Subject: (urth) And Another:

From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:42:06 +0000

Thank you for clearing up the previous one, I'm heartened enough by that to
try my luck again with another question:  In Shadow, end of Ch. 2, when
Severian describes his drowning vision, he says he saw Malrubius.  However,
at that point he's questioned by "An old man, a boatman from his tar-stained
clothes" about it, the man asks whether he actually saw a woman.  Of course
Severian does see the undine, and hears Thecla, but doesn't answer.   The
puzzling thing is the identity of the man, and how he knows what he does.
Let me know what you think!

My own speculations are thus:
Judging by his familiarity with the situation - he's confident enough to ask
a clarification of something as ephemeral as a vision, so he must know what
he's talking about - he's familiar with a version of Severian's story told
at another time.  However, the odd thing is that Severian doesn't appear in
any time so close to his starting point.  In fact, the closest documented
time preceding his birth is the age of Typhon, when he travels down Gyoll,
isn't it?  He does encounter a lot of boatmen then, some of whom become his
disciples as the Conciliator, but that is so far removed that it seems
unlikely that they preserved that minor a part of his tale.
The first Severian's time traveling is undocumented as best I know, though
apparently both S1 and S2 are Apu Punchau at some time, and since his tomb
is in the necropolis it's possible that he has in fact visited some time
period much closer to his birth and that's where the story diffuses from.

However, these are very vague.  Even though Severian often bumps into echoes
of himself, they are usually much more defined ones, that's why I'm curious
if there's a better explanation.

Paul
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:37:27 +0000

Yes. The old man is ... I'm forgetting his name, but Dorcas' husband,
and Sev's own grandfather, whom he meets again in the Gardens.

On 7/19/07, Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com> wrote:
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations,
inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire
salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards
reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.

---

From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:45:08 +0000

The old boatman on the Lake of Birds?  But how does he hear about Severian's
story before Severian meets him?  Or is he referring to some other event
when he asks about seeing a woman beneath the water?

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From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:02:59 +0000

To save time and answer my own question, re-examining the old boatman's tale
does make it clear that it's the "other event" case, that is his tie to
Dorcas.  He's obsessed with finding her corpse and has a theory that they
move around and wash down into the river (Ch12, Shadow).  Thus, overhearing
Severian's underwater experience he ties it to his unrelated quest and asks
for clarification.

On 7/19/07, Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The old boatman on the Lake of Birds?  But how does he hear about
> Severian's story before Severian meets him?  Or is he referring to some
> other event when he asks about seeing a woman beneath the water?
>
> > On 7/19/07, Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com > wrote:
> > >
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:05:12 +0000

>puzzling thing is the identity of the man, and how he knows what he does.

I don't see that the old boatman knows anything at all about what Severian
saw. He just wanted to know if the dead person Severian saw was a woman.

As for his identity; one theory, accepted by some and which does not involve
time travel, is that the old boatman is Dorcas' husband. He has been looking
for her body for nearly forty years but can't find it in the lake in the
Botanic Garden upriver. He thinks her body may have washed out of the lake
and moved downstream.

-Roy

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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:43:23 +0000

>and Sev's own grandfather, whom he meets again in the Gardens.

This has been said before, and I'm not quite clear why everyone seems
so certain. Yes, Dorcas's husband is looking for a woman underwater,
and yes, he says that some bodies end up in the river, but isn't it a
bit odd that Severian doesn't recognise the old man when he sees him
again in the Gardens? And why would Dorcas's husband be wearing the
tar-stained garb of a river boatman, when he's an ex-shopkeeper who
owns a tiny skiff?

I've always assumed that the old man in tar-stained clothes, if he's
spent his life on the river, has occasionally glimpsed, or heard, an
undine - just as the boatman in CotA has. So when Severian is fished
out of Gyoll saying he's seen someone underwater, the old boatman
assumes - correctly, as it happens - that Severian has seen the same
thing.

---

From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:39:54 +0000

I think it's nigh impossible for someone to infer from what Severian said to
Roche that undines were involved unless they knew what actually happened
down there.  The boatman from Citadel remarked how unique it was that he
heard those voices on the river, so the undine phenomenon is probably not
widely known at all.  Furthermore, asked in response to Severian's mention
of a name, Malrubius, which should rule out an undine since average
Commonwealthers seem too afraid of them to do something like learn their
names.
As for the old man, it's not clear what his current job is, but he sure is
poor, and he does own a boat of sorts that would still require tar to keep
afloat.

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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:40:16 +0000

Paul B wrote:
>down there.

I'm not saying the boatman infers that undines are involved. I don't
imagine he knows what an undine is. But if he has previously heard a
woman's voice coming out of the water, or glimpsed something, then it
would explain why he immediately jumps to the conclusion that a woman
is what Severian has seen.

>poor, and he does own a boat of sorts that would still require tar to keep

You're still not very likely to get tar-stained clothes poling a
little boat around a lake. And in any case, no mention is made of
Dorcas's husband having tar-stained clothes. The fact that Severian
notices the river boatman's clothes are tar-stained but makes no such
observation about the old man in the Gardens is another reason to
assume they are two different people.

---

From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:46:29 +0000

Well, Severian's attitude to details is famously bad  - he tends to include,
interpret and omit things liberally.  It's furthermore not too surprising
that he mis-identified the old man some years later as he grew more shrunken
and old since Severian's memory is provably faulty at times.  Interestingly,
he even mis-identifies himself on the funerary bronze in Shadow, and in his
similarity to Ouen, which in Citadel was described as uncanny.
The strongest evidence is still the man's clear reaction to the name of
Malrubius.  The old man from the lake would have a reason to expect someone
to see a familiar face below water, but few others would.  Nothing
unfamiliar would have a name.  Certainly not women speaking in strange
tongues from the river.
Finally, the stylistic argument would be that Severian seems to encounter
the rest of his ancestors in these sorts of puzzles.

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From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:19:48 +0000

> similarity to Ouen, which in Citadel was described as uncanny.

I think that's a detail from Luria's description of his mnemonist, who IIRC
had difficulty associating a profile view and frontal view of the same
person.

David Duffy.

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From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:20:58 +0000

Really.  That's pretty interesting - is that documented somewhere?

-- 
Paul Borochin
PhD student, Fuqua School
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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:55:49 +0000

Is this Isaac Luria the Spanish Qabalist you are talking about?

.

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From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:10:21 +0000

Hahaha, no, the Russian psychologist Luria about his mnemonist subject S.
The day a kabbalist can say something meaningful about facial recognition
will be an interesting day indeed.

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:39:33 +0000

OK then.

There are extensive bits about large face and small face (also large nose
and small nose) in Qabalah (more properly it begins in Merkabah literature
and the qabalah inherits it, but that's bisecting rabbits). And analagous
bits in Indian systems, but you just get to expect that. These folks are
on more about the face (and often other body parts) of God and similar
things, not recognizing human faces. Meaningful is a term whose use
varies.

.

>> >> he even mis-identifies himself on the funerary bronze in Shadow, and
>> in
>> >> his

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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:46:52 +0000

Paul B wrote:
>It's furthermore not too surprising
>and old

Less than two years have passed. No one changes that much that fast.
And even if they did, a similar amount of time passes between
Severian's seeing another old man, Rudesind, in the citadel and again
at the House Absolute, and yet he has no trouble recognising him.

In fact, let's have a little context here: a few hours before meeting
Dorcas's husband in the Garden, Severian sees Racho, a man he has
previously met once, briefly, over a year ago. He recognises him
instantly. Just after meeting Dorcas's husband, Severian meets
Hildegrin, a man he has previously met once, briefly, and in bad
light, nearly two years ago. He knows at once that he has seen him
before.

And yet when Severian meets the old man in the Garden... nothing. Not
a flicker of recognition, not a hint. Just about any faith I might
have in the boatman-is-the-lake-man theory ends here.

>to see a familiar face below water, but few others would.

I don't see how this is strong evidence for either side of the
argument over the other. A young man has just been pulled from the
river, unconscious and near death. When he wakes up he says he saw
someone he recognised. If the boatman is the old man from the Gardens
then yes, he might assume Severian was talking about seeing a dead
body. But equally, if the boatman is someone who has heard or glimpsed
a mysterious woman in the water, he might assume that this young man
saw the same thing as he was drowning, mistaking it in his duress for
someone he knew.

My undine theory isn't conclusive, and I don't pretend it is. If
someone has a more plausible explanation for why the boatman assumes
Severian has seen a woman under the water, I'm all ears. But "because
he's really the old man from the Gardens, and Severian just doesn't
recognise him" isn't it.

---

From: Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:23:16 +0000

That is well, but all it shows is what is already known, that Severian is
capable of impressive recall much of the time.  In fact, since Severian
clearly takes pride in his memory, he makes specific mention of these feats.
However, it is just as clear from the examples I gave that his memory,
especially for faces, is spotty at times.  (Another interesting one is that
he mis-identifies a clone (!), according to the Autarch in Citadel, of
Thecla in the House Azure as a peasant girl pretending to be Thecla, in
Shadow)
When Severian's memory fails him he doesn't notice it till later, if at all,
so no mention gets made.  Thus, if he didn't realize he met the old man
before, of course he wouldn't have anything special to say about meeting him
again on the Lake of Birds.

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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 14:31:52 +0000

Paul B wrote:
>especially for faces, is spotty at times

I could dispute those examples, in the unlikely event that anyone is
interested. :-)

>again on the Lake of Birds.

My problem with this oft-invoked line of argument is that you can
prove anything by saying "ah, but on this particular occasion,
Severian's memory failed him." How do you know, for example, that
Severian hasn't mis-remembered the actual post-drowning incident, and
the age and appearance of the Gyoll boatman?

Presumably you think that generally, Severian's memory is reliable. In
which case, why should we think that it has failed him when he meets
the old man in the Garden? We can't say "because the old man is also
the Gyoll boatman," because we don't *know* that he's also the Gyoll
boatman. To say so would just be circular reasoning:

"Severian doesn't recognise the boatman because on this occasion his
memory has failed him, which we know because he doesn't recognise the
boatman."