Subject: Re: (urth) The Book of Typhon part one, revised: Severian's true

From: *THAT* Matt Weber <mweber at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 06:39:31 +0000

>
>	The first clue is The Tale of the Boy Called Frog .  For 
>economyís sake Iíll assume everyoneís read it.  On the surface it 
>seems to be a story told around Little Severian.  Frog is raised by 
>woodcutters and then orphaned and sheltered by the Black Killer 
>(Severian) and the naked one (Apu Punchau).  In a very real sense 
>this is the case, but there is more to this.  Spring Wind, the 
>father of Frog and Fish, is Typhon, aka Typhoon, which is a spring 
>storm.  Wolfe hides this cleverly in two ways:  First, the story 
>occurs before Typhon is introduced and second, the name Spring Wind 
>seems Asian in origin and makes the story seem as if it comes from 
>the First Empire.  The Black Killer who shelters Frog, is the 
>Torturers Guild, and the Naked One, who has ìnever had a son of 
>Meschia to teach,î is none other than Father Inire who according to 
>the Lexicon Urthus is the ìvizier to countless Autarchs since Ymarî. 
>He occurs as the Naked One in Sword and Citadel as the bent and 
>masked guide (pp. 350-1).  And here we have the answer:  Ymar is the 
>bastard son of Typhon, Frog, sheltered by the Black Killer and 
>taught by the Naked One, who rules by the red flower.

Yeah, okay, but it's also a paraphrase of Kipling's Jungle Book; as I 
recall, Mowgli means "Frog".  The Black Killer is Bagheera, and the 
Naked One stands in for Baloo.

I don't buy the exegesis, but it's certainly impressive.

Matt

L'ordre règne à Varsovie.

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