{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/43", "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": 43, "subject": "Apu's Eclipse", "messages": 5, "voices": 4, "first": "1997-05-18T20:36:34+00:00", "last": "1997-05-20T14:36:44+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-18T20:36:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Apu's Eclipse", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "alga, \nThanks for the pointer towards Peter Carey. I haven't read him,\nbut there's a copy of Tristan Smith just sitting on the library\nshelf, waiting for me. \nBTW, I very much enjoyed History of Hell. Write lots more, okay?\n\nTusk,\nditto re: the Pastel City. Turns out that the local university\nlibrary has a copy. I wonder if my old card will still work?\n\nOkay, I will now proceed to distance myself from any\nnon-Wolfe-writer threads until I've heard from on-high that it's\npermitted on this list. Back to the matters at hand. I thought\nI'd do a little thinking-out-loud on the subject of Apu Panchau's\neclipse.\n\n----------SPOILERS-------------\n\n\n\n--> Okay, we know that Severian's life is spared by the fact that\nthe sunrise is delayed one morning when he is held by the\nautocthons.\n--> During this extended night Severian sees stars from the wrong\nseason. Stars he'd expect to see for that season where he in his\nnative time, but this is presumably before the Urth's axis-shift.\n--> When the sun does appear, it has already risen a considerable\ndistance. \n--> We are told in the afterword that the plausible cause is an\neclipse of some sort, having discounted halting the Urth's\nrotation as too drastic, and mass-hypnosis as too pat.\n--> Severian has a certain amount of control of time and space\nwhich seems to manifest itself most potently when he feels\nhimself to be in dire need.\n--> Severian has three friends, the Hierodules, who live\nbackwards through time, and own a spaceship. The Hierodules are\nattentive listeners, and have drawn conclusions from Severians\npast stories, including the one that led them to find him among\nthe autocthons.\n\nTwo conclusions that seem plausible from this are:\n (1)Severian worked some sorta time-hoodoo, but made a mistake\nbecause the fact of the axis-shift hadn't quite sunk into his\nhead yet.\n\n Maybe he took the whole village through time, maybe he just\nopened up a passage in the Corridors of Time to looked in on the\nnight sky of a different era (can other people see into such\nopenings? Could Severian see the Green Man's passage?)\n Severian may or may not have enough power to accomplish such a\ntask. He had enough power to get to this point in the past in the\nfirst place, but he seems to be of limited power several decades\nlater when the villagers again threaten his life. I would\ndefinitely try to confine thoughts on Severian as the source of\nthe eclipse to things he could have done right at that moment, as\nopposed to thinking about what he might go back in time, after\nthe fact, to set up. For one reason, I think at any later point\nSeverian would not have made the seasonal-astronomy mistake. For\na second reason, it's a little too \"Bill and Ted's Bogus\nJourney.\"\n\nor\n\n (2)The Hierodules ship is highly reflective, so that when they\nposition it between the village and the sun, it reflects the\nnight sky from a different angle, thereby showing a different\nseason's sky.\n\n Are there any previous descriptions of the Hierodule ship (and\nwould it necessarily be the same ship they'd have in the remote\npast?) or any other evidence that they might have a reflective\nship? Or a ship that could make itself reflective if needed (and\nit certainly would be a nice feature on a space craft)? Would\nlight sails be as reflective as would be needed to produce the\ndescribed eclipse? If they were, I think Severian wouldn't have\ndescribed them as being fuligin and silver, but as mis-matched\npieces of night sky. But then, maybe that's what he meant (I'd\nread it as the sails being fuligin on one side, and silver on the\nother).\n\nThe thing that gets me about this is: if Wolfe bothers to tease\nus with this event in the Afterward, I can't help but feel that\nthe solution must point towards some other unstated plot point.\nTherefore, I find the two above conclusions suspect because\nthey're so self-contained.\n\nAnyone have any thoughts?\n\n-cephalothorax-" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-18T21:51:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Apu's Eclipse", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #5505781 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#\n\ncehphalothorax,\n\nI think your number two is closer. But by \"hierodule's ship\" you\nseem to be referring only to the flying saucer timecraft first seen\nhovering over the tower of Baldanders. My hunch is that it is the\nother ship that features so prominently at the beginning of URTH.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Reusch", "address": "newsun at freeway.net" }, "date": "1997-05-19T07:38:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Apu's Eclipse", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Joel,\n\nIt's been quite a while since I've read BOTNS, but I thought that it was \nrevealed in Urth that it was Tzadkiel's ship which eclipsed the sun for \nApu.\n\nAnyone else remember this?\n\nVance" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1997-05-19T18:05:35+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Apu's Eclipse", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In message <199705182204.PAA13202 at lists1.best.com>, m.driussi at genie.com writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]\ncehphalothorax,\n\nI think your number two is closer. But by \"hierodule's ship\" you\nseem to be referring only to the flying saucer timecraft first seen\nhovering over the tower of Baldanders. My hunch is that it is the\nother ship that features so prominently at the beginning of URTH.\n\n=mantis=" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI'd assumed it was that vessel too - the stars that are wrong\nfor the season are wrong because they are normally drowned in the\nglare of the Sun - they wouldn't be visible for another few months in\nthe future or past, except during eclipses.\n\n\tTercel - how did you guess astronomy is one of my interests?\n:)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-20T14:36:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Apu's eclipse", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, consensus seems to be... Tzadkeil as eclipse-maker.\n Makes plenty sense to me, and I appreciate the more astronomy-savvy\namongst us filling me in on the whole\nyou-can-see-stars-you-wouldn't-normally-see-during-an-eclipse\nthing.\nSo, just to plumb the depths of my ingnorance a little further...\nWhy is Tzadkiel's ship causing eclipses? We know that it doesn't\nusually come any further in-system than the ring of Dis. Is it to make\na dramatic statement of the fact that Severian is still under\nTzadkiel's protective wing (so to speak)? To illustrate the fact that\nit, and all it's theological implications, is still a presence in\nthis far-remote past? Or does it refer to some specific or\nimplied plot point I'm missing out on?\n\n-cephalothorax-" } ] } ] }