{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4763", "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": 4763, "subject": "Katharine maid redux", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2006-11-02T18:31:36+00:00", "last": "2006-11-03T21:12:49+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "b sharp", "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2006-11-02T18:31:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Katharine maid redux", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l posts:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Sev's mother (as I think most of us agree) was handed over to the\ntorturers for excruciation and (eventual) death, then the Maid who\nplays Katherine _isn't_ Sev's mother, putting an end to, at least,\nthat line of speculation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I thought the Katharine maid thread of last month developed a pretty good \ntheory on this which you might have missed?. Roy suggested Catherine was an \nexultant and the maid her kaibit. Someone else (DD Jones?) proposed a \nseries of kaibits, accounting for her unchanging looks.\n\nSomeone suggested the maid's head really is cut off each year, but the stage \nsword is \"no more than a wooden batten provided with an old hilt and \nbrightened with tinsel\" and the head is identified to be wax many times, \nplus the maid emerges with her head attached soon after the faux chop.\n\nI am convinced the woman Severian sees on the Path of Air is Catherine. \nSeverian can't understand why he seems to recognize her but is more confused \nabout how she seems to recognize him. His resemblance to Ouen could explain \nit. This woman's oval face suggests the Pelerines, her \"raven\" hair and \ndark complexion is just like the maid's. Her dark hair and pale gown are \nmirrored in the woman Severian sees in the coffin (again, Severian doesn't \nrecognize someone out of context).\n\nIn Talos' distorted play, I think Contessa Carina is a distortion of \nChatelaine Catherine, making the woman an exultant. Allowing the maid to be \na kaibit explains her lesser stature. There are suggestions that Catherine, \nthe woman on the Path of Air, Contessa Carina, the maid and the woman in the \ncoffin all have been sentenced to (real or fictional) torture. I still like \nthe idea of younger Palaemon helping Catherine escape to the Path of Air, \nexplaining his exile and his attachment to Severian.\n\nI seem to be alone in these sorts of perceptions, but perhaps that is more \nreason for me to be so annoyingly redundant. To me this a similar case to \nthat of Father Inire. Usually we think of solving mystery identities by \ndeducing, X= A. I think in these two cases unseen characters Catherine and \nInire can only be identified by deducing X= A+B+C+D. Leaving out any \nelement results in an incomplete equation but together they add up (for me \nanyway). Some doubts are assuaged by the transparent multiple identities of \nthe old Autarch. Wolfe seems to be thinking along these lines.\n\n\"Someday they'll want us\" ;-)\n\n-bsharp" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6.2.5.6.2.20061103095829.0600f4a0@ukg.co.uk>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar / UKG", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2006-11-03T10:03:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Long and the Short of It", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Apologies if this has been covered before -- I had a hunt through the \narchives, but couldn't see any reference to it.\n\nHas anyone read the recent Robert Borski, The Long and the Short of \nIt? -- Amazon are offering it to me a an ideal companion for Soldier \nof Sidon. I've read Solar Labyrinth, which I found kind of a mix of \ninteresting ideas with some rather tiresome (eg. the cryoptnymics).\n\nbest,\n\nMo" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000c01c6ff7f$b5ea52c0$ab3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2006-11-03T19:38:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Long and the Short of It", "in_reply_to": "<6.2.5.6.2.20061103095829.0600f4a0@ukg.co.uk>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Mo Holkar wrote:\nHas anyone read the recent Robert Borski, The Long and the Short of\nIt? -- Amazon are offering it to me a an ideal companion for Soldier\nof Sidon. I've read Solar Labyrinth, which I found kind of a mix of\ninteresting ideas with some rather tiresome (eg. the cryoptnymics)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Only one of the essays really touches on the first two SOLDIER books, if\nthat's what you wanted to know. The rest is similar to SL, but isn't\nconcentrated on the Urth Cycle.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Crossley", "address": "ishmael at drizzle.com" }, "date": "2006-11-03T21:12:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Long and the Short of It", "in_reply_to": "<000c01c6ff7f$b5ea52c0$ab3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/3/06 11:38 AM, \"Roy C. Lackey\" wrote:\nMo Holkar wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Has anyone read the recent Robert Borski, The Long and the Short of\nIt? -- Amazon are offering it to me a an ideal companion for Soldier\nof Sidon. I've read Solar Labyrinth, which I found kind of a mix of\ninteresting ideas with some rather tiresome (eg. the cryoptnymics)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Only one of the essays really touches on the first two SOLDIER books, if\nthat's what you wanted to know. The rest is similar to SL, but isn't\nconcentrated on the Urth Cycle." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In a way, I find Borski's second book more interesting. By the end of SL,\nit being all about Urth, I felt that the presentation of some interesting\nideas was turning into theory-flogging. covers many\nmore texts, so there's less time for the reader to feel that there's a\nunified field Wolfe theory to be oversold.\n\nI'm just glad, really, that there's some Wolfe-related criticism in print.\nNot that the online discussions are less valid, but it's tremendously\npleasing to see some actual books on Wolfe sitting on my LitCrit shelf near\nnames like Melville and Perec.\n\nJames" } ] } ] }