Subject: (urth) Antechamber Prisoners

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 05:36:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #1015407 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

The text says that the prisoners (most but not all--don't forget
Lomer and Nicarete) are descendents of crew of a starship that
crashlanded on or near the House Absolute.  They were looking for the
Port but they couldn't find one at all.

Starship crews are, by Briahtic definition, from earlier ages--their
travels across light years have taken years of time.

"Jonas," an android sailor on the ship, was repaired with biological
remnants of an Urth shepherd who was killed by the crash.  Hence he "looks"
like a (European) commoner rather than an Asiatic (Korean/Chinese/whatever)
microwave oven.

As you know, I consider "Kimleesoong" to be the most likely answer to
the question of "What is Hethor's true and secret name?"

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: C R Culver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 21:58:06 +0000

Mantis said:
>As you know, I consider "Kimleesoong" to be the most likely answer to the
question of "What is Hethor's true and secret name?"<

But that would make Hethor pretty darn old, wouldn't it? I mean, the
antichamber prisoners speak of Kimleesoong as far back in time, and although
Hethor is "a dirty old sailor," he doesn't appear several hundred years old
(e.g. like Keith Richards).
There is talk in UotNS of sailors getting older, younger, or just staying the
same forever, but that is on the ship of Tzadkiel and not Urth. It could be
that Hethor found himself in the antichamber, but was able to escape with his
powers of thaumatugy (after fathering children, or whatever), and then perhaps
spent more time in space before coming back to Urth in Severian's era. 
Of course, Jonas and Hethor (if KLS is indeed his real name) are both Korean,
but they served on different ships, or did they? Are the Quasar and Fortunate
Cloud the same? Both crashed far back in the Autarchy when looking for the
ports, although Wolfe hints that this happened with most ships returning to
Urth. One wonders why they didn't just go to the Port of Lune.

Incidentally, Severian says to the Hierodules (Famulimus, Babatus, and
Ossipago) that Hethor never mentioned his ship's name, but he did, and it was
the Quasar. So whose memory is at fault here, Severian or Wolfe's?

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html