Subject: (urth) Rad Sign & NYRSF

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 16:06:00 +0000

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

Reply:  Item #0284733 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET03#

Re: teratoid sign as radiation warning symbol.  Good guess,
vizcacha--my memory of possible radiation warning symbols puts
them as the faded orange and black signs in the tunnels beneath the
citadel (at the end of CITADEL when Severian is going through the
tunnels with a light).  But in the case I'm talking about, in the
presence chamber of House Absolute, the teratoid signs are glyphs
that (1) Jonas can read, and (2) they say (or suggest) planet Urth.

"I know where we are . . . . on Urth," he answered . . . the folded
panels . . . were set with clustered diamonds, as I now saw, and
enameled with such twisted signs as had been on the door" (II, ch.
18).

(Reminds me of THE STARS MY DESTINATION wherein each teleport
location had a unique symbol to aid psionic teleportation.)

"Diamonds and twisted signs" makes it sound more like Chaldean "angel
writing" (based upon stars and constellations--here the "stars" being
represented by diamonds rather than circles) and/or related sigils,
like those of Olympian Spirits (given in the Lexicon).  Or the glyphs
could be true ideograms, written in red. Or they could be rad warn
signs, and Jonas knows that the only planet in the seven galaxies to
still cling to such devices is none other than Urth.

Broderick's piece on PEACE in NYRSF, I liked it a lot and tried to
tell many Wolfe readers about it when it first came out.  Broderick
should write more!  (I forget--was "The Changeling" covered in the
essay?  If not there is room for more expansion.)

=mantis=

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