Reply: Item #4282998 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#
(gee, the place is nearly dead . . . )
Ori,
The Main Point of Clute's seminal Wolfe essay (1986) is that Severian's mother is Catherine, who is also <drum roll> the Old Autarch, hence "Catherine the Weal."
Along the way are a number of interesting minor points: contrary to what I posted before, Thecla is referred to as a "deep sister" (rather than the deep aunt I misremembered); it is Cyriaca who is termed a "shallow aunt."
Christopher,
By kabbalah (and these terms are from kabbalah), the chain of
universes should go:
Briah--Yesod--Malkuth (our universe)
OTOH the appendix to book one (re the translation of the manuscript) mentions that Gene Wolfe has examined artifacts from Urth, and in fact has been allowed to visit and photograph the era's few extant buildings. Suggesting at first that Urth is within our universe, just within our future; or at second, that something more wild and wooly is at work--a brief guided jaunt to another universe?
=mantis=