{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3979",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3979,
    "subject": "Jungle Garden revisited",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-05-07T04:19:58+00:00",
    "last": "2003-05-07T04:19:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0305-3358@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "LJ Janowski",
        "address": "eforlesen at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-05-07T04:19:58+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Jungle Garden revisited",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello, I'm LJ and I'm new to the Urth list.  While the Jungle Garden \ndiscussion seems to have died down, I would like to add a little \nnevertheless, particularly in response to the Library/Garden comparison in \nNutria's post of April 21.  The Bible/Eden : Library/Botanic Garden idea \nstruck me as very interesting, and I would like to add some thoughts on the \nEden side.\n\n\nNutria wrote:\n\nThe fact that the Garden contains missionaries and also is a place of death \nis Edenic, broadly speaking. IIRC, the avern is a \"delight to the eyes\" but \nbrings death. Only the Conciliator can wield it with full profit. Mere Adams \nare advised to stay away from it. And of course, it comes from the heavens. \nThose who are trapped in the Garden are those who fantasize about the past, \nand don't want to live in the real world (?). A return to Eden is a trap; \n\"salvation\" lies only in the future, after judgment. Probably a look at \nTalos's \"Eschatology and Genesis\" would provide more indications. Just some \nthoughts.\n\n\nWhile I found Nutria’s Eden/Botanic Gardens parallel to be an interesting \nsuggestion, I would submit that Nutria's suggestion to look at Talos’ \nEschatology and Genesis (EaG) is helpful but tends to lead me away from a \ndirect interpretation of the Botanic Gardens as an Eden parallel.  The play \ntakes the gardens of the House Absolute as its “Eden”.  The manicured nature \nof the House Gardens indicates that they are  designed along the lines of a \nrecreational garden, which seems close to the paradise as garden of delights \nidea.  This in mind, it is easy to forgive the newly born Meschia and \nMeschiane of EaG when they assume that the Autarch, ultimate master of the \nHouse’s Gardens, to be their God/Pancreator. Both the reader and EaG’s \nspectators know that the garden was tailored for the dwellers of the House, \nbut Meschia and Meschiane can remain blissfully unaware of the fact, lending \na ironic twist to the Eden parallel.\n\nBy contrast, the Botanic Gardens are an example of nature hostile to man.  \nDespite their name, which would suggest a sedate collection of various \nspecimens, the “Botanic Gardens” appear to be wild terrain, partitioned from \nthe flow of time and linked to a particular place by Inire’s ingenuity.  \nUnlike those above the House Absolute, these “Gardens” pose very real \ndangers to those who choose to enter.  (There are dangers in trespassing \nnear the House, but those come from the House's guardians, which offers \nanother Eden parallel.)  Examples of the dangers of the Botanic Gardens \ninclude a drowning pool, lethal flowers, and several individuals who seem to \nhave permanently lost their way.  While the Gardens were partitioned by \nInire’s conscious action, they are essentially savage and inhospitable \nwithin.\n\nIf the House's gardens function as an Eden, what are the Botanic Gardens?  \nThe Botanic Gardens seem to function as a species of anti-Eden fit for a \ndying Urth--an opposite to the new Eden that EaG suggests that might herald \nthe coming of Ushas.  They function as a place of death and descent into \nconfusion where the aware becomes the unaware. By contrast, the House \nAbsolute is, as the home of the autarch (and Severian specifically) and thus \nassociated with the potential for enlightenment and the origin of a new \ncreation.\n\nI think this reading also fits Nutria’s idea of the avern as tree of life \nparallel rather well.  In a parody of Eden we would expect a tree of death, \nwhich the avern clearly is.  Also, the whole idea of an anti-Eden provides a \nnice resonance with the zoanthropes, who have abandoned the pain of humanity \nfor a return to a bestial state, and other examples of loss of humanity in \nBOTNS.  This idea of Eden parody also fits Nutria's insightful suggestion \nthat such reversion is \"a trap\", in the case of the Botanic gardens very \nliterally!\n\nJust a few thoughts,\nLJ\n\n\n*------------------------------------------------------------------\nDate: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 09:41:12 -0500\nFrom: James Jordan\nSubject: Re: (urth) Jungle Garden"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Tom wrote:\nCould [the Garden] be a dual to the Library?  Another place where people go \nand some never come back.  Both places have hazy boundaries.  Both places\nhave old men who look for things.  Severian goes to both places on an\nerrand: one for books, another for an avern.  Both recipients end up dead."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         I suspect so. Compare the Bible with the Garden of Eden as \"deep \nsources\" for the pair. The Library undergirds (literally) the Commonweath \ncivilization. The Garden is also underground. Both are broad images of \nfoundations and origins, relating to the past. The fact that the Garden \ncontains missionaries and also is a place of death is Edenic, broadly \nspeaking.\n         IIRC, the avern is a \"delight to the eyes\" but brings death. Only \nthe Conciliator can wield it with full profit. Mere Adams are advised to \nstay away from it. And of course, it comes from the heavens.\n         Those who are trapped in the Garden are those who fantasize about \nthe past, and don't want to live in the real world (?). A return to Eden is \na trap; \"salvation\" lies only in the future, after judgment.\n         Probably a look at Talos's \"Eschatology and Genesis\" would provide \nmore indications.\n         Just some thoughts.\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}