Subject: (urth) Jonas

From: Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:33:53 +0000

Jonas bother me on several levels.
First, there is his name: obviously a straight take off of the
Biblical one right down to the spelling, and there is a commonality of
livelihood.  But, I cannot see what Jonas' whale is.  Could it be
Urth, when he and his fellow sailors crashed?  But that is not
satisfactory.
Second,  Jonas, AFAIK, is, from Apprentice Sev's time frame, from the
deep past, who has only now returned, many years later, thanks to time
dilation.  But,  consider:  the only ship we know of, and are given
strong reasons to believe is in fact the *only* 'ship', is Tzadkiels
in TUOTNS. All right you say, what of it?  Well, first Sev doesn't see
Jonas on Tzadkiel's ship, which is fairly suspicious- if such an
unlikely thing as Gunny meeting her younger self could happen,  how
much more likely should it be that Sev meet Jonas again, when the
connections betwixt them are so strong and old?  It would work
perfectly from a novelists perspective, since Jonas could easily be
searching for Jolenta again, or seeking a return to the past.
The problem here is that we know that Jonas couldn't have been on the
Tzadkiel, since his ship disastrously crashed when there were no
facilities to receive them, and the Tzadkiel never crashed.  And it
could not have been one of the minor tenders and in-system vessels,
since those could never acheive the relativistic time warping effects
that plunged Jonas far into his future.
Thirdly, his accent and mannerisms.  He certainly seems to speak as a
sailor, with the mini-parables, and such.  But Jonas was mechanical,
but not like Sidero remember. Sidero was a hollow man, and Jonas was
not.  As well, Sev says that Jonas entire demeanour spoke to him of a
'time when they lived in fear, and sought to alleviate it through
constant joking' (sorry for the paraphrase; can't even remember what
book it is in.) The sailors on the Tzadkiel certainly don't live in
constant fear.

So, we have a dude whose is from the past, shouldn't have been able to
get into the future, who mimics sailors, but is not one, and
mysteriously disapears to who-knows-where - the mirrors of Inire
coulda taken him clear to Briah or even more inscrutable times/places
(remember too that in this relativistic framework, time is space is
time.  Mirrors which serve to catapult/shanghai one through space can
also do thus through time), and never shows up again, despite being so
important.
As I said, Jonas bothers me.

~Maru

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:37:55 +0000

> Urth, when he and his fellow sailors crashed?  But that is not

The biblical Jonah not necessarily a sailor, on his flight from Ninevah 
the LJV has him paying a fare, not joining a crew.  In light of his 
established position and relations to other area personages, he probably 
has a relatively stationary profession like rabbi.

> connections betwixt them are so strong and old?  

It's a big, big ship, and while it can travel through time, not all 
journeys through time have to be the same journey through time. Gunny 
and Burgondofara are likely to meet because Gunny remembers being the 
places Burgondofara is likely to go, they probaly have the same bunking 
preferences, etc. How many other "people" are likely on the ship that 
Severian doesn't meet?  We only see one Sidero for instance.

> It would work

Tzadkiel is not the only craft that traveles between Urth and Yesod; the 
saucer that visits Baldanders' keep is at least one other. There's also 
the portals that lead from the machine planet back into Briah, possibly 
Jonas and some other trial eidolons escaped through one.

But even if it was Tzadkiel, Tzadkiel is plenty big to carry an 
orbit-to-ground craft, it may have some escape pods, etc. and Jonas 
could have been on the losing side of a jibber battle and forced to bail 
out in an something that depended on later technology to work.

> book it is in.) The sailors on the Tzadkiel certainly don't live in

The Jibbers and apports might, though.

> As I said, Jonas bothers me.

It's not _just_ relativistic travel, that wouldn't the mirror trick. 
There's at least cyclical time and higher dimensions involved, and the 
magic mirrors are only incidentally mirrored, otherwise there'd be 
apports, monsters, and hiergrammates in every tailor's shop.

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

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 01:08:30 +0000

Hethor mentions the name of his ship (can't remember what it was), 
and Jonas says that his ship was called "The Fortunate Cloud", as 
far as I recall. The idea that there is just one ship only comes up 
in UOTNS, and IMO it's a new idea Wolfe had for UOTNS, not part of 
the earlier volumes. Or maybe this just refers to the Yesod run - 
ie it's the only ship to cross between universes.

Jonas is indeed not like Sidero, but remember that Sev also sees 
robots on the Ship who he thinks are more like Jonas would once 
have been.

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From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 17:32:42 +0000

>Maru said:
>livelihood.  But, I cannot see what Jonas' whale is.

It could be the human body that he took on.

Or he could be named for St. Jonas. He was a 4th century monk who spent 85 
years in a desert hermitage. That sounds a bit like our marooned Jonas.

~ Crush

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From: stoneox17 at aol.com <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 15:43:43 +0000

James Wynn (Crush) <thewynns at earthlink.net> said

> Or he could be named for St. Jonas. He was a 4th century monk who 
spent
> 85 years in a desert hermitage. That sounds a bit like our marooned 
Jonas.

But of course there's a whale.   On page 125 of Shadow and Claw
Severian tells Agia the story of Domnina and Father Inire's mirrors,
which he originally heard from Thecla.  In the mirrors, Domnina sees
the reflection of a Fish, which Inire tells her would eventually 
solidify
and manifest itself.   Later, Jonas disappears into the same mirrors.
His actual encounter with the Fish is left to our imagination.

And my impression (which I don't see confirmed in the text in a quick
glance through it) was that this Fish doesn't swim through water but
space.

-- Stone Ox (Peter)