Subject: (urth) Sussex Carnifex

From: Nigel Price <nigelprice1 at compuserve.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:18:09 +0000

On holiday in West Sussex last week, I was surprised, driving around the
Chichester ringroad, to come across a large road sign apparently directing
me to "Terminus Est".

A further circuit of the roundabout I was attempting to negotiate revealed
that the sign actually read "Terminus Ind Est", which still sounded vaguely
threatening if marginally less lupine. Chichester, was , of course, an
ancient Roman city, but the meaning of this particular Latin phrase eluded
me until I got back to our holiday bungalow by the coast and was able to
consult a map, whereupon I discovered that the sign was in fact directing
drivers to the Terminus Road Industrial Estate...

                        --0-0--

My thanks to Mantis for the extremely wonderful and ever-so-useful Lexicon
Urthus. I read it from cover to cover when I first got it a few years ago
for the sheer pleasure of having so much explained so well. Rereading the
Book of the New Sun in preparation for this August's Wolfe symposium in
Birmingham, I am now, finally, using it in the conventional manner as a
handy reference work and dictionary of Urthisms. Still great fun, and
absolutely invaluable.

                        --0-0--

And while I'm in an enthusiastic and generally laudatory mood, I ought to
express my thanks to Jonathan Laidlow for getting issue 1of Ultan's Library
organised and published. I somehow got credited with being a co-editor for
this splendid journal, though apart from some hasty proof reading during my
lunch hour (and I never did get round to checking Potto's articles) and
cobbling together a hasty review of On Blue's Waters (the finishing touches
to which were literally added while my children sat in the car impatiently
waiting for me to drive them off on the aforementioned holiday - shows,
huh?), my main contribution was standing on the sidelines and cheering
Jonathan on while he did all the hard work. (Should I now sign
contributions to the Urth list "Cyby"? And incidentally, why can't I find
Cyby in the Lexicon Urthus or any of the three volumes of additions and
errata?)

Greatly enjoyed reading all the articles and reviews, including those by
Urth-list regulars Nick Gevers (Potto), Michael Andre-Driussi (Mantis) and
Robert Borski (canis terribilis cum quinque capitibus). Very excited, too,
at the news that Peter Wright is publishing a book of his studies on Wolfe
next year, to be called "Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the
Reader".  I admire the clear-sightedness of Peter's analysis of the Urth
cycle no end, and enjoyed his review of The Book of the New Sun in Ultan's
Library much as I enjoyed his previously published articles, but I'm still
not sure that I agree with all the conclusions he draws from his analysis.
To me, his reading of the Urth cycle seems overly deterministic, but I need
to do an awful lot more work before I can - maybe - come up with a
convincing counter-argument. (I'm working on it!) I would love to hear what
others think of Peter's interpretation of Severian's narrative.

Nigel Price (aka Cyby)

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