# Introduction and Questions *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 03 Mar 2003* > 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. --- ### Che Monro *03 Mar 2003, 03:48* 1. Introduction I am new here. My name is Che Monro, you can find a picture and some details about me at http:\\www.chemonro.com . In order to communicate successfully, it seems to me that it is necessary for the question and answers and statements of a dialogue to be understood and to mean the same thing to both parties. Although I will admit that while unintentional mistakes in meaning can be funny and enjoyable, usually they are a pain. To this end I intend to give you some information about me so that you can formulate your responses in a way which you feel will be easy and simple for me to understand, and which, I hope, will give me enjoyment and interest. Alternatively you can use the information to formulate answers which will be deliberately incomprehensible and painful, I can't stop you from doing this, but I tend to ignore messages that I don't understand because I'm not receiving any advantage or enjoyment from them. My apologies in advance if your conversation proves impossible for me, I promise to do my best. Therefore: I'm male, 32 from Australia, where I have lived all my life. I am neither a crypto-mormon, a Chem or a being from either or any dimension. My personality is quiet, respectful and peace seeking, with a wicked sense of humor. I am mentally ill - I suffer from depression and anxiety, brought on by stress. My tendency both conscious and unconscious is to avoid stress and conflict at all costs. Peace, happiness and calm, and dark melancholia, these are the air I breathe. Plus gently satirical humor. My mother was raised Catholic, and I'm familiar with Christian philosophy. I've made some informal studies of Eastern religions. I don't know much about the Aztec or South American cultures. As a reader I'm both lazy and thoughtful. Lazy in that I don't put a great deal of effort into unravelling details and puzzles, and thoughtful in that I obsess over connections and spiritual/symbolic links and unities. I prefer to read more for feeling than for "pointless" detail. Thus, I'm not interested in the color of the ships of the Pelagic Argosy, or whether they were powered by rockets, light sails, or oars. I don't really care how many alternate Severians were are in TBOTNS, or who's faces are seen where or in what mirror. Cunning little paradoxes and puzzles are pretty, but I'm interested in the shades and feelings of the deep dankness behind and between the pages of the book. Ferinstance: I love Dorcas for her purity and innocence, and I love Severian's love of her feel the pain of his faithfulness and faithlessness of his relationship to her. The way he saved her and was unable to save her, this moved me. As such I am interested in her. Was she Severian's mother? Did Silk and Co Materialize near her house in RTTW? Why? Is she related to Silk too? Such questions interest me much more than the details of the particular circular time-path used by the Claw of the Conciliator to reach the moment of her resurrection, although it's movements are arguably more fantastic than her character. However I'm interested in even the trival details of Dorcas's existance because of all the women in TBOTNS I love her the most. I guess that my obsessions/interests in Wolfe's work are perhaps unique and individual, that's why I chose to talk about myself here, to give you a guide to my feelings so that you could slant your answers in that direction. More about feelings and relationships, less about details and parallel universes and Big Questions, please. 2. Questions: Two things have puzzled me greatly about Wolfe's work. 2a. The Fifth Head of Cerebus. I never understood this story at all. Who's a clone of who? What service does the house provide, just what's going on here? Lovely story, but I can't make head or tale of it. Classic Wolfe, that. 2b. I read somewhere recently that the lies Severian tells are critical to understanding some of the mystery of TBOTNS. I've tried searching for lies on the list without notable success. There is a lies listing somewhere? I would like to read this. I'd like to find out what important lies Severian tells. I'm not interested in cute or trivial lies - whether he went to a whorehouse once or many times, whether he ever went back to a river or not, they don't seem very important unless I'm mistaken. But, Severian doesn't feel like a liar to me, So, there must be reasons or feelings behind his lies. It's said he lied about how he came to power, yet, why? Did he do something terrible? He's told us honestly about many terrible things that he's done, so what's he so ashamed of that he would lie to us? I'd like to know what Severian lie about, and why. Thank You, Che Ché Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com che at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com ---