{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3606",
    "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": 3606,
    "subject": "Hyacinths and Weeds",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-11-25T18:24:25+00:00",
    "last": "2002-11-25T18:24:25+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0211-2235@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Charles Reed",
        "address": "cmreed at link.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-11-25T18:24:25+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hyacinths and Weeds",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Howdy again.\n\nI've always been a little puzzled by how the passage Remora quotes \n(\"Though trodden beneath the shepherd's heel, / the wild hyacinth blooms \non the ground.\") at the end of RttW is able to affect the re-emergence \nof Silk.  Of course, there's the very suggestive reference to Hyacinth, \nbut I've always felt there had to be something a little more to this \npassage.  \n\nI'm still not sure I have a handle on it, but I just finished my first \nre-reading of THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN in well over a decade.  \n\n[Side note:  My first reading left me a little cold, but the second \nreading improved it considerably, although it's still my least favorite \nof the the \"Sun\" books.  I think the reason has to do with it's being \nmore of a \"philosophical\" work than one in which I become strongly, \nemotionally involved with the characters.  Still, there were a great \nmany things made clear to me that had been fuzzy, so it's definitely \nworth a re-read or two.]\n\nIn any case, I found a really nice passage, that bears at least \nperipherally on the Remora quote.  It occurs in Chapter L, and the \nsetting is this:  After Severian, as Apu-Punchau, attempted to leave the \nstone village and walk to the sea, the villagers caught up with him and \nkilled him when he refused to come back.  Afterwards, Severian awoke to \nfind himself with his old cacogen friends: Barbatus, Ossipago, and \nFamulimas.  Severian is disturbed by the fact that he hasn't been \nallowed to die.  Pay special attention to the last line.\n\n\n      \"I suppose that even if I were to kill myself,\n   Ossipago could still call me back to existence.\"\n      Barbatus shook his head, though not as a human\n   being would have.  \"There would be no point -- you\n   could take your life again.  If you truly want to\n   die, go ahead.  There are funeral offering here\n   [referring to the funeral offerings of Apu-Punchau],\n   including a great many stone knives.  Ossipago will\n   bring you one.\"\n      I felt as real as I ever have; and when I\n   searched among my memories, I found Valeria there\n   still, and Thecla and old Autarch, and the boy\n   Severian (who had been Severian only).  \"No,\" I\n   said.  \"We will live.\"\n      \"I thought so.\"  Barbatus smiled.  \"We've known\n   you half our lives now, Severian, and you're a weed\n   that grows best when stepped upon.\"\n\n\nPerhaps there's no real connection other than a thematic one, but it was \na powerful connection for me, and somehow makes Remora's quote more \npowerful.  It's as if somehow Silk, like Severian, has to make a choice \nabout whether to continue living.  And he is confronted with the two \nthings that have been the most important things in his life -- Hyacinth \nand the Shepherd (i.e., the Outsider) and finally realizes that if he \ndoes not continue to live he will cause the Hyacinth-that-lives-in-him \nand the Outsider-that-lives-in-him, to die.  He cannot do such a thing \nso he (like Severian, who cannot allow all those who are within him to \ndie), chooses to live.\n\nWolfe continually amazes me.\n\nCharles"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}