{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/257", "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": 257, "subject": "Dr. Talos' Play", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-11-16T15:33:20+00:00", "last": "1997-11-20T02:15:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-11-16T15:33:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Dr. Talos' Play", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Friends,\n\n Has there ever been a serious study of the myriad themes and elaborate\nsymbolism in the play of Dr. Talos in _Claw of the Conciliator_? I've read it\nseveral times over, yet still cannot understand the symbolic qualities of\ncertain roles. All in all, however, the play is a work genius, but the arcane\nstyle eludes me.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html\n------------------------------------------------\n\"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path\"\n-Brendan Perry" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1997-11-19T09:22:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Dr. Talos' Play", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " 19/11/97\n 09:09\n RE>Dr. Talos' Play" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Christopher R. Culver wrote:\nHas there ever been a serious study of the myriad themes and elaborate\nsymbolism in the play of Dr. Talos in _Claw of the Conciliator_?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, so let's start one!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've read it\nseveral times over, yet still cannot understand the symbolic qualities of\ncertain roles." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not sure that we're supposed to look for any deep symbolism in the\ncharacters of the play. This is a story about the end of one world and the\nbeginning of a new one, and in that sense the play as a whole \n\"symbolises\" Severian's story - as the opening lines of the chapter say,\nit is based on the lost \"Book of the New Sun\". Interestingly,\nwe don't actually get to the incidents dramatised in the play until\n\"The Urth of the New Sun\".\n\nAs we might expect from a play called \"Eschatology and Genesis\", this\nis also a re-telling of the Genesis story. The Biblical Genesis story is\nitself a re-telling of earlier Sumerian genesis stories, as I'm sure Wolfe\nknows. There is even a throwaway reference to a Greek genesis myth:\nin Greek mythology the survivors of the flood are told to repopulate the\nworld by throwing stones (the bones of Mother Earth) over their shoulders,\nand in the play we have:\n\nMESCHIANE: It might come to life. I heard something once about\nraising sons from stones.\n\nThe names Meschia and Meschiane... I have an idea that these are the\nnames of Adam and Eve in another (Hebrew?) genesis myth. Any ideas?\n\nA lot of stories didn't make it into the collection of texts we know as the\nBible, but have just the same provenance. These can be found in the \nApocrypha, and one of them is the story of Lilith - Adam's first, discarded\nwife, today a byword for a demonic seductress. In the play, this is clearly\nJahi.\n\nNod, the giant, is one of the Nephilim. Go back to the Biblical Genesis\nstory and you'll find the Nephilim described as the offspring of angels\nand the \"Sons of God\" - one of those little details which reminds us that\nthis story originated as Sumerian creation myth. Who were the Sons of\nGod? Nobody knows for sure, but they obviously have no place in the \nconventional Christian universe.\n\nI have plenty more to say, but no more time... I look forward to everyone\nelse's input!" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-11-20T02:15:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Dr. Talos' Play", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0905837 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nA few quick notes (because I just can't stop myself):\n\n1) I say the play has seven acts and they probably describe a divine\nweek, with the final act coming on (New) Sunday. The Autarch is\nSaturn (Saturday); Jahi is Venus (Friday); and so on. We never see\nthe last act of the play, which is too bad, but it would be an\ninteresting exercise to \"reconstruct\" it from the reality of deluge\nUrth/post-deluge Ushas.\n\n2) alga has said before that the play is more about the =Persian=\ncreation myth than either the Hebrew or Sumerian. (Does Sumer have\nTitan-like Nephilim? I don't recall offhand, unless those shadowy\n\"judge\" characters of the underworld who never really appear in the\nmain stories.)\n\n3) I think the play is quite gnostic at the mythic level; I think it\nshows a lot of the dynamic between Severian and women (especially\nAgia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve) at the psychological\nlevel; I think it is constantly being acted out in the course of all\nfive books.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }