Subject: (urth) Silk out of time / Blushas? Grushas?

From: ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus <zibethicus at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 10:06:45 +0000

>why couldn't Marble's clock be correct?

<snip>

>3.  Marble is absolutely decrepit.  I find it hard to believe that an
>advanced chem capable of self-repair and engaged in only mildly strenuous 
>activity would decay so soon.

Pardon my obtuseness, but is it anywhere specified that Marble's memories of 
her life as a secular chem are located on the Whorl?  She might have had an 
earlier life on Urth, as did many people who were forced aboard.

Nutria:

>Time did not "stop" for anyone. Silk had an transcendent moment, and > the 
>only way a temporal being can understand such a thing afterwards > is to 
>sort it out into various pieces and temporal events.

Well, when trying to establish these matters with some sort of 
definitiveness, I believe that an ounce of study of the actual text in 
question can sometimes be worth a ton of theorising in one direction or 
another.  For that reason, allow me to quote briefly from NLS Ch1 (are there 
standard abbrevations for titles here?); during his enlightenment, Pa. Silk 
"watched outside a clockwork show whose works had stopped", and saw (among 
other things):

"- dead Patera Pike mumbling prayers as he slit the throat of a speckled 
rabbit he himself had bought."

This seems to me to represent a vison or perception of a moment in Pa. 
Pike's past life, rather than the appearences of his shade elsewhere in the 
book.

If this is the case, it would tend to support Nutria's perception of the 
experience as a transcendent - or transtemporal - one for Silk himself, 
rather than a stoppage of time for the entire Whorl, as _Silk_ is being 
shown things from various strands of time, the past and possible the future. 
  That's how I read it, anyway...

Also;

>Is it possible that Blue-Green is Urth-Lune in another Banggnab? Is it 
>possible that Silk is the Conciliator of this Banggnab, and that is why he 
>has a link with Severian?

>Of course this raises questions, such as how the Whorl made this trip, and 
>whether astral travel back to Urth is time-travel or some kind of 
>parallel-universe travel.

Of course such a thing is _possible_, but I don't myself know just how 
_probable_ it is.  I base this opinion especially on IGJ Ch22, 'The Barbican 
and the Bear Tower', which relates the visit/return of Horn/Incanto's party 
to Nessus.  Duko Rigoglio is one of those inhabitants of Nessus who were 
forced to board the Whorl.  He returns to the street outside his house 
because of his emotional attraction to the spot (as I understand it).  
Throughout the chapter, it becomes obvious that the spot has aged greatly 
since the Duko lived there; the party guess anywhere from 1 900 to 2 500 
years.

If what is involved in this sort of non-physical travel (call it 'astral' if 
you _must_) is a passage from one BangGnab to another, why would there be a 
linear progression in the local timeframe of Nessus?  It seems to me that 
something altogether more intricate is involved here...

If this amount of time has elapsed since Rigoglio's involuntary departure, 
how does it synchronise with the general consenus that the Whorl has been 
travelling for three hundred years?  And, further, this visit of the party 
to Nessus occurs some years before Severian brings the New Sun, which 
destroys Nessus and all else.  If Rigoglio was abducted during the reign of 
Typhon, is it possible that he was kept in storage on Urth somewhere for an 
appropriate period of time?

It would appear likely that the lapse of time in Nessus as experienced by 
Rigoglio on his return actually corresponds (in Urth time) to the period for 
which he has been gone on the Whorl.  Otherwise, why have the elapsation at 
all?

Blattid (tip o' the hat to archy!):

>"You may be right about this, and certainly I would not go
>so far as to say that you were wrong, but still ...!" (Place
>_that_ quote for double credit.)

Mundus vult decipi!

>What makes me think that Silk's experience has some kind of
>internal sequentiality: he has the sense of someone (the
>Outsider) speaking into both his ears. Now, I may simply put too much 
>emphasis on that detail, but it seems to me that
>speech has a kind of inherent sequentiality to it.

>Of course, this may simply mean that he _remembers_ it that way.

Moreover, it occurs in an instant in the middle of the prosaic activity of a 
ball game, which is not interrupted by it.  I suspect that Mr. Wolfe is 
relating something corresponding to the classic 'mystical' experience, which 
occurs _outside_ time rather than as a consequence of time somehow 
'stopping'.  Mr. Wolfe specifies that what Silk retains of the experience 
which he can consciously relate is far smaller and less profound that the 
totality of the experience as it was originally granted to him.  Whether he 
relates it sequentially, or whether it occurs sequentially, it is impossible 
to explain it in a fashion conformant to its nature, which is, if you like, 
superhuman.  It certainly doesn't resemble the experience of an embolism!

*

4WIW, I read a long I/V with Mr. Wolfe shortly before I joined this forum, 
in which he said something to the effect that _all_ the 'clues' were present 
in the books, but that they were only placed there _once_, as he didn't 
intend to insult the intelligence of his readers.  Something like that, 
anyway.  I would tend to the view that, which I would of course be greatly 
interested to hear anything which Mr. Wolfe had to say concerning the 
planning and nature of his works, he is a skilled professional author, who 
inserted everything necessary to have his works understood TO THE EXTENT TO 
WHICH HE INTENDED in the works themselves.  Therefore, I support the call to 
closer textual study of works which are being theorised about...speaking as 
a hypocrite, to be sure!

Zibethicus the Lame (thus named by a fellow New Sun reader!)

PS: While I'm here, my copy of RTW (Return to the Whorl), the TOR paperback, 
is absolutely crammed with the most annoying typos throughout.  I've got 
forty-something markers in it to that effect - I just counted it.  Is this 
just my experience, perhaps because I was reading it aloud, or has anybody 
else noticed it?

->Zx<-

<snip sig>

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 16:19:09 +0000

Snipping wildly.

The ArchD'Ikon wrote:

> "- dead Patera Pike mumbling prayers as he slit the throat of 
> a speckled rabbit he himself had bought."
> 
> This seems to me to represent a vison or perception of a 
> moment in Pa. Pike's past life, rather than the appearences
> of his shade elsewhere in the book.

Correct. A few pages later, when he explains to Blood that
he is the help sent in response to Pa. Pike's prayers, Silk
begins by saying that he saw Pike praying for help to save
the manteion. This would be the experience of seeing that, 
of seeing what is clearly a moment in the "temporal" past, 
relative to the "temporal" moment in which Silk's timeline 
is interrupted by the "eternal" experience of enlightenment.

I don't think this is even open to reasonable debate; it's
about as clear as anything anywhere in Wolfe.

[more snippage]

> Throughout the chapter, it becomes obvious that the spot has 
> aged greatly since the Duko lived there; the party guess
> anywhere from 1 900 to 2 500  years.
[...]
> If this amount of time has elapsed since Rigoglio's 
> involuntary departure, how does it synchronise with the
> general consenus that the Whorl has been travelling for
> three hundred years?  

Relativistically, of course.

The duration of the Whorl's voyage _to an observer aboard
the Whorl_ is 300 years. The duration to an observer at
rest relative to Urth's system is on the order of one or
two millenia ... from the time of the Tyrant to the time
of Severian.

> Blattid (tip o' the hat to archy!):

thank boss

> >so far as to say that you were wrong, but still ...!" (Place _that_ 
> >quote for double credit.)
> 
> Mundus vult decipi!

Clearly a man of taste, if not in fact a "monstrous clever
fellow."

Regarding the question of whether Silk's enlightenment has any
subjective sequence or duration to him as it occurs ...

> ... it occurs in an instant in the middle of the prosaic
> activity of a ball game, which is not interrupted by it.

Right. We agree, I presume, that it takes no "objective" time.

> I suspect that Mr. Wolfe is relating something corresponding
> to the classic 'mystical' experience, which occurs _outside_
> time rather than as a consequence of time somehow 'stopping'.

Well, Mr Wolfe hsa gone so far as to state openly that it is a
purely supernatural experience (leaving Crane's "embolism" 
theory kind of high and dry).

> Mr. Wolfe specifies that what Silk retains of the experience 
> which he can consciously relate is far smaller and less 
> profound that the totality of the experience as it was
> originally granted to him. Whether he relates it sequentially,
> or whether it occurs sequentially, it is impossible to explain
> it in a fashion conformant to its nature, which is, if you like, 

Never having experienced an embolism myself, I can't say.

But what we also have to remember is that the account we possess
is _at least_ a third-order abstraction from the event: the
minimum set of abstractings involved include (1) Silk's remembering
the event, (2) Silk's attempt(s) to relate the event to others,
including Horn and/or Nettle, and (3) Horn's and Nettle's attempt 
to work backwards from (2) to the event and narrate it in their 
Book of Silk. 

Given all this, I think that the most we can say of the "real"
event (somehow I feel no shame in describing a fictional event
this way ...) is that Silk had a mystical and life-changing 
experience of some sort, which he referred to as "enlightenment," 
in which he learned a certain amount of information to which he 
had not previously had access. (I am inclined to analogize it to
the experience of "gnosis," because of my perception that the
_Whorl_ is a physical instantiation or representation of (one) 
classical gnostic view of the universe, embedded in the larger
Lupiverse in which orthodox Catholic Christianity is, more or 
lesse, defined as "true"; but I won't insist on that.)

> 4WIW, I read a long I/V with Mr. Wolfe shortly before I 
> joined this forum, in which he said something to the effect
> that _all_ the 'clues' were present in the books, but that
> they were only placed there _once_, as he didn't intend to
> insult the intelligence of his readers. 

Yeah. Sometimes I think Mr Wolfe genuinely fails to understand
that most of us simply aren't as intelligent as he is ... 

> I would tend to the view that [...] he is a skilled 
> professional author, who inserted everything necessary
> to have his works understood TO THE EXTENT TO WHICH HE
> INTENDED in the works themselves.  Therefore, I support
> the call to closer textual study of works which are
> being theorised about...

Amen unto this, for those who have time. 

> PS: While I'm here, my copy of RTW (Return to the Whorl), the 
> TOR paperback, is absolutely crammed with the most annoying typos 
> throughout. 

This is true of the H/C also. It's incredibly badly porfread.

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 16:55:05 +0000

> Right. We agree, I presume, that it takes no "objective" time.

It happens at right angles to Silk's normal timeline.

We are three dimensional creatures moving involuntarily in a fourth
dimension. This motion, and this dimension are seen as time. The
plenum we inhabit is thus four dimensional (three spacelike and two
timelike dimensions). This is embedded within a plenum that consists of
these four, one other spacelike and one other timelike dimension, and a
seventh dimension within which creatures of this order are in involuntary
motion. This is 'time for them' ('them' are the creatures that I generally
refer to as "angels or small-g gods"). Mr Big Nose, of course, is beyond
this level as much as he is beyond our level.

Silk's timeline has been turned 90 degrees.

.

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From: Timothy Reilly <treilly at ozemail.com.au>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:34:58 +0000

> TOR paperback, is absolutely crammed with the most annoying typos

This is the most irritating thing about RTTW, although Pig's silly voices
and the astral travel back to interfere in the plot of the TBNS are up there
too.  Several people, including me, commented upon it when the book first
came out in hardcover.  I am surprised Tor don't have the wherewithal to get
it right the first time, and doubly surprised that they don't fix it up in
the paperback.

Does anyone know if the Mint/Marble (IIRC) mix up at the end of TBLS ever
got fixed in subsequent editions?

Tim

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From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:12:16 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus" <zibethicus at hotmail.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 2:06 AM
Subject: (urth) Silk out of time / Blushas? Grushas?

> Don:

No pardon necessary since these I believe are Jeff's comments rather than
mine.  I mean, I know they're not mine and I think they're Jeff's.  We are
in accord.

Don the clarifier, unifier, tribune of the plebs, layabout, roustabout, wave
slider, nonsense writer Doggett, Junior

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