{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3221",
    "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": 3221,
    "subject": "brown book stories, their relevance",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-05-06T23:37:24+00:00",
    "last": "2002-05-06T23:51:53+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-882@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-06T23:37:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) brown book stories, their relevance",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Josh Geller quoted blattid and wrote:\n                                                           ... It's\npretty clear why the story of Dr. Death is present in \"The Island of\nDoctor Death and Other Stories\"; it's a little less clear why the\n\"brown book\" stories are present in tBotNS, but there's no doubt in\nanyone's mind that they're fiction and that they're there for a good\nand sufficient reason."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "They are not just fiction: they are myth. They express patterns of history\nin easily understood and transmissible terms.\n\n'The Story Of The Student And His Son' is (among many other things) the\nstory of the Monitor and the Virginia (the Merrimac: from the US civil\nconflict of the 1860's) overlaid upon the story of Theseus.\n\nThe one about the wolves and 'Fish and Frog' is (again, among many other\nthings) an interplanetary war overlaid on the founding myth of Rome."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I wrote \"A Closer Look at the Brown Book\" (New York Review of Science\nFiction #54, Feb. 1993).  I remain quite interested.\n\nTo blattid: I think there are strong parallels between the stories and\nSeverian's story: clearly they are oracular to Severian's situation, but I\nwanted to trace them down and find what patterns I could.  Patterns they\nshare with each other, patterns they share with the Urth Cycle. They seem\nto impart a sense of the vast sweep of posthistory, giving a historical\nfeeling.  The shortest answer might be to say that they are hologramic\nfragments of the entire Urth Cycle.\n\nTo Josh Geller: But I don't recall an interplanetary war in \"The Tale of a\nBoy Called Frog.\"  The childhood and youth of the person who would\neventually become the first galactic Emperor, yes, I can see that--but\ninterplanetary war within the tale, that escapes me.  Please tell me more!\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nLexicon Urthus out of print!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-883@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-06T23:51:53+00:00",
      "subject": "RE: (urth) brown book stories, their relevance",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0205-882@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Mantis said some stuff."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "To blattid: I think there are strong parallels between the stories and\nSeverian's story: clearly they are oracular to Severian's situation, "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Precisely -- they are parables, as I said the other week; but they are\nat least partially parables he tells to himself, for his own benefit."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "To Josh Geller: But I don't recall an interplanetary war in \"The Tale of a\nBoy Called Frog.\"  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Dude, the whole bit where Frog's brother comes and they fight and they build\nthe city."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}