{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/491", "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": 491, "subject": "The Cat", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1998-04-15T01:16:11+00:00", "last": "1998-04-16T15:58:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1998-04-15T01:16:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Cat", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have a question about Gene Wolfe's story \"The Cat,\" the sixteenth story\n(starting on p. 210 in the mass market paperback edition) in Wolfe's 1989\ncollection _Endangered Species_.\n\nSince this story is obviously set in the same universe as TBotNS, it seems\nthat it should provide more insight into that universe, but (to me at\nleast) it does not. I have read the story several times, twice just before\nsending this posting, and I still have no idea what is supposed to be\nhappening at the end of it.\n\nA very brief summary of my interpretation of the story follows:\n\nThe story takes place in the fifth year of Severian's reign. It is told by\nOdilo the Steward who is in charge of maintaining the Hypogeum Apotropaic,\nFather Inire's residence in the House Absolute. Inire befriends Chatelaine\nSancha, a lovely young girl of seven or eight, and shows her his circle of\nmagic mirrors that can teleport a being to or from any point in the\nuniverse. She, thinking it is a toy, tosses her cat into the circle. The\ncat disappears. Inire promises to do what he can to get the cat back. At\nsome point in time not too long after this, it becomes known that Sancha is\nattended by a \"phantom cat.\" Years later, because of a scandal probably\nengineered by Chatelaine Leocadia, Sancha leaves the House Absolute. She\nstays away for 50 years. When she returns to the House Absolute, Sancha is\nallowed to stay in the Hypogeum Apotropaic because of her friendship with\nInire. When Sancha dies, apparently of old age, a dark paw print appears on\nher counterpane and beside it is what appears to be a doll. It is the\nlength of a hand and seems to be a perfect scale replica of a lovely,\npubescent girl, apparently made of flesh and blood, though lifeless. It is\ninterred with Sancha, on Inire's instructions. When the paw print cannot be\nremoved from the counterpane, Odilo has it sent to the residence of\nLeocadia, whose sight is failing. Leocadia goes blind but sees the cat\nstalking her in her dreams.\n\nThe last sentence of the story is:\n\n\"It is not well for those of high station to involve the servants of their\nenemies in their quarrels.\"\n\nI think I must be missing something very basic in this story, because I\njust don't get it.\n\nI am assuming that something Father Inire does in his attempts to retrieve\nthe cat cause it to come back as a phantom cat, that this isn't just a\nresult of the cat being teleported by the mirrors. And I am assuming that\nthe phantom cat is Sancha's cat, somehow returned in (mostly) immaterial\nform.\n\nBut what is the \"doll\" supposed to be? Why did it appear and where did it\ncome from? Did Sancha's death cause its appearance or occur because of it?\nWere Leocadia's visions of a cat revenge for Sancha's banishment? If so,\nwhy did it only occur after Odilo sent the counterpane to her residence? Do\nthe servants referred to in the last sentence of the story refer to Odilo,\nInire, both or neither?\n\nIf anyone has any insights into this story, I'd really appreciate hearing them.\n\nThank you,\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-04-16T00:07:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Cat", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #4094777 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#\n\nWilliam H. Ansley,\n\nHello and welcome!\n\nYes, \"The Cat\" is a part of the Urth Cycle. And it is a puzzling\ntale. Personally I think it has two main points which it adds to the\nwhole of our reading of the Urth Cycle:\n\n(1) the (revelation of the) name of the Old Autarch of TBOTNS (this\npoint will of course be violently argued against by the \"Catherine is\nAutarch\" league, the \"Unknowable and Unnameable Old Autarch\" faction,\nand others of that ilk).\n\n(2) the nature of magic mirrors, most specifically (in a vague and\nmystery shrouded way): what comes back from a trip through magic\nmirrors. I don't think that many people will argue against the\nopinion that the creature which Father Inire retrieves is a very\nchanged creature from the common house cat thrown into the mirrors,\nbut I'm probably mistaken.\n\nIn addition to these main points, we also get (as you have yourself\nshown) some wonderful historical dates and events to add to the\ntimeline of posthistory around the time of Severian's early reign and\nthe decades before.\n\nI agree with you that the \"phantom cat\" is the thing returned from\nthe mirrors. I believe that the \"doll\" is a vessel built for it to\ndwell within: the analogy depends upon how you perceive the\nMiles/Jonas paradox.\n\nIf \"Miles\" is the \"repaired Jonas\" (and therefore the \"other spirit\"\nin that crowded body is the spirit of the biological prosthetics that\nJonas took with him into the mirrors) who has returned to Urth as he\npromised he would (in order to search for Jolenta), then the Doll is\n(perhaps) the \"repaired Cat\" who got its heart's desire (meow-meow)\nin the Land Where Wishes Come True (assuming that a beloved Cat would\nwish to become like the beloved Cat Owner);\n\nif \"Miles\" is just an innocent deadman who becomes the vessel for the\ndisembodied spirit of Jonas, drawn down by the Claw (hey, cats have\nclaws, too!), then the Doll is (maybe) an artifact (homunculus or\nminiature khaibit) which is ridden by the disembodied spirit of the\nCat. In short, a spirit-mount, such as we see so often in THE BOOK\nOF THE LONG SUN.\n\nIn this second case, it might be that: the Doll is life-bound to the\nWoman, the Cat is spirit-bound to the Doll and still loves the Woman;\nthus when the Woman dies, the Doll dies and the Cat becomes \"pure\nghost\" again.\n\nIn turn, this relates (or so it seems to me) to how we comprehend\n\"The Tale of the Student and His Son\"--since here is a case of a\nmagician forming a hero out of concentrated thought. Eidolon,\naquastor, homunculus?\n\nAll in all, I persist in thinking \"The Cat\" shows that mirror\nteleportation is in no way as simple as \"beaming up\" on Star Trek\n, but as to what actually happens remains obscure.\n\n(Then again, I was shocked to discover that aquastors and eidolons\nare \"real ghosts\" rather than technological ghost-like things.\nBlind-sided again!)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-04-16T14:54:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Cat", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wednesday 15 April 1998 at 20:07:00 mantis (m.driussi at genie.geis.com)\nwrote:\nIn turn, this relates (or so it seems to me) to how\nwe comprehend \"The Tale of the Student and His\nSon\"--since here is a case of a magician forming\na hero out of concentrated thought. Eidolon,\naquastor, homunculus?\n\n. . .\n\n(Then again, I was shocked to discover that\naquastors and eidolons are \"real ghosts\" rather\nthan technological ghost-like things. Blind-sided\nagain!)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just re-read BotNS (in preparation for the lamentably lost Disclave\ndiscussion) and I've come to think that there is no difference (_pace_\nmantis) between eidolons and aquastors. Well, that's not precisely true,\nso allow me to qualify: the physical manifestations that Severian sees,\nand for that matter, that Gunnie and Apheta see, are produced by the\nidentical machine in an identical fashion from identical materials. (The\naquastor Malrubius speaks of this machine, if you'll recall, when Severian\nis returned to the seaside below Gyoll in _Citadel_, saying it has a range\nof only a few thousand years.) The distinction between a common eidolon\nand the aquastors, I think, is that the aquastors are given a special\noffice (cf. mantis' earlier post linking \"aquastor\" to Latin _quaesitor_\nand the position it indicates) and, almost certainly, special programming\nand knowledge in addition to that which comes automatically as a result of\nSeverian's memories of their models. Notice that the letter stolen from\nSeverian on the ship Tzadkiel was given to him by \"the aquastors for\nUrth\"--that \"for\" is significant. It suggests that their post is an\nappointed one. While it might equally well be argued that they are the\naquastors for Urth because they were created as specialized, single-purpose\ninstruments for the job, the fact that Wolfe describes their dissolution in\nterms almost identical to those he uses for the disappearance of the\neidolons after the fight in the Hall of Justice on Yesod, and the time that\nhe has Severian refer to Malrubius and Triskele as eidolons (I'm sorry; the\nbook's not with me, so I can't provide a page reference, but I'm pretty\nsure it's in _Urth_) impose the view that any modifications they may have\nundergone are minor compared to their similarities with other eidolons.\n\nThis in turn resolves the question of whether, when Severian is resurrected\non the ship Tzadkiel, he is brought back as an eidolon or as an aquastor.\nThey're the same thing, so the significant differences between his\nresurrection and the creation of the other eidolons are simply that he is\nnot allowed to disperse, thus giving him time to anchor himself in the\nworld by breathing, eating, etc., and that he is made not from a single\nperson's recollection of him, but from the totality of his own memories of\nhimself, since his brain is available for complete download. (This last\npoint, by the way, echoes something that Wolfe says in \"The Other Dead\nMan\". In that story, the protagonist observes that Hap, after his revival\nby the medical unit, seems to be more like the computer's idea of what Hap\nshould be, rather than what the man himself, his friend, was like. Later,\nafter the protagonist's own revival, he notices that he seems to behave in\nsome cases almost without volition--I submit it's because those particular\nacts were conditioned by the computer's expectations of him, rather than by\nhis own \"natural\" impulses to action.)\n\nThe visions and dreams that Severian has, in which he sees Malrubius and\nTriskele, are perhaps responsible for clouding the issue of the distinction\nbetween eidolons and aquastors. I see those episodes as being analogous to\ncommunications from Erebus or Abaia, sendings from minds (or mechanical\nequivalents, as on the Whorl, though this is not necessarily the case;\npossibly Tzadkiel's mind approaches the power of the others' minds, though\nhe is doubtless more discreet in its use) vastly more powerful than human\nones that have little or no objectively verifiable manifestation in the\nmaterial world. The eidolons are, of course, fully material while being\nmaintained, and can leave footprints in the sand and cuts and bruises on\nSeverian and Gunnie.\n\nThus, mantis, your answer is \"eidolon\". But, like Severian, this eidolon\nhas the opportunity to cement his place in the world by breathing and\neating.\n\nMark Millman\n\nA post script: I'd like to address the nature of homunculi too, but I\ndon't think that Wolfe tells us enough about them for me to do so; I'll\ntherefore restrict myself to a few comments. All of Baldanders' work that\nwe hear about is performed on human victims, and I believe the suggestion\nis that he is rooted in a scientific materialism, indicating that Talos is\nprobably built from parts (though not necessarily ones stolen from living\ncreatures; perhaps he's a pre-fabricated servant) and then animated.\nWolfe's descriptions of his face, like that of a stuffed fox, and the\nimmobility of his features that forces him to use the attitude of his head\nand the placement of the shadows on his face to convey emotion and other\nnon-verbal cues, tend to support this interpretation, as does his scant\nappetite.\n\nMM" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Sara Dann", "address": "sph1635 at utsph.sph.uth.tmc.edu" }, "date": "1998-04-16T15:58:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: The Cat", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI know that this has probably been brought up before, but just to\nsatisfy my curiosity, how many here have read \"The Book of Imaginary Beings\"\nby Borges? I ask this is see if anyone else can see the connections between\n\"Fauna of the Mirrors\" and the short story \"The Cat\".\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tXury" } ] } ] }