Subject: (urth) TEOTNS

From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:39:15 +0000

I finally bought Urth o' the New Sun, and have been
carefully re-reading it.

Aside from the murky issues of just what Severian is at this point
or what's up with the time travelling or the Increate, or how the whole
Kabbalistic scheme works, I want to clear something up:

Sev, at the begining, tosses his Book of the New Sun (our BOTNS as well)
toward a 'new universe', when the ship is apparently floating on the stream
betwixt Briah and Yesod.  Is that the explanation for the 'translator's 
notes'
in our BOTNS?  Cause they always confused me otherwise.

Another thing: It seems clear to me, from what Apheta says about how there
were two possibilites for Urth/Ushas (another thing: Is there a special 
significance
to that name? I do not recognize it at all.), with each having a certain 
possibility/
chance-of-coming-into-being,
but each nevertheless reachs back into the fixed past whether through 
Sev's premature
access to New Sun powers, or Master Ash.  So, in 4-d space, each future 
exists.  We know
further that the ship can navigate not just in 3-d, nor in universe-d, 
but it also moves about
in time, which suggests that it should 'land' in multiple future 
universes.  But, as far as I can
tell, it never does. Why not? or what did I miss?

~Maru

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From: Andrew Kertesz <andrew.kertesz at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 23:48:59 +0000

> in our BOTNS?  Cause they always confused me otherwise.

That was my understanding of it. I don't know whether Wolfe was
operating under the conceit that he was the one who found the book
(like Eco did in the opening of  _The Name of the Rose_) but it'd be
neat if he was.

> tell, it never does. Why not? or what did I miss?

My understanding was that the ship can only move backwards through
time. I understood it as this - when the ship accelerates beyond light
speed, the effect of relativity means that it incurs a time "debt",
and thus it can arrive at its destination before it has left its point
of origin.

So, does Yesod exist separate to Briah's time-continum, or did Sev.
arrive there before he left Urth?

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From: pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 11:46:06 +0000

As I recall you recently (and rather snottily) instructed another new
list member, why don't you "check the f'in archives."

Not as pleasant when you're on the receiving end, huh.

Aq

On Apr 4, 2005 7:39 PM, maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> to that name? I do not recognize it at all.)

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:40:39 +0000

No, it isn't pleasant when you are on the receiving end;
I quite agree.

Makes me glad I was at the other end.

(To be less oblique, I did, in fact, check the archives
and while I found considerable interesting speculation
on whether Blue could be Ushas, and an answer as to
what the 'sister list' was that some had alluded to, I found
zilch in the way of semantic meaning of Ushas, or its
etymology.)

~Maru

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From: pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:53:59 +0000

Ushas = Sanskrit for "dawn" 

I was sure I'd learned that from an old post, but you are correct that
it does not appear in the archives. My apologies for leading with a
nose out of joint rather than pure information.

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:07:28 +0000

Merci.  'Dawn' makes perfect sense since it is a new Urth and new Sun.

~Maru

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From: pthwndxrclzp <aquastor at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:13:21 +0000

Absolutely, and rather neatly (although that is no surprise, given
that it's Wolfe <g>).

As a personal aside, I have met more than one 60s survivor out here in
California whose near-obligatory 70s name-change was to "Ushas." Gave
me a chill the first time I was introduced to an Ushas, particularly
since I'd only recently completed my first reading of UOTNS.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 15:50:33 +0000

> since I'd only recently completed my first reading of UOTNS.

I had a similar exeperience after reading "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun" 
and then suffering through a Hawaiin vacation slideshow, only to be 
presented with a mural of a boy netting the sun and hearing the eerily 
similar tale related.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >