wonder?  Korean War? \nOr...\n\n\n</excerpt><<<<<<<<\n\n\n\tThe brothel is a counterfeit of the Church, the Great Harlot of the Book\nof Revelation. That's pretty clear in 5HC, where the address is 666\nStreet of the Counterfeit (Humbug). The line of clones is pretty much the\nAntichrist, as the chilling last line of the first novella hints, a\nself-contained humanity trying to achieve transcendence without true\ninteraction with others, without heterogeneity. Harlots are the same:\nwomen without true marriages, children, lives -- stuck in sterility and\ndoomed to a sad fate at the end: used up and cast out. Sterility versus\nheterogeneity seems to be pretty much the theme of the triad of novellas,\nand is seen later on as the humans try to wipe out the aborigenes, who\ntry to become human (heterogeneously); is seen in the practice of\nslavery; etc.\n\n\tIn Shadow, I take it that this state-run brothel is like the Harlot of\nRevelation, who rides on the back of the Beast (state power). Again, a\ncounterfeit of true love, of the Rose of Severian's grave, the Rose for\nwhich he searches, and in terms of which search he never makes the\nmistake of visiting the brothel again. (The symbolism may make more sense\nwhen you realize how much a role the sacraments of baptism and communion\nplay in the Severian narrative, both in positive and \"counterfeited\"\nforms.) The brothel here is also part of the perversity of the Autarchy,\na form of \"circuses\" maintained to keep the population in line (\"Wanna\nmake it with an exultant? Well, here's your chance, buddy!\"). Wonder why\nthis world needs to be washed clean in a new flood? \n\n\tFinally, in Nightside, the counterpoise of brothel and manteion is,\nshall we say, pregnant with meaning. Again, later on, Silk's love for\nHyacinth is Christ's love for His wayward bride. It's all pretty\nconventional. \n\n\tSo, I don't think we should try to pry into Wolfe's personal life for\nthis. It is very standard Christian symbolism.\n\n\nJBJordan"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}