{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3711", "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": 3711, "subject": "Blue and Green", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-12-23T23:47:40+00:00", "last": "2002-12-24T10:09:08+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net" }, "date": "2002-12-23T23:47:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Blue and Green", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc wrote:\nI've already proposed several mechanisms, and\nNigel Price has come up with an interesting\nfurther interpretation of the star system that\nis fascinating and may explain the theme of the\ndoubled limbs." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I take GW's comment to Marc very seriously, and believe that it is true, at\nleast at a symbollic level. Green is, in part, a satire on greedy, warring,\nself-destroying Urth/Earth. Here is part of my recent off-list\ncorrespondence with Marc on the subject." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hi Marc!\n\nOK, I've been thinking. Unusual, I know, but\ntrue nevertheless.\n\nThought #1: GW told you that Green is Urth, but\nthat doesn't preclude the possibility that Blue is\nUshas.\n\nMy reasoning - or rather, my fragile chain of loose,\nassociative, links - goes as follows.\n\nI always thought that there was a symbollic polarisation\nat the end of Long Sun. If you made it to a lander,\nyou could go to Blue or to Green. Blue was good. Green\nwas bad.\n\nAs far as I understood, somewhere in the grand, allusive,\nquasi-allegorical scheme of things, this was somehow an\nimage of Death and Judgement.\n\nNow, of course, if it had been any other author playing\nwith this sort of complex and symbolic material, this\nwould have played out as a clear cut binary split. Blue\nwould have been heaven and Green would have been hell.\nInstead, because GW loves hierarchies and because things\nare always resolutely themselves as well as something\nelse, Blue is good, but not heaven, not least because of\nthe proximity of Green and the infiltration of inhumi\nfrom Green to Blue. Green is hellish and horrible, but\nnot hell itself. Even there on Green, there is the\npossibility of heroism and generosity.\n\nSo Blue is hopeful and has the potential to be an urthly\nparadise, and Green is horrible but possibly redeemable.\nNot Heaven, not Hell, but heavenly and hellish with the\npossibility that each can influence and even move towards\nthe state of the other.\n\nIn New Sun and UotNS, we see that there are multiple time\nstreams. The research station in the Last House observes\nthe various possibilities. Urth can end in cold and\neternal night, or it can be reborn to new life. Severian\nbrings the New Sun and the Urth is purged and becomes\nUshas, a cleansed and higher, better place.\n\nBut what if, in the light of the observations from the\nLast House, we're supposed to see that Urth, like\nShrodinger's Cat, both dies and lives, becomes ever more\ndesolate and corrupt as well as being renewed and refreshed.\nUshas and Urth exist side by side, twin planetary\npossibilities.\n\nNow Green is not the Urth of a dead or dying sun, but rather\nthe Urth which is given a new sun but is not in the process\ncleansed and renewed. It has physical life in abundance, but\nis morally bankrupt. The life on Green is fecund and vigorous,\nbut cannibalistic and corrupt, torturously self-devouring\nlike the symbollically significant huge and fearsome trees.\n\nBlue could be Ushas - Urth flooded, cleansed and renewed.\n\nThe new binary duality is not Urth and Lune, but Ushas and\nUrth. Both are renewed compared to the Urth of the\nCommonwealth, but Green/Urth is only physically, not morally\nor spiritually, renewed.\n\nMaybe!\n\nThought #2: Roger Zelazny, a very different sort of author to\nGW, but a master in his own, mercurial way, had a strange way\nof adding depth and interest to his fictional characters and\nworlds. He used to invent a fact or an episode about his hero\nand then *not* include it in the book or story he was writing.\nThe fact was carefully worked out and developed, and he\nsometimes even wrote out in full the story about the character\nwhich he was not going to tell the reader. Zelazny's idea was\nthat knowing but not revealing this information would make his\ncreations more real and rounded. After all, when do we ever\nknow everything about a real person, even someone we know well?\n\nNow, Zelazny would sometimes drop hints in his stories or make\nunexplained references to the unrevealed episode, but that's as\nfar as he would allow himself to go, although once or twice he\npublished the \"lost\" episode as a separate story in its own right.\n\nMy understanding of GW's literary practice hitherto has been\nthat although there are gradations of certainty within his\nmethod, he gives the reader everything they need to know to be\nable to work out the most important mysteries of his stories.\nThe answers to minor or tangential concerns may be left less\ndefined or even unresolved, but the central matters are\nultimately determined, though difficult to discern.\n\nThe revelation that Green is Urth leaves me wondering, however,\nwhether GW is not borrowing Zelazny's technique and introducing\nelements into his story which only he knows and which are\nimpossible for the reader ever to work out by themselves. If\nthat is the case, then we would have to suppose either that he\nis being deliberately frustrating, or that such matters as he\ncompletely hides are of themselves unimportant.\n\nDoes GW really think that it's obvious to the intelligent\nreader that Green is Urth? No one on the list has guessed\nthis, and there are some bright sparks out there who are\ndevoted and assiduous readers too.\n\nMarc, you asked:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "does this mean the man with the limp on top\nof the tower was Severian? Is the tower on\nGreen the Matachin Tower?! Has the water\ndrained? Weird, eh?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Utterly, utterly weird. The foregoing ruminations not\nwithstanding, I am still stunned.\n\nYou commented:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't know - is Blue Lune, or is it some kind of\nre-aquafied Mars knocked out of orbit? I guess its Lune.\nWeird, huh? Where did the water come from?!!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'd wondered about the Mars option, but dismissed it. On\nconsideration, Lune seems all wrong too.\n\nNo, I stick to Blue=Ushas, at least symbolically, if not\nliterally." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "More on this anon!\n\nNigel\n\n** Hear what John Culshaw sounded like before he became\n** famous and what George Barford said to the man from\n** the future!\n** http://moorhousepartnership.co.uk/ud.htm" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-12-24T10:09:08+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Blue and Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 23/12/2002 23:47:40 Nigel Price wrote:\nMarc wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I've already proposed several mechanisms, and" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I take GW's comment to Marc very seriously," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If one wanted to tease Marc what, oh reverend list memebers, would be the\nmost effective means....\n\n\n\nMatthew" } ] } ] }