Subject: (urth) Dr. Talos' Play

From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 15:33:20 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Friends,

    Has there ever been a serious study of the myriad themes and elaborate
symbolism in the play of Dr. Talos in _Claw of the Conciliator_? I've read it
several times over, yet still cannot understand the symbolic qualities of
certain roles. All in all, however, the play is a work genius, but the arcane
style eludes me.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html
------------------------------------------------
"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path"
-Brendan Perry

---

From: Tony Ellis <tellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 09:22:57 +0000

19/11/97
                                                                      09:09
 RE>Dr. Talos' Play

Christopher R. Culver wrote:

>symbolism in the play of Dr. Talos in _Claw of the Conciliator_?

No, so let's start one!

>I've read it
>certain roles.

I'm not sure that we're supposed to look for any deep symbolism in the
characters of the play. This is a story about the end of one world and the
beginning of a new one, and in that sense the play as a whole 
"symbolises" Severian's story - as the opening lines of the chapter say,
it is based on the lost "Book of the New Sun". Interestingly,
we don't actually get to the incidents dramatised in the play until
"The Urth of the New Sun".

As we might expect from a play called "Eschatology and Genesis", this
is also a re-telling of the Genesis story. The Biblical Genesis story is
itself a re-telling of earlier Sumerian genesis stories, as I'm sure Wolfe
knows. There is even a throwaway reference to a Greek genesis myth:
in Greek mythology the survivors of the flood are told to repopulate the
world by throwing stones (the bones of Mother Earth) over their shoulders,
and in the play we have:

MESCHIANE: It might come to life. I heard something once about
raising sons from stones.

The names Meschia and Meschiane... I have an idea that these are the
names of Adam and Eve in another (Hebrew?) genesis myth. Any ideas?

A lot of stories didn't make it into the collection of texts we know as the
Bible, but have just the same provenance. These can be found in the 
Apocrypha, and one of them is the story of Lilith - Adam's first, discarded
wife, today a byword for a demonic seductress. In the play, this is clearly
Jahi.

Nod, the giant, is one of the Nephilim. Go back to the Biblical Genesis
story and you'll find the Nephilim described as the offspring of angels
and the "Sons of God" - one of those little details which reminds us that
this story originated as Sumerian creation myth. Who were the Sons of
God? Nobody knows for sure, but they obviously have no place in the 
conventional Christian universe.

I have plenty more to say, but no more time... I look forward to everyone
else's input!

---

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 02:15:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #0905837 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

A few quick notes (because I just can't stop myself):

1) I say the play has seven acts and they probably describe a divine
week, with the final act coming on (New) Sunday.  The Autarch is
Saturn (Saturday); Jahi is Venus (Friday); and so on.  We never see
the last act of the play, which is too bad, but it would be an
interesting exercise to "reconstruct" it from the reality of deluge
Urth/post-deluge Ushas.

2) alga has said before that the play is more about the =Persian=
creation myth than either the Hebrew or Sumerian.  (Does Sumer have
Titan-like Nephilim?  I don't recall offhand, unless those shadowy
"judge" characters of the underworld who never really appear in the
main stories.)

3) I think the play is quite gnostic at the mythic level; I think it
shows a lot of the dynamic between Severian and women (especially
Agia and Dorcas, who really are Lilith and Eve) at the psychological
level; I think it is constantly being acted out in the course of all
five books.

=mantis=