Subject: (urth) Time

From: David_Lebling <david_lebling at avid.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 13:37:54 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

What a great flurry of new activity! And some new blood as well. Yumbo!

On the illness of the sun:  It is stated in several places that the sun
is being devoured by a black hole.  That much is impossible to argue
with.  The debatable point is whether it's natural causes or murder.  It
seems pretty clear to me that it was done on purpose to weaken Typhon's
empire.  The coincidence is too unlikely otherwise.  Who dunnit?  The
obvious SFnal idea is that it's "the rebels," whomever they might be. 
The unobvious idea is that it's Severian himself, or more generally the
forces of good.  It's pretty clear that the sort of empire Typhon was
ruling is one you don't want as a neighbor, so...

On the mountains:  This may just be me reading things into the text that
aren't there (what! never!), but the mountains are clearly "all" carved
in the shape of people.  And it isn't just autarchs, either.  You could
look it up.

On geography, to CRCulver:  The action of the tetralogy takes place in
South America, and yet there is a great river that flows southwestward
over a plain, and great mountains to the north and east of the plain.
This isn't _our_ South America.  Either lots of time has passed (and
getting serious mountains in that end of SA is going to take a lot of
time -- the plate tectonics are all going the wrong way), or someone has
been fiddling.  On the other hand, the statement that such stuff has
stopped is a pretty strong argument for Deep Time.  Perhaps the same
technology that reshaped the continents froze them as well -- what a
nuisance if you get the continents where you want them and they start
drifting off again!

Tzadkiel and Severian:  Recall that Tzadziel can send slivers of itself
off as independent beings.  Now we have the suggestion that Severian can
do the same.  Perhaps Severian _is_ Tzadziel, in that sense?

Deep Time:  The hardest thing to believe about TBOTNS taking place 50
million years in the future is that _so little_ has changed.  People are
still people, exactly as they are now.  The average species lasts on the
order of three million years.  Even with all sorts of advanced
technology, would 50 million years have changed so little?

Wolfe is a master at making things simultaneously not be what they seem
and giving clues to the truth.  It's perfectly appropriate that it
should seem like millions (or even billions) of years have passed, just
as it seems that we're reading a sword & sorcery story at first.  After
all, one of many things the book is is an homage to _The Dying Earth_,
which is pretty clearly science fantasy.  One of Wolfe's goals was to
make the science fantasy into science fiction.  Vance's book doesn't
make sense as science fiction, so Wolfe spent a great deal of effort to
make sense of it.

     -viz
     (david_lebling at avid.com)

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:14:19 +0000

>with.  The debatable point is whether it's natural causes or murder.

How about this then:

Item: The Conciliator is sometimes referred to as "Dark Sun" (or "Dark Star"
can't remember which.)
Item: The New Sun itself is a White Fountain. This is described in the text
as being the opposite of a black hole, i.e. an erruption of matter from one
(lower) universe to another (higher) universe.
Item: There is a black hole in the Old Sun
Item: The White Fountain that is the New Sun was not born in the same
universe as Urth. (shaky here, but I thought that was mentioned in tUotNS)

So, speculation follows: the black hole that is destroying the Old Sun is
merely the necessary complement to the New Sun. One has caused the other,
and are both different sides of the same coin that is Severian.

North West Labs
Finisklin Industrial Estate
Sligo
Republic of Ireland

Tel. +353 71 69441
Fax. +353 71 69451
email: kierannwn at tinet.ie
-----Original Message-----
From: David_Lebling at avid.com <David_Lebling at avid.com>
To: urth at lists.best.com <urth at lists.best.com>
Date: Sunday, February 01, 1998 8:10 PM
Subject: (urth) Time

>     (david_lebling at avid.com)
works
>*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at
http://moonmilk.volcano.org/urth/
ranjit at best.com
whorl at lists.best.com

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 14:22:20 +0000

[Resending this, so apologies for duplication if any]

How about this then:

lasrach

North West Labs

Tel. +353 71 69441
Fax. +353 71 69451

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 12:50:45 +0000

Addendum to last message: I'm mixing up my terminology somewhat. To clarify:
the New Sun as an astrophysical object is the spanking brand new star which
results when the White Fountain does its rejuvination job on the Old Sun.
(Which of course you all knew, but I confused the two terms in my last
message).

lasrach

North West Labs

Tel. +353 71 69441
Fax. +353 71 69451

---

From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 14:18:53 +0000

>technology, would 50 million years have changed so little?

This is not exactly true.  I'm as yet unable to track down the reference, but I'm sure that the text mentions somewhere that the people of Sev's  era have evolved quite a bit from the Homo Sapiens Sapiens that we know today.  Or maybe it's in one of Wolfe's essays.  Anyway, this could support the FAR future setting for  The Book...if only I could track it down.  Of course, I've been looking for the "Coke bottle beaches" reference for some time too.  Methinks the hour is anon for another reading.

Jason

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 20:19:23 +0000

<excerpt>At 02:18 PM 2/2/98 -0500, you wrote: 

</excerpt>

<excerpt> I'm as yet unable to track down the reference, but I'm
<italic>sure </italic>that the text mentions somewhere that the people of
Sev's  era have evolved quite a bit from the <italic>Homo Sapiens Sapiens
</italic>that we know today.  Or maybe it's in one of Wolfe's essays. 
Anyway, this could support the FAR future setting for  The Book...if only
I could track it down.  Of course, I've been looking for the "Coke bottle
beaches" reference for some time too.  Methinks the hour is anon for
another reading.

Jason

</excerpt>	While I don't recall any particular reference, the ability of
these people to sustain pain under torture implied to me, in my first
reading, that they had developed beyond where people are today in some
regards. 

	Of course, we also know that people have been engineered....

Nutria

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 11:14:28 +0000

I think the reference to the humans of Sev's time having changed a good deal takes place when Sev. emerges from the mine at Saltus and chats to Jonas re the possible origin of the man apes. Sev wonders aloud why humans haven't changed & Jonas gives him one of his long hard looks to indicate that he's wrong. A bit vague, I know, but I don't have the books to hand.

-lasrach

North West Labs

Tel. +353 71 69441
Fax. +353 71 69451

---

From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 10:19:27 +0000

lasrach said:
    I think the reference to the humans of Sev's time having changed a good deal takes place when Sev. emerges from the mine at Saltus and chats to Jonas re the possible origin of the man apes. Sev wonders aloud why humans haven't changed & Jonas gives him one of his long hard looks to indicate that he's wrong. A bit vague, I know, but I don't have the books to hand.
Good call!  Here it is:  II, Ch. 8, p. 260 of Shadow & Claw

(Jonas and Severian are discussing the origin of the man-apes)

Jonas:
    "I don't know whether your man-apes are the same kind of hybrid...I would be inclined to agree with you that they are human beings who have undergone some change in their essential nature as a result of their life in the mines and their contact with the relics of the city buried there.  Urth is very old now...Gold and silver do not alter, but their guardians can suffer metamorphoses stranger than those that turn grapes to wine and sand to pearls."
Severian:
    "But we outside endure the dark each night, and the treasures carried up from the mines are brought to us.  Why haven't we changed too?"  Jonas did not answer...Still, when he turned to face me there was something in his eyes that told me I was being a fool, that we had changed.  He turned away again and stared out and up once more.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
    To: urth at lists.best.com <urth at lists.best.com>
    Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 9:35 AM
    Subject: Re: (urth) Time

    -lasrach
    
    North West Labs
     
    Tel. +353 71 69441
    Fax. +353 71 69451

---

From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 10:22:49 +0000

lasrach said:

Jonas:
Voegele
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
    To: urth at lists.best.com <urth at lists.best.com>
    Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 9:35 AM
    Subject: Re: (urth) Time

    -lasrach
    
    North West Labs
     
    Tel. +353 71 69441
    Fax. +353 71 69451

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 17:05:21 +0000

> reading, that they had developed beyond where people are today in some

I had read that as attesting more to the skill of the guild than to the
hardiness of their victims, but either or both could be true.

-Rostrum