Subject: (urth) Another Avern for you

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 22:07:14 +0000

At 05:17 PM 7/29/2002 -0400, you wrote:

>Great post.  Great title.  Great discussion.
>
>Maybe Ascia is what you get when Mao reads Orwell.

Though the discussion is fun, I do think that's all it is. Any writer knows 
Orwell and Mao and thought control; Wolfe surely knows Plato's hostility to 
story and myth. Attempts by extreme tyrants to cut people off from their 
pasts, and from story, narrative, and myth, are pretty ... well ... 
timeless! (Typhon did not go so far.) Trying to go much beyond this and 
say, "Wolfe is building on Mao, not Orwell" etc. strikes me as 
overinterpretation -- though we can do it here for fun, planting averns -- 
unless I'm missing something significant.
         Wolfe's "point" is that story and narrative are inescapable 
aspects of human life in the real world, and that they will break through 
somehow even in the most mathematically "timeless" and philosophical 
cultures that tyrants can ever attempt. Attempts to freeze history and 
eliminate story are fruitless. Homer and the Bible win! Plato and 
Pythagoras (seventeen) lose!
         I'm more inclined to see this as a "Christian narrative view of 
reality" defeating a "Philosophical-gnostic timeless mathematical attempt 
to control reality."
         But for Wolfe's "sources," well, it's all of the above, lupinated.
         Yet, another thought also: The Marxist motif in connection with 
the Ascians is obvious, and as I say I don't think we need to try and 
pinpoint it to Mao or anyone else. But though "Ascian" sounds like "Asian," 
in addition to that allusion it actually means "shadowless." Shadowless, 
directly under the sun, seems to me a good symbol for a timeless 
philosophical worldview. The shadows, however, are inescapable, as is 
narrative and story. Stories are shadows cast by persons, with the sun 
behind them, so to speak. "Loyal's" story isn't much, but it's still a 
story. Even with the sun directly overhead, you have a little shadow. 
(Plato does not like shadows; he wants us out of the cave.)
         Wolfe takes up shadows in "A Solar Labyrinth" (which came first?), 
and I wonder how much light (or shadow) that tale casts on the Ascians and 
Loyal. The shadows are cast by various objects, and block approach to the 
true center. A nice image, if intended by Wolfe (?), of how wrong 
narratives and culture myths mislead people into wrong patterns of life and 
thought. Yet some of the shifting shadow-narratives-myths move people 
gradually to the center.
         Anyway, that's an avern from me, to add to the thousands!

Nutria

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 18:45:25 +0000

"Another avern for you", said Agilus

>>>Nutria wrote:
>>>
>>>... "Ascian" ... actually means "shadowless."
>>> Shadowless, directly under the sun, seems to
>>>me a good symbol for a timeless philosophical
>>>worldview.

Hmmm. I thought they were "shadowless" because they were in continuous dark?
Although, no doubt they interpreted it the other way. But the Ascians are
under the control Erebus (Erebus according to Hesiod is the "darkness of
Tartaros")

Severian is the New Sun, the roses (which are sun symbols) represent life,
nenuphars whose roots extend to the darkness of the water represent death.

Surely darkness is ironically the intended implication of the name "Ascian".

-- Crush

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From: Bratt Ian <ian.bratt at colorado.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:23:03 +0000

> Surely darkness is ironically the intended implication of the name "Ascian".

Interesting idea.  I've always thought they were "shadowless" because of
their lack of individuality.  If we take the route that to have a shadow
is to have a soul (Vampires have no reflection) and to have a soul is to
be human, then the Ascians have lost what makes them human.  In this
case, I've always considered that to be their individuality.  Although I
find the darkness theory reasonable and even somewhat similar.

-Ian

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 14:51:21 +0000

>under the control Erebus (Erebus according to Hesiod is the "darkness of

         Interesting point. But doesn't the text make is clear that they 
are from the equator, and directly under the sun, and that is the basic 
meaning of Ascian?

>nenuphars whose roots extend to the darkness of the water represent death.

         Absolutely. I would see this as true versus false sun.
         But I'm certainly open to correction.

Nutria

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 16:01:06 +0000

As regards the Ascians, Patera Nutria inscribed:

> are from the equator, and directly under the sun, and that is 
> the basic meaning of Ascian?

Actually, the text makes clear that they are from _north_ of 
the equator (or "waist of the Urth"), and that this is a false
belief, a folk-etymology common among the people of the 
Commonwealth. The real reason they are "shadowless" is not 
given ... but note the title of the first volume of tBotNS.

baby's on fire, better throw her in the water

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 16:41:20 +0000

>>>>Blattid said:
>>>>The real reason they are "shadowless" is not

IIRC In "Castle of the Otter" Wolfe says that a shadow implies the sun
because the sun *stands behind* (as in, supports, affirms, etc) the one that
casts a shadow. Also, that the "shadow of the torturer" represents death
when he performs an execution because he blots out the sun.

It would have been cool if the Ascians *were* from the equator. It would
have been very Lupine if they had been.  I'm sure Wolfe would kick himself
that he didn't think of it at the time.

-- Crush

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 16:57:10 +0000

On 31/07/2002 15:51:21 James Jordan wrote:
[Ascians]
>are from the equator, and directly under the sun, and that is the basic

Byond the waist of the world surely means the other side of the equator?

Matthew

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 02:08:10 +0000

on 7/31/02 11:01 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:

> Commonwealth.

Well, it's not a "folk-etymology" in the sense of being an incorrect
etymology; it's a true etymology based upon a false belief (cf. Ash's
remarks in TCotA, chap. 16, pp. 121-2 of Timescape ed.).

> given ... but note the title of the first volume of tBotNS.

Ash goes on to say "In a fable made in the earliest morning of our race, a
man sold his shadow and found himself driven out everywhere he went.  No one
would believe that he was human."  Earlier, Ava told Severian that "Ascians
are not human." (TCotA, chap. 10, p. 72).

--Adam

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 15:41:55 +0000

>>Blattid wrote:

>Adam replied:

So it appears GW DID consider the Equator angle and used it as an excuse to
give the Ascians their name (which has symbolic implications although not
everyone agrees (with me ;-D) about what the implications are)

--Crush

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