{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4085", "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": 4085, "subject": "Did the Library Survive?", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2003-07-11T03:14:08+00:00", "last": "2003-07-11T18:33:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-07-11T03:14:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Did the Library Survive?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been assumed that the Ushas Flood destroyed the Library, but I wonder. \nAs Don noted, it's Borges's library, and is transcendental. Also, it's \nphysically protected, arguably, being underground.\n Sev. put one copy of his book there. I think this was for the \nUshas generations to read, not for his own to read. I think he assumed that \nthe Library (symbolically in another way the Bible, or Bible of Bibles) \nwould survive.\n Sev. put the other copy in the heavens. Wolfe seems to be doing \nsomething here, beyond explaining how he got his copy to translate. The \nsame book in heaven and on earth? Or what?\n What think ye?\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-07-11T07:03:24+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Did the Library Survive?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/07/2003 04:14:08 James Jordan wrote:\nIt's been assumed that the Ushas Flood destroyed the Library, but I \nwonder.\nAs Don noted, it's Borges's library, and is transcendental. Also, it's\nphysically protected, arguably, being underground." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If it's transcendental who knows. But in the mundane world Nessus \ndrowned. The library's under water and full of soggy vellum, paper, \npapyrus etc.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-11T18:33:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Did the Library Survive?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's what I meant by the \"philosophical\" argument for the Library's \nsurvival. It's hard to say, given the nature of the Library, whether he ever \nexpected it to be read at all - when you place one book among an infinite \nnumber of other books it's not much different from launching it off into \nspace/the corridors of time. I feel that perhaps either Wolfe (or Severian - \nhis subtlety as a writer is perhaps underrated when one considers him simply \na dissembler) is here giving a nod to the leap of faith every writer takes \nwhen writing a book. It is a sentimental thing suited to the end of such a \nwork, a symbolic ritual of release where the author frees his creation with \nno way of knowing if his meaning will ever come home in a reader, or where \nit may go that he never intended.\n\nIt is probably also notable that Severian literally saves himself by this \nact of release, in the continuation of his journey that is UotNS.\n\nNutria's comment about heaven and earth rings a bell, but though I spent \nsome time hunting for a reference I was unable to come up with one. I could \nswear I recall having read somewhere that, in completion of his act of \ncreation, God placed the Torah in the heavens and in the earth. Of course, \nit is not presented in quite as literal a sense as this, but who's to say \nthat Severian is being purely literal either.\n\nCivet" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's been assumed that the Ushas Flood destroyed the Library, but I wonder. \nAs Don noted, it's Borges's library, and is transcendental. Also, it's \nphysically protected, arguably, being underground.\n Sev. put one copy of his book there. I think this was for the \nUshas generations to read, not for his own to read. I think he assumed that \nthe Library (symbolically in another way the Bible, or Bible of Bibles) \nwould survive.\n Sev. put the other copy in the heavens. Wolfe seems to be doing \nsomething here, beyond explaining how he got his copy to translate. The \nsame book in heaven and on earth? Or what?\n What think ye?\n\nNutria\n\n\n--" } ] } ] }