{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3044", "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": 3044, "subject": "not so sure about this...", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-03-18T05:52:27+00:00", "last": "2002-03-18T21:20:01+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-03-18T07:04:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) not so sure about this...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andy stated:\n As I thought - Wolfe is obeying internally generated mythic imperatives \nin creating these patterns. He does not know if Ushas/Lune is Blue/Green,\n and he can't tell us.\n As I thought - Wolfe is obeying internally generated mythic imperatives \nin\n creating these patterns. He does not know if Ushas/Lune is Blue/Green,\n and he can't tell us." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "all I can say is that Nick did not ask specifically if Urth was Blue; he asked \nif St. Croix and St. Anne fit in thematically. Wolfe claims he does not know \nif he is using mythic patterns in that quote, not that he doesn't know whether \nurth and blue are the same. He just doesn't know how St. Anne and St. Croix \nmight be related ... I see the exact opposite of how you interpret that ... \nbut I think Gene knows whether Urth is Blue or not. I'm sure he does. He \njust won't say for sure because, (I quote him) \"it would spoil your fun\". He \nbacks off any question that touches on Blue and Urth - I think he is proud of \nhiding their connection so well, and hides behind his uncanny dodging ability.\n Remember how he keeps claiming that the primary inspiration behind Severian \nstems from his sorow at not having a character for a masquerade party? That's \na pretty insipid inspiration for the fine work of art he produced ... I think \nWolfe knows if Blue and Green are Ushas and Lune, but I'm not sure if he knows \nwho Severian's sister really is. Just my two cents. Also, another point from \nthe interview: the godlings have sonar, don't forget. Pig claims he can \"hear\" \nwhere the foliage is even if he is blind. There is more than one or two hints \nthat they themselves might be mechanical. But the distinction between organic \nand mechanical life has become blurred in the texts.\nMarc" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-03-18T05:52:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) not so sure about this...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It really does seem to me that much of this discussion is based on a\nprofound error about the way people write.\n\nIn some part a writer is an explorer - discovering, rather than unpacking,\nwhat is in the text.\n\nIf you read Wolfe's own essay on Severian, the one where he says that the\nstory of Severian started as a novella in intention, you will see this\ncoming through loud and clear.\n\nYou may reply that Wolfe has reworked the books from start to end.\n\nI agree, but still, in this case, it seems to me that the discoveries move\nfrom being linear (located at the end of the advancing text) to being\nhologramatic - located at multiple points in the mutating text.\n\nI don't think Wolfe knows everything about what is going on. He builds a\nstory, but as he builds it the relationships between the characters and\nevents conjure new things into life. Half-accepted facts become\nirresistably obvious. Minor characters reveal unforseen aspects. Obscure\nbackground events mutate and change.\n\nAnd mythic patterns perist, and occur again and again. The historic\nrelationship between he Blue world and the Green world is one of these\npatterns.\n\nWe would do better to wonder what the Green World *represents* in a mythic\nsense. Obviously both St Anne and Green are loci of human suffering and of\nvisions. The Green World seems to me to be a marginally spiritual\nreflection of the Blue one.\n\n\n hartshorn\n\n\n\n----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"maa32\" \nall I can say is that Nick did not ask specifically if Urth was Blue; he\nasked\nif St. Croix and St. Anne fit in thematically." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-03-18T21:20:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) not so sure about this...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- maa32 wrote:\nAndy stated:\n As I thought - Wolfe is obeying internally generated mythic\nimperatives \nin creating these patterns. He does not know if Ushas/Lune is\nBlue/Green,\n and he can't tell us.\n As I thought - Wolfe is obeying internally generated mythic\nimperatives \nin\n creating these patterns. He does not know if Ushas/Lune is\nBlue/Green,\n and he can't tell us." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "all I can say is that Nick did not ask specifically if Urth was Blue; he\nasked \nif St. Croix and St. Anne fit in thematically. Wolfe claims he does not\nknow \nif he is using mythic patterns in that quote, not that he doesn't know\nwhether \nurth and blue are the same. He just doesn't know how St. Anne and St.\nCroix \nmight be related ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In fact, Nick Gevers asked two questions, and it's not clear whether\nWolfe answered the first, the second, or both.\n\nNG: Can your readers usefully view The Fifth Head of\nCerberus as being set in the same science-fictional universe as New\nSun, Long Sun, and Short Sun? Why does Fifth Head's pattern of\nblue/green sister worlds recur so tantalisingly in Urth/Lune,\nBlue/Green?\n\nGW: I don't know.\n\nI suspect that Andy Robertson is right that Wolfe is saying that he\ndoesn't know why the blue/green pattern recurs, but wrong in saying\nthat Wolfe doesn't know whether the planets are \"really\" the same.\nWolfe may also be saying that he doesn't know whether readers can\nusefully link the fictional universes. He doesn't say a word about\nwhether Blue is Ushas--largely, perhaps, because Nick didn't ask\n(although he certainly gave Wolfe the opportunity to comment).\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but I think Gene knows whether Urth is Blue or not." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...\n\nI strongly suspect you're right, and if anyone else gets a chance to\ninterview him, I hope he or she asks straight out, in three words." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jerry Friedman" } ] } ] }