Subject: Re: (urth) random thoughts:

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:10:30 +0000

I am still thinking about your fasinating idea about the trees eating and
recombining with Horn in the pit.

I am not convinced, quite, but I agree that Horn's time in the pit was a
death-and -ressurection experience.    The similarity with the bit in THE
URTH OF THE NEW SUN where Severian dies and is re-embodied (on the Ship,
after a disasterous fall) is significant, I think.

Just starting my third rereading of RETURN TO THE WHORL

    hartshorn

(But I'm increasingly convinced that Blue and Green are Ushas and
broken-free Lune,  and the the Whorl has returned home.  Yes)

Questions or problems: write ranjit at urth.net

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From: Joe Eull <lo_phan17 at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 04:54:53 +0000

From: "Andy Robertson"

> death-and -ressurection experience.
Horn writes at the beginning of the chapter something about if to write this
episode it should end the book. He says I believe, that, it signified the
end of the best part of his life. I took this to mean that Horn was destined
from that point to go to green.

   The similarity with the bit in THE
> after a disasterous fall) is significant,

Severian is rescued there by friends. Zak and Gunnie were there.(Although
Gunnie had tried to kill him). This isn't true of Horn.

A similarity I see is that both involve a supernatural beings. Does simple
form Zak (bouncing ball Zak) have the same powers as The Tzadkiel who towers
like a pine?  Babbie to Neighbour as Zak is to Tzadkiel? It seems Horn is
touched by a neighbour, maybe in a way similar to the annointing that makes
him think of strange whorls before he goes into the sewer on Green. From the
pit he goes to their kitchen on Lizard, but he can't drink from the ladle.
The narrator says something here that's significant. It's earlier, when he
first regains consciousness. He compares it to the instance where he died on
Green, but says returning to his body are the memories are the body's, not
the spirit's. It's like a half resurrection, his spirit is still dead. What
does that say for the touch by the neighbour, does it complete it?

Joe

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