Remember that Wolfe has claimed TBOTNS is a story of a young man (Severian) searching for love. The women he desires offer, at best, (platonic) shadows of the divine love that he really needs. At the end of TBOTNS, he blasts into space/heaven to get himself a piece of that divine love (although, of course, he already has it, as is demonstrated by his resurrections).
Jonas does a riff on the same theme. He desires a semi-prosthetic woman, remains unsatisfied, then steps into space/heaven to get himself something better. He gets (at least semi-) resurrected too.
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Joshua A. Solomon
Department of Optometry and Visual Science
City University
London EC1V 0HB
Voice: (44) 20 7040 0192
Fax: (44) 20 7040 0182
J.A.Solomon at city.ac.uk
http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/~solomon
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