# Blue and Green *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 23 Dec 2002* > 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. --- ### Nigel Price *23 Dec 2002, 23:47* >> Marc wrote: >> I've already proposed several mechanisms, and >> Nigel Price has come up with an interesting >> further interpretation of the star system that >> is fascinating and may explain the theme of the >> doubled limbs. I take GW's comment to Marc very seriously, and believe that it is true, at least at a symbollic level. Green is, in part, a satire on greedy, warring, self-destroying Urth/Earth. Here is part of my recent off-list correspondence with Marc on the subject. > Hi Marc! > > OK, I've been thinking. Unusual, I know, but > true nevertheless. > > Thought #1: GW told you that Green is Urth, but > that doesn't preclude the possibility that Blue is > Ushas. > > My reasoning - or rather, my fragile chain of loose, > associative, links - goes as follows. > > I always thought that there was a symbollic polarisation > at the end of Long Sun. If you made it to a lander, > you could go to Blue or to Green. Blue was good. Green > was bad. > > As far as I understood, somewhere in the grand, allusive, > quasi-allegorical scheme of things, this was somehow an > image of Death and Judgement. > > Now, of course, if it had been any other author playing > with this sort of complex and symbolic material, this > would have played out as a clear cut binary split. Blue > would have been heaven and Green would have been hell. > Instead, because GW loves hierarchies and because things > are always resolutely themselves as well as something > else, Blue is good, but not heaven, not least because of > the proximity of Green and the infiltration of inhumi > from Green to Blue. Green is hellish and horrible, but > not hell itself. Even there on Green, there is the > possibility of heroism and generosity. > > So Blue is hopeful and has the potential to be an urthly > paradise, and Green is horrible but possibly redeemable. > Not Heaven, not Hell, but heavenly and hellish with the > possibility that each can influence and even move towards > the state of the other. > > In New Sun and UotNS, we see that there are multiple time > streams. The research station in the Last House observes > the various possibilities. Urth can end in cold and > eternal night, or it can be reborn to new life. Severian > brings the New Sun and the Urth is purged and becomes > Ushas, a cleansed and higher, better place. > > But what if, in the light of the observations from the > Last House, we're supposed to see that Urth, like > Shrodinger's Cat, both dies and lives, becomes ever more > desolate and corrupt as well as being renewed and refreshed. > Ushas and Urth exist side by side, twin planetary > possibilities. > > Now Green is not the Urth of a dead or dying sun, but rather > the Urth which is given a new sun but is not in the process > cleansed and renewed. It has physical life in abundance, but > is morally bankrupt. The life on Green is fecund and vigorous, > but cannibalistic and corrupt, torturously self-devouring > like the symbollically significant huge and fearsome trees. > > Blue could be Ushas - Urth flooded, cleansed and renewed. > > The new binary duality is not Urth and Lune, but Ushas and > Urth. Both are renewed compared to the Urth of the > Commonwealth, but Green/Urth is only physically, not morally > or spiritually, renewed. > > Maybe! > > Thought #2: Roger Zelazny, a very different sort of author to > GW, but a master in his own, mercurial way, had a strange way > of adding depth and interest to his fictional characters and > worlds. He used to invent a fact or an episode about his hero > and then *not* include it in the book or story he was writing. > The fact was carefully worked out and developed, and he > sometimes even wrote out in full the story about the character > which he was not going to tell the reader. Zelazny's idea was > that knowing but not revealing this information would make his > creations more real and rounded. After all, when do we ever > know everything about a real person, even someone we know well? > > Now, Zelazny would sometimes drop hints in his stories or make > unexplained references to the unrevealed episode, but that's as > far as he would allow himself to go, although once or twice he > published the "lost" episode as a separate story in its own right. > > My understanding of GW's literary practice hitherto has been > that although there are gradations of certainty within his > method, he gives the reader everything they need to know to be > able to work out the most important mysteries of his stories. > The answers to minor or tangential concerns may be left less > defined or even unresolved, but the central matters are > ultimately determined, though difficult to discern. > > The revelation that Green is Urth leaves me wondering, however, > whether GW is not borrowing Zelazny's technique and introducing > elements into his story which only he knows and which are > impossible for the reader ever to work out by themselves. If > that is the case, then we would have to suppose either that he > is being deliberately frustrating, or that such matters as he > completely hides are of themselves unimportant. > > Does GW really think that it's obvious to the intelligent > reader that Green is Urth? No one on the list has guessed > this, and there are some bright sparks out there who are > devoted and assiduous readers too. > > Marc, you asked: >> does this mean the man with the limp on top >> of the tower was Severian? Is the tower on >> Green the Matachin Tower?! Has the water >> drained? Weird, eh? > Utterly, utterly weird. The foregoing ruminations not > withstanding, I am still stunned. > > You commented: >> I don't know - is Blue Lune, or is it some kind of >> re-aquafied Mars knocked out of orbit? I guess its Lune. >> Weird, huh? Where did the water come from?!! > I'd wondered about the Mars option, but dismissed it. On > consideration, Lune seems all wrong too. > > No, I stick to Blue=Ushas, at least symbolically, if not > literally. More on this anon! Nigel ** Hear what John Culshaw sounded like before he became ** famous and what George Barford said to the man from ** the future! ** http://moorhousepartnership.co.uk/ud.htm --- ### matthew.malthouse *24 Dec 2002, 10:09 · follows Nigel Price* > On 23/12/2002 23:47:40 Nigel Price wrote: > Marc wrote: >>> I've already proposed several mechanisms, and > I take GW's comment to Marc very seriously, If one wanted to tease Marc what, oh reverend list memebers, would be the most effective means.... Matthew ---