{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/297",
    "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": 297,
    "subject": "Catherine the Weal; Essays lost in Space and Time",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-01-21T17:21:47+00:00",
    "last": "1998-01-21T17:21:47+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0006-0440@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-01-21T17:21:47+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Catherine the Weal; Essays lost in Space and Time",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I would also love to see Clute's essays.  \"Strokes\" was at one time in\nthe list from Amazon.com, but they lost touch with Serconia Press when\nit (apparently) moved.\n\nSo Clute thinks that the old Autarch was Severian's mother?  Yikes!  I\nknow there are many places where the autarch is described as androgynous\nor feminine-looking, or whatever.  Eventually we find that he was\n\"unmanned\" as punishment for failing to bring the New Sun.  I don't\nrecall who is alleged to have performed that punishment, and it doesn't\nstrike me as the sort of thing the heirogrammates would be into.  What\nis his evidence, or was he (*ahem*) going mantic on us?\n\nOn a similar topic, I recall reading an essay on the old Arpanet (the\ndaddy of the Internet, for those of us Too Young To Remember), which had\na great many excellent points to make about TBOTNS.  I even had a copy\nof it which I kept forgetting to print out, and so it is lost to me\nforever.  It had some very interesting things to say about the rose\nsymbolism, and about Severian's geneology, and so on.  Most\ninterestingly, it was the first place I recall seeing the \"time\ntravellers\" explanation of Severian's career.\n\nThat is (and I'm dredging this up from the depths), the essay said\napproximately: \"Once there was an autarch of modest accomplishments, a\nfreebooter who lucked into the autarchy by being in the right place at\nthe right time. His reign showed some promise, however, and like his\npredecessor he tried to bring the New Sun but failed. In his far future,\nsomeone decided that if only he had been a little better, had lived a\nlife that prepared him better for the test, he might have succeeded. So,\nthey came back and gave him that life, and he did.\"\n\nIs this what you think TBOTNS is \"about?\"  Do you recognize the essay? \nDo you have a copy of it?\n\n     -- vizcacha\n     (david_lebling at avid.com)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}