Saint names

Dan'l writes:

Using the internet I've been able to explore the lives of some saints. There are a lot of convenient sites available. This one provides a thumbnail sketch of each- http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/patron02.htm- and there are sites which go into greater detail for each saint. I've perused the main characters in BotNS and the only clear (to me) parallels I've found are that Saint Dorcas was resurrected and Saint Thecla wore men's clothing to avoid being molested as she travelled with Paul. I am interested in any further connections people can find. (I'll note that, like Dorcas in BotNS, Saint Thecla sat in a window, but maybe that is an incidental connection? you could drive yourself crazy with those) Since Gene Wolfe wrote BotNS pre-Internet, I have to imagine he wrote thinking people would have only The Catholic Encyclopedia and other inconvenient sources to interpret his work and didn't make the references hopelessly obscure and impenetrable. What purpose in that? -bsharp

Sorry, the link in the previous post got an extra hyphen in it, rendering it worthless. This link should work: http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/patron02.htm -bsharp

H'mmm. I see some interesting things. One St. Severian was a martyr whose flesh was torn off his body with iron rakes - i.e., tortured to death. He was a Roman Senator, which may be relevant to Severian's governmental connections. (Interestingly, another St. Severian was also tortured to death, but he was canonized well after GW wrote tBotNS.) Palaemon and Gurloes were monastic leaders. (Hermit community in the case of P.) Malrubius was a monastic, founder of a church, and a martyr. Vodalus was a missionary and a miracle-worker, and, interestingly, not a miracle-worker. Agia and Agilus, interestingly, are both French. I find myself wondering if Wolfe used any kind of pattern regarding where the various saints came from...

I don't think he particularly expected people to "get" this stuff: but he's writing, among other things, very clearly in the shadow of the great High Modernists, Joyce and Proust. Proust provides the fascination with memory; Joyce, the joy in putting in obscure details and patterns for his own amusement. The Joycean play isn't intended for us so much as for himself. At least, that's how I see it.