House Absolute

I recently got my brother hooked on Wolfe and he made a very interesting suggestion that I haven't found in the Archives. Could House Absolute be Mt Cheyenne the American underground Nuclear Base? http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/cmc.htm Not sure if this has been discussed before, if so, apologies! ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

Nessus is the descendant of Buenos Aires, it has moved south (other things, some more and some less plausible, are also assumed to have happened). House Absolute is thus to be found somewhere in the present bounds of Buenos Aires. I have no idea how familiar Wolfe might be with modern Buenos Aires. .

I don't have the text to hand so I cannot verify till I get home however I don't think the House Absolute is in Nessus at all. Did Severian not travel North for some time before he reached Nessus? He was walking over House Absolute with Jonas when they were taken capture by the Guards.

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The Commonwealth seems to be in South America. And the story takes place so far in the future that today's underground bases would probably have long since disappeared. Best wishes, Jack

House Absolute>I don't have the text to hand so I cannot verify till

Tim, It is true that the House Absolute is not in Nessus. So all that is beside the point. But the Asciians control the region north of the equator where Severian tells us everything is backwards: the freezing caps there are in the North (can you imagine?) and the warmer weather is in the South. J ----- Original Message ----- From: O'Donnell, Tim (BOSI)

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From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Message-ID: <E0FE84CC44054E5DB9AC0D17C340A7EB at GATEWAY> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" All valid points and the assertion that the House Absolute is Mt Cheyenne is cheerfully withdrawn! As was discussed here recently it is not one of those plot points that is vital to book. However, I will still cling to the possibility that it is an underground nuclear base; there is a section where Severian notes strange hexadecimal shapes (someone on this list speculated that these were the biohazard symbol). That would certainly fit with this theory. As I say, I don't think it is of upmost importance anyway! House Absolute>I don't have the text to hand so I cannot verify till

Tim, It is true that the House Absolute is not in Nessus. So all that is beside the point. But the Asciians control the region north of the equator where Severian tells us everything is backwards: the freezing caps there are in the North (can you imagine?) and the warmer weather is in the South. J ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

Apologies to James Wynn, The formatting on my last post went a little screwy so it looks like I am attributing my comments to you. Any of my muddles should be assigned to me and not James! ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

Hey, another John/Jack!

It is North. Nessus has been moving south. .

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Besides the issues with being on the wrong continent, I think another problem is that the site is in the middle of some real mountains and a mountain range, and the House Absolute is, IIRC, on level or rolling grounds. I don't think enough millions of years have passed for the mountains to have been leveled down that far; certainly there's the question how an underground base could have survived while the very mountains have not. - -- gwern -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAkk0Aw0ACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oLnjQCgmB3M9TrwGRjkTzO3jyl/eJGR Rd8AniV2SkhL4g2vGsM9E1RpnzXnmAkf =3b0r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Trusty engineering in the US of A! GW giving props to his colleagues! Besides the issues with being on the wrong continent, I think another problem is that the site is in the middle of some real mountains and a mountain range, and the House Absolute is, IIRC, on level or rolling grounds. I don't think enough millions of years have passed for the mountains to have been leveled down that far; certainly there's the question how an underground base could have survived while the very mountains have not. - -- gwern ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

During the chilliads between our age of Myth and Severian's time, most extant buildings and underground structures will have served any number of purposes. Many underground locations appearing in the book show signs of defensive infrastructure ("hypogeum apotropaic" can be read as "underground bunker"), and underground bunkers have been useful since the advent of rifled artillery and mandatory since the dawn of bomber aircraft.

My curiosity has been awakened---What is the argument for Nessus' being Buenos Aires? I agree that it's a candidate, and I understand that, if anything, Nessus would be "a descendant" of that city rather than in the same location. But if we are to take the present geography of South America as any kind of guide, it's impossible. The small river that flows through BA runs from NW to SE, so that the city would move NW, not south. No river flows due north anywhere in the region, and we know Nessus moved to get away from the squalid lower river area, just like London did. So Nessus did not move south---unless a new, wide, long river with a huge estuary sprung up out of nothing, in which case all bets are off. Once you accept that the city moves north or northwest (regardless of what Severian says), Gyoll may as well be Rio de la Plata/Parana River. Only this river has a long estuary and a region where the land is flat enough for the river to meander as Gyoll does. The river descends from the north before turning southeast. So if Nessus IS Buenos Aires, it first enlarged itself to include the estuary and half of Uruguay, then moved northwest. If this contradicts any other known facts, then we have to accept that contradiction. Wouldn't be the first time. Incidentally, there is a town/province of northern Uruguay, up the Parana, called Salto, which may be Saltus. And I need not point out that Borges wrote extensively of the rebels of the plains north of the rivers in Brazil and Paraguay, and Wolfe is a fan. As for House Absolute---who knows. There is plenty of room there and time for various ancient installations and constructions. We do know, however, that its tunnels connect with Nessus, so it can't be too far away.

I don't have my copies with me, but wasn't Father Inire responsible for building most of the House Absolute? Or was he just responsible for the "additions" to a structure that was already there? ________________________________ From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> To: urth at lists.urth.net Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 10:24:16 AM Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute My curiosity has been awakened---What is the argument for Nessus' being Buenos Aires? I agree that it's a candidate, and I understand that, if anything, Nessus would be "a descendant" of that city rather than in the same location. But if we are to take the present geography of South America as any kind of guide, it's impossible. The small river that flows through BA runs from NW to SE, so that the city would move NW, not south. No river flows due north anywhere in the region, and we know Nessus moved to get away from the squalid lower river area, just like London did. So Nessus did not move south---unless a new, wide, long river with a huge estuary sprung up out of nothing, in which case all bets are off. Once you accept that the city moves north or northwest (regardless of what Severian says), Gyoll may as well be Rio de la Plata/Parana River. Only this river has a long estuary and a region where the land is flat enough for the river to meander as Gyoll does. The river descends from the north before turning southeast. So if Nessus IS Buenos Aires, it first enlarged itself to include the estuary and half of Uruguay, then moved northwest. If this contradicts any other known facts, then we have to accept that contradiction. Wouldn't be the first time. Incidentally, there is a town/province of northern Uruguay, up the Parana, called Salto, which may be Saltus. And I need not point out that Borges wrote extensively of the rebels of the plains north of the rivers in Brazil and Paraguay, and Wolfe is a fan. As for House Absolute---who knows. There is plenty of room there and time for various ancient installations and constructions. We do know, however, that its tunnels connect with Nessus, so it can't be too far away.

Some of those tunnels go back in time and/or have still-working contrivances like anti-gravity or moving surfaces, so that "can't be too far away" might be longer than you think.

Hi David, I thought that Nessus = Buenos Ares was accepted here but I could be wrong. In the archives I can find the following discussions: http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2008-September/010056.html http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2007-December/008446.html Although I do remember further discussion on the older lists (I had a great few months in a new job where I had the opportunity to read through the entire archives). Your objection based on the flow of the river came up. At least one person (Raster) suggested that Severian may have spatial dyslexia and raised some interesting points in this regard: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0001/0021.shtml Just on the point of the House Absolute connecting to Nessus (and I am in no way welded to the idea, just throwing some ideas around) at least 2 ways in which this could be the case and the two could be at a long remove: i) Some transport device like the one Typhon uses to ascend to the top of the mountain with his face carved on it could be used to move around. IIIRC there is a suggestion of anti-gravity device in operation here ii) One of Father Inire's devices could be at work here. Some variation on mirrors for transport to allow rapid transport. Is it established how long it takes to walk between the House Absolute and Nessus? The tunnels are certainly extensive enough to allow children to be lost and possibly for timber wolves to live in the tunnels. There is also the possibility that the tunnels joining these two are extremely long. As I say, I don't think it is that important to the story, just idle speculation... __________________________________ David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net My curiosity has been awakened---What is the argument for Nessus' being Buenos Aires? I agree that it's a candidate, and I understand that, if anything, Nessus would be "a descendant" of that city rather than in the same location. But if we are to take the present geography of South America as any kind of guide, it's impossible. The small river that flows through BA runs from NW to SE, so that the city would move NW, not south. No river flows due north anywhere in the region, and we know Nessus moved to get away from the squalid lower river area, just like London did. So Nessus did not move south---unless a new, wide, long river with a huge estuary sprung up out of nothing, in which case all bets are off. Once you accept that the city moves north or northwest (regardless of what Severian says), Gyoll may as well be Rio de la Plata/Parana River. Only this river has a long estuary and a region where the land is flat enough for the river to meander as Gyoll does. The river descends from the north before turning southeast. So if Nessus IS Buenos Aires, it first enlarged itself to include the estuary and half of Uruguay, then moved northwest. If this contradicts any other known facts, then we have to accept that contradiction. Wouldn't be the first time. Incidentally, there is a town/province of northern Uruguay, up the Parana, called Salto, which may be Saltus. And I need not point out that Borges wrote extensively of the rebels of the plains north of the rivers in Brazil and Paraguay, and Wolfe is a fan. As for House Absolute---who knows. There is plenty of room there and time for various ancient installations and constructions. We do know, however, that its tunnels connect with Nessus, so it can't be too far away. ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

Nessus as B.A. is not universally accepted. There is a small group, of whom I am one, who take it as given that the continents have changed by the time of the NS. It appears that the core of the Urth has cooled; this is implies a futureity of hundreds of millions, probably billions, of years from our time. And until the core does cool to solidity, tectonics will continue to move the continents around, submerge some and raise up others, as it has done since the crust hardened. Therefore I suggest that to identify the contient of Severian's journey as South America is not so much wrong as meaningless.

Thanks for the links, Tim. It looks like the "exact" origin of Nessus is unsettled enough for my theory to fit without contradicting anyone else's South American theory. I agree that a nod to Borges is extremely likely---without necessarily dictating exact coordinates. And I think the posters' suspicions about Severian's descriptions of spatial relations is fair on several levels. He has occupied several different bodies---how could he comfortably describe Thecla's left hand, just as a random example, as being on his (Severian's) right, when he also had known it to be on his (Thecla's) left? As an aside, I'm skeptical about any theory that "extreme" amounts of time have passed. There is simply no thematic or plot need for Urth to drastically change, nor for continents to change for the 20th century to be utterly forgotten and for cities to rise where now no cities are. Myth is as much about changes that occur on the same landscape as it is about what stays the same when the ground changes. Severian describes plastic as being still near the surface. Climate, sedimentation, and minor river movement are all fast changes vs any kind of mountain formation; so are language change/loss, cultural memory loss, and the replacement of political systems. The pampas are still there, as are the northern jungles, the Andes with its lakes, and the southern mists.

Although we might argue about how much authorial intention matters on a point that isn't necessarily stated explicitly in the text, Wolfe has said that he intended South America. From his interview with Larry McCaffery:

LM: What kind of research was involved in The Book of the New Sun? Wolfe: The main research was on Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire, which was a stagnant political entity that had outlived its time in much the same way that the Urth of the Commonwealth had. One of the things that bothered me about the reviews I got on The Book of the New Sun was how often they compared my world with that of Medieval Europe. Insofar as I was trying to create any kind of parallels with an actual historical period here on Earth and obviously I wasn't aiming at developing an exact analogy?I was thinking of Byzantium. Incidentally, I also got into trouble with some reviewers over my presentation of the Ascians, who were my equivalent of the Turks. If you read the book carefully, it's clear that the action is taking place in South America and that the invading Ascians are actually North Americans. What I didn't anticipate was that nine tenths of my readers and reviewers would look at the word "Ascian" and say, "Oh, these guys are Asians!" This confusion got me accused of being an anti Asian racist which I'm not. Actually, the word "ascian" literally means "people without shadows." It was a word used in the Classical world for people who lived near the Equator, where the Sun is dead overhead at noon and thus produces no shadow. I felt it would be an interesting touch to show that the ordinary man in the street in the Southern Hemisphere wasn't even conscious that their attackers are coming down from the Northern Hemisphere (they aren't even aware that there is another hemisphere). (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm)

I'm find with this being geographically South America. The question remains, and which Wolfe's answer above implies, is how much the culture of South America is supposed to be reflected in the Commonwealth. There, I think Dan'l's point is correct, and the severe time span makes Urth alien to contemporary culture. (Apart, perhaps, from the fact that they still drink mate.)

One other tiny point (and an apology for hitting Send too quickly before): Just because it's South America doesn't make Nessus Buenos Aires, of course. They layers upon layers of sedimented "civilization" that Severian sees in the cliff face and talks about with the "miners," suggests to me that we're seeing a city that might have a vague organic connection to BA but which, given how much has been built, destroyed, and forgotten in this area, probably also has equally as many "organic" connections to countless other South American cities, both historical and "Urth-historical." Even within the book's historical scope, Nessus seems to have grown on its own for so long that it's forgotten much of its own "recent" history. To want to then identify it as a city that existed in its own "Age of Myth" seems to not even really be an option. New York and New Amsterdam, for example, may be geographically identical, but so much has happened in 2-300 years it doesn't really make sense to "identify" New York as New Amsterdam. Although we might argue about how much authorial intention matters on a point that isn't necessarily stated explicitly in the text, Wolfe has said that he intended South America. From his interview with Larry McCaffery:

LM: What kind of research was involved in The Book of the New Sun? Wolfe: The main research was on Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire, which was a stagnant political entity that had outlived its time in much the same way that the Urth of the Commonwealth had. One of the things that bothered me about the reviews I got on The Book of the New Sun was how often they compared my world with that of Medieval Europe. Insofar as I was trying to create any kind of parallels with an actual historical period here on Earth and obviously I wasn't aiming at developing an exact analogy?I was thinking of Byzantium. Incidentally, I also got into trouble with some reviewers over my presentation of the Ascians, who were my equivalent of the Turks. If you read the book carefully, it's clear that the action is taking place in South America and that the invading Ascians are actually North Americans. What I didn't anticipate was that nine tenths of my readers and reviewers would look at the word "Ascian" and say, "Oh, these guys are Asians!" This confusion got me accused of being an anti Asian racist which I'm not. Actually, the word "ascian" literally means "people without shadows." It was a word used in the Classical world for people who lived near the Equator, where the Sun is dead overhead at noon and thus produces no shadow. I felt it would be an interesting touch to show that the ordinary man in the street in the Southern Hemisphere wasn't even conscious that their attackers are coming down from the Northern Hemisphere (they aren't even aware that there is another hemisphere). (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm)

I'm find with this being geographically South America. The question remains, and which Wolfe's answer above implies, is how much the culture of South America is supposed to be reflected in the Commonwealth. There, I think Dan'l's point is correct, and the severe time span makes Urth alien to contemporary culture. (Apart, perhaps, from the fact that they still drink mate.)

No, Nessus has been moving North, from it's southern origin at the sea. Claw 28: "Dorcas paused, looking up into the trees. "My father said that the city had been creeping northward along the river for all of history, having begun as an autochthon village where Gyoll joins the sea... " and Citadel XVII "Yes you came from Nessus, did you not? And that was a city built about a river. But it was once a city by the sea," All of the Dead and dying parts of the city are in the south, which makes sense if it's crept up the river. Gyoll runs Southeast Citadel XXXII "I had heard that the ruins of the city extended far downriver and asked when we would sight them." The Citadel is near the Center of Nessus, but to the South. Sword VI "Anyway, in Nessus, a long way south of the city most people visit, so far down the great river in fact that most people think the city would have ended long before, there stands an ancient fortress. and from Jonas story: Shadow 35 "In the old times, the lords of this world feared no one but their own people,and to defend themselves against them built a great fortress on a hilltop to the north of the city." so back in Jonas's time, the Citadel (Great Fortress) is North of the City Proper. So, clearly Nessus has crept North. I was trying to draw a map of the areas, and I realized it does almost perfectly overlay with South America. (Obviously I'm not the first to notice) It's more or less Argentina that this takes place in. If you look at Buenos Aires, it's at the mouth of a river that opens to the sea. I forget the name, Rio Parana or something. So, if Nessus Started out at Buenos Aires, I figure it's probably as far as Rosario by the BoTNS, though that makes for a seriously huge city wall. Right in the middle of Argentina is the Patagonia Pampas, and the rugged Andes would be perfect for carving Kings, they're very tall and steep, unlike many mountain ranges that slope more gradually. And of course, to the South, you've got the Southern Isles that of Halvard's story, where it is cold and icy, like the bottom of Chile and the Falkland Islands. And further north, of course, you find the Jungle and the Jungle River, Ouroboros, which is obviously the Amazon River.

I foundt searchable text files. they come in handy. Yes, The House Absolute is North of Nessus. While I think the Nuclear bunker idea is neat, it doesn't seem to jibe with the details of the H.A. which is extravagant and palatial. As well, Inire built the Second House to coincide with the First House completely. It doesn't seem like a Nuclear Bunker would be retrofitted to have that sort of subtle labyrinthian structure. ~SonOfWitz

regarding whether its meaningless to say it's South America is not really countered by plate tectonics. Sure, you might name the reshaped continent something else, but it's more or less the same thing. The edges and mountain ranges have probably changed. and as has been pointed out

as well as the Mate drinking culture and the Amazon River. Of course, the amount of futurity is anyone's guess. I imagine at least 30,000 years but not much more. As for Urth's core cooling within that timespan, it's as plausible as the sun dying. Typhon's scientists told him it would take much longer to cool than it actually did. I originally saw this work as set in a future Ice Age, but, it would seem like its really on the CUSP of a future ice age, where it's still not seen much glaciation spreading from the poles. Some, but not quite enough to call it an ice age yet. I'd thought the Ice Age animals a good clue to that, but it would also seem that ice age animals are the most likely Earth Fauna to be resurrected (fitting) into Urth, because we have frozen dna of them in our time. They're trying to grow a Mammoth right now.

Nessus as B.A. is not universally accepted. There is a small group, of whom I am one, who take it as given that the continents have changed by the time of the NS. It appears that the core of the Urth has cooled; this is implies a futureity of hundreds of millions, probably billions, of years from our time. And until the core does cool to solidity, tectonics will continue to move the continents around, submerge some and raise up others, as it has done since the crust hardened. Therefore I suggest that to identify the contient of Severian's journey as South America is not so much wrong as meaningless. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant

The Amazon has been rerouted. Or something like that. Anyway, I heard this from Wolfe personally. .

Gene Wolfe stated to me, in so many words, that Nessus is Buenos Aires. He could have been lying, I suppose. .

While we all sit here and wonder about the practicalities and details of how Buenos Aires might have become Nessus, it seems that the best reason to think of the two cities as the same has less to do with plot than with one more allusive than literal reason: Borges. ----- Original Message ---- From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 1:23:16 PM Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute Gene Wolfe stated to me, in so many words, that Nessus is Buenos Aires. He could have been lying, I suppose. .

Right. .

There's no "South American Theory". Wolfe himself confirmed in an interview that the Commonwealth IS in South America.

The Stone Town would not have survived millions of years after the time of the Incas in recognizeable form. Plus, in the afterword of Shadow, "G.W." the translator of Severian's ms flatly states that he has photographed multiple buildings that remain standing in Severian's time, again implying that the separation is on a scale of dozens of millenia at most.

Again, this is the mistake of reading Wolfe as hard-sf. Wolfe's future doesn't have to be consistent with scientific theories of geology or plate tectonics. When he wants to connect his world to images of the present or past, he does so with recognizable architecture; when he wants to show the great age of Urth, he shows us the effects of erosion and sedimentation and subduction kneading the ruins our world into unrecognizability or oblivion. Nessus is Buenos Aires. Nessus is Byzantium. Incan ruins are still standing, but the technology of the fare future is found as if fossilized. That's the logic of Urth. Wolfe's Urth is a rhizome of associations and allusions to thousands of years of history and literature. It's consistency lies in the coherent structure of that rhizome, not in scientific plausibility. Therefore, if the elapsed time between our present and Severians is a pertinent detail, then the clues to it will be found among the nodes of that rhizome. The Lexicon Urthus 2nd ed. has some interesting things to say about this under "History of Urth." (BTW, can someone tell me what the abbreviations P.S. and S.R. mean in this book?)

They relate to the reckoning of time in years, which you've just said is a mistake, so I won't burden you with this spurious notation.

I agree with you Matthew. IT's not meant to be hard-sf. (jeez, I'm a relative noob to the SF genre, do writers bother with that sort of thing) In the Lexion, Andre-Driussi points out that the Red Sun is not hard sf, but is from the covers of pulp sf books that inspired Wolfe. ~witz

The book very much fits within the "Dying Earth" subgenre (cf. Jack Vance) and is more closely related to planetary romance/science fantasy than what we think of as "science fiction." So basically, magic is real, the laws of physics and science can be bent or broken by the supernatural, and reality is malleable.

I can't find the reference, and therefore am probably completely making up this memory, but I thought I remember someone schooling Severian to the fact that ancient peoples utilized the energies of the Urth's core, and used it up, therefore, those energies were exhausted, rather than stopping naturally. This seems to relate to the notion of the Sun dying by design rather than naturally. Does anyone else remember anything like this?

Why so snarky? I said no such thing. I don't object to counting years. It's just that if one tries to calculate the age of Urth by the decay of ruins or by geologic change, one is going to come up with contradictory estimates depending upon which piece of the text one bases the measurement on. The "History of Urth" entry in the Lexicon makes a convincing case for calculating the age of Urth based upon the precession of the equinox. This "Great Year" model is convincing to me, in part, because of how well it fits in with the other metaphors and images of cyclicism in the text. It puts the Age of Myth (which we seem to be in now) at 20,500 P.S. (Pre-Severian -- thanks Dave.) So all I'm saying is that 1) scientific calculations of the age of Urth are bound to be contradictory, and 2) a calculation worth making should be thematically relevant.

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com

Yes. I have no objection to Nessus being BA in the sense that it is also Byzantium.

That's still not a "get out of internal consistency free" card.

Societally it is Byzantine. Physically it is Buenos Aires. .

You can't have it both ways in a story that spans the timeline of ruin and geological change.

Yo, but we're talking about a book where the space ships have masts and sails. It need not conform to science.

Isn't it we readers who are projecting "geological change" onto this. (except the part of Urth having cooled, which I don't remember the text source.) Wolfe surely mentions changes in terms of Ruins, but I don't think he mentions anything about continental changes.

You mean like this http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/ Jeff

But there should be internal consistency or a reason for the lack thereof. Matthew

'DOH!!!!

"should" are there rules to fiction now? ~witz

People have been talking about solar sails for decades. I believe one or two have even been tested. .

Mark Twain summarized them pretty well in his essay "Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper." http://ww3.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html

but the author includes an explanation for the sailing spaceships - there's no suggestion of why time passes so differently at the stone town, Casdoe's cabin, and Saltus.

maybe I'm being dense, but I'm not sure I follow. Time at the stone town is in a magical time. I think The Cumaean mentions that all times become one in the trance state she brings about. and the Stone Town seems to be one of those Resonant sorts of places that has managed to stay at the surface. It would also seem that it has not been built over, that its' mostly rocky wasteland in that territory. But how does time pass differently at Casdoe's and Saltus? Do you mean the cliff and the mine?

Aristotle may have been the first to write down certain best practices, but the guidelines have been around a while.

remaining at the surface should mean the structures get even more weather and erosion than if they were safely buried in detrius or middens.

some sorts o' magic mebee?

It might even be the Underpants Gnomes' winter quarters. That rminds me, other than drinking Mate, lots of other current Age customs seem to have endured into Sev's era, including telling ghost stories at Hallowmass Eve.

So what counts as internal consistency in a world where, on the one hand, what initially seems like a medieval castle turns out to be an abandoned rocket ship (i.e., science trumps fantasy) but where, at the same time, a dude ends up being able to inconsistently resurrect both himself (?) and others (i.e., magic)? Isn't part of the point of New Sun the not knowing whether science or magic is in control? Wolfe specifically calls his chosen genre here "science fantasy" so that he didn't have to hold to "hard science" or outright anything goes magic. (I wish I could easily locate the interview where he says this.) He also has written stories he's specifically labeled "hard sf" and others that he's specifically called fantasy. My real point here is that part of what initially attracted me to New Sun was the realization that the fantasy bits turned out to be "sf" at times and that the "science fiction" tropes (the alien Hieros, etc.) ended up having a magical, or at least metaphysical, edge. (So all the real space sails talk is really cool. But is someone also going to show me a real world technological equivalent of every wonder under Urth and its sky? Or, a more pointed question is whether even the assumption that one could do this misunderstands the kind of imaginative world Wolfe created here.) ----- Original Message ---- From: Matthew malthouse <calmeilles at gmail.com> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 5:31:30 PM Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute

But there should be internal consistency or a reason for the lack thereof. Matthew

Science fantasy was a genre long before Wolfe wrote "The Book of the New Sun." A part of it is not knowing (following Clarke's famous dictum). That's the point of Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books (to which the BOTNS is both a pastiche and a homage): in the far future world, wizards are those who command powers beyond normal ken, be they supernatural or technological. The point is that the storyteller (in this case, Severian) doesn't know, and the readers aren't privileged with that information either. Bear in mind that any "internal consistency" of the story is only internally consistent if Severian relates it to us consistently. We already know he claims to have a flawless memory, but the lousy sack of @#!!#$#$ is a liar at worst and simply not introspective enough to know when he's being deceived or deceiving himself. Also, Wolfe is playing a kind of joke on us (that's what the afterwords are, where he "explains" a lot of the things we find perplexing). Wolfe is telling us that he came into possession of Severian's manuscript(s), as a collector of things that have fallen backwards through time, and is translating them into English. Because there is some conceptual gap and drift between our modern-day English (and the tropes and categories by which we understand things) and the tropes and categories to which Severian would frame things, we end up with things that somehow sort of resemble familiar concepts (solar sails) but not quite because we're seeing them not as Severian saw them (in actuality), but as Severian recalled them, translated them into words, and those words were then translated for a world so far in the past that certain words and concepts didn't even exist for what Severian was describing. The end result is something chimerical: at times, it appears familiar (oh, the Hieros are aliens come back to shepherd humanity among the stars!) but then is not (they may be beings from a higher universe, like angels!) but then is not again (they're not really angels but "filthy Hiero-wasp creatures that may or may not be somehow the descendants of the original starfaring humans). The point is that we only know as much as Severian knows and is truthfully relating, but we are not in a privileged position to know where he is lying/being deceived and where he's not. So we must take everything as it given and subject it to endless critique in some hopes of arriving at a hermeneutic understanding of just what in the holy hell is going on. breathe Lane

Before I comment on the email below just a note on Wolfe and "hard" sci-fi. While Wolfe doesn't go out of his way to burden every device with a hard science grounding, he is an engineer and does take physics into account. I, for one, would doubt that there is little in his books that is physically impossible, but lots that employs theoretical principles that haven't been realised physically yet. For instance, when Typhon and Severian are in the floater Typhon indicates that it is powered by an anti-gravity device. Why would Wolfe go to the trouble of including this detail when he is going to plead Asmiov's law and just say "magic" for other instances? (If this was the Star Wars universe the answer of course would be "the force"). Some of the most interesting speculation I have found in the archives has been around physics. For instance, the link below is a discussion of how big the Whorl may be based on the effects of the acceleration experienced by Silk in the floater. http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0007/0606.shtml In response to the email below, I think that the geographical changes are what situate Urth so far in the future. However I see nothing in the text to indicate that these are in fact normal geographical processes. The Urth's core may have been cooled when the geo-thermal energy was in some way mapped. (Where did the energy to create the Whorl come from? And before that the star-faring civilisations that rose and fell?). Is it ever established who exactly put the black hole in the sun? Could it have been a botched attempt to harness the energy of the sun? Likewise the mountains containing evidence of past ages. What struck me in this section of the job is how incredible the engineering job that created these mountains of Auturchs was. Severian at one point wonders how the machinery could have passed this way. Technology that would allow an Auturch to carve their face in the mountain would surely allow them to create artificial mountains using whatever building material was to hand (digging deep into the Earth's crust even to obtain the materials). ___________________________________________ From: John Smith <jsmith2627 at att.net> Subject: (urth) How Far in the Future is Urth? To: urth at urth.net Message-ID: <260958.42436.qm at web180009.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii People seem to have significant differences of opinion as to how far in the future Severian's Urth is. Is it a few thousand years in the future or a few hundred million? I lean toward one million years for these reasons: 1. The moon has been irrigated and now supports vast forests. Changing a barren rock into a place that supports life would take a long time. 2. Mining is done by digging up forgotten buried cities. 3. At some point in Claw, Severian climbs down a cliff, passing by layers of sediments that must have taken ages to lay down. 4. Enough time has passed for star-faring civilizations to have arisen and fallen. 5. Against the idea of hundreds of millions of years having passed, I would point out that there are still seven continents. And North and South America seem to still be in the same relative positions. ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

The mountain faces are precisely as believable as Mt. Rushmore and Georgia's Stone Mountain.

The mountain faces are precisely as believable as Mt. Rushmore and Georgia's Stone Mountain. -- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com <http://lists.urth.net/listinfo.cgi/urth-urth.net> < <http://www.io.com/~jwilson> > No, they are as believable as an unspecified number of these back to back. However I do believe that the mountains exist. I also believe that the cliff face that Severian is not created by geographical forces but by human activity which may be deliberate (http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2007113002&IA=EP2007002964&DISPLAY=DESC) or incidental (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Kills_Landfill). So, the argument here is not about whether the mountains exist but whether the forces that created the mountains and cooled the Earth's core were natural or not. ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************

I don't see how there becoming more popular over the chilliads or posing them back to back makes them significantly less plausible.

Abaia and Erebus are large as mountains themselves so that's at least two mountainous masses with at least partially unnatural provenance. They are also situated to draw on tidal and geothermal energy. It's also debatable that Urt's core really is cooling. The learned Ultan and Palaemon seem to get most of their education from the piles of books in the Library, and may have no way to know which books have outdated theories; they may have enjoyed Bellamy's _Looking Backward_and gotten the notion that the refrigeration of the earth is a foregone conclusion in the wisdom of the ancients.

What's the artistic point of the cliff scene, world-famous for its evocation of deep time, if not to show that a gazillion years have passed? What's the artistic point of mentioning the cooling of Urth's core, if not to show that a gazillion years have passed? The deep-futurity theory only requires one to accept a couple of improbable survivals--the dual meaning of "present", the astronaut painting--from our period, in a book filled with improbabilities, and in line with SF tradition, in which future societies tend to be rather more interested in our era than is strictly plausible. The "score of chiliads" theory requires believing that all the evocations of Dying Earth tropes--so critical to the effect of the book--are coincidental or deceptive, with only rather strenuous rationalizations for evidence. The one thing that gives me pause is the black hole at the Sun's core, which could be a signal that the Dying Earth tropes are going to be rationalized, in the manner of the Matachin Tower and "destriers". But if that's the case there should be solid textual evidence that, e.g., the cliff is artificial.

To show that many, many human societies have arisen, fallen, and been trampled unto dust, and the dust piled upon dust until it has become fused into rock. Wolfe may be one-upping Shelly: Not only is there nothing left of Ozymandias' works but sand and fragments, but they are deeply buried by the sand and fragments from his dozens of peers who followed.

To show the ironically ignorant nature of the far future civilization ( paraphrasing "there is another word for it I can't recall, but lightning is what makes it go") who continue to be brought down by human hubris in their attempts to ascend to godlike heights of wisdom.

That's a fine answer, especially the second part. However, to be fair, Severian also remarks on tree stumps having been petrified, and then performs one of the speculations for which he is notorious, without pointing even slightly in the direction of hubris. Perhaps these can also be read as opportunities for Severian to be Severian. David

Well, yes, exactly. That takes a gazillion years, not 20,000, and is more powerful for representing a gazillion years of human futility rather than 20,000. I thought you (or somebody) was proposing that Typhon had artificially created these cliffs, which completely vitiates this reading. Certainly there's no natural process that can create such a cliff in 20,000 years.

This might fly if there were textual evidence for it.

I don't see why not. surely in that time there would be enough geographical change for some changes in the mountain ranges. That could have been a Landfill sheared in half by a fault in the mountain range. And, if you can't accept landfill, there are cities under cities under cities within less 10k years of Earth's history. What I find a bigger mystery is What did that mosaic depict? Are there any clues? When I asked "are there rules to fiction now" I didn't frame my question right. what I meant to say is, Are we to presume Wolfe has worked this thing out perfectly so that there are no scientific implausibilities. It was in response to a statement like "There SHOULD be internal consistency". And of course, as the Mark Twain Rules would suggest, that there should be. But that doesn't mean its' not a fiction if it breaks the rules. I think the most implausible idea posited yet would be that Wolfe has perfectly crafted a world that 'could' exist exactly as he's written it in his Science Fantasy. The stone town would have weathered more in 20,000 years. Ok. sure. notch one on the implausibilities list. you know, while there are solar ship designs out there, I still find 1000 masts and 100,000 spars with continent size sails implausible. And then this bit about Aquastors. Why can we accept some flights of literary fancy and not others? ~witz

Not really. And the hard part is turning dirt into rock.

None of them have fused into rock yet, or come anywhere near the height of that cliff, or been worn away by erosion after turning into rock.

If there were textual evidence for BOTNS being set a few chiliads in the future, I would of course have to accept that the cliff got there somehow (with some disappointment, since one of the best scenes in the book would be basically ruined). But there is no such evidence, so I prefer the obvious and aesthetically superior explanation.

Ok, the text does specify it as rock, and thus I suppose you are right. it couldn't be a landfill. I'm no archaeologist, but isn't the earth a city like UR is found in considered rock and not just dirt. and if not, isn't it rocky enough for someone like Severian who knows of Lightning rather than Electricity, to take a hardpacked sediment as rock? I mean, you can stand on it. you can carve steps into it. What does Severian know of the definition of rock? It does mention the stuff was deposited chiliads before the first stones of Nessus were laid, but again, this is just Severian's understanding. I guess I don't have a firm opinion either way. ~witz

Petrified tree stumps are no problem, they can happen in as little as 100,000 years, and the pile of uncorruptive statue-bodies at Saltus demonstrate that a similar preservative process was in use in some distant time - for all we know, the tree stumps were thus petrified for use playing draughts in a park.

Nope. Otherwise the artifacts would be fossilized.

You can't build a cliff that tall out of it without it collapsing. But for me this is somewhat beside the point. If the scene doesn't indicate deep futurity, then there's simply no reason for it to exist. I'm happy to accept felicitous implausibilities--in fact what I'm advocating is still rather implausible--but not ones that reduce rather than enhance the meaning of the text.

Okay. I think you've swayed me. How long are you suggesting again? I lose track of which ideas link to which account.

Petrification and fossilization can happen in as little as 100,000 years, and things might be sped up by the odd industrial spill of futuro-embalming fluid or nuclear bombardment could speed things up in theory. It would still take millions of years for the layers to be thrust upward on a mountainous scale without a cataclysm on the scale of the White Fountain's arrival.

"Lightning," Master Gurloes said as he rammed the loose cable home. "There's another word for it, but I forget. Anyway, the revolutionary here runs by lightning."

Of one layer of sediment, maybe. Of a whole cliff's worth? No.

I meant textual evidence for human-caused cooling of Urth's core, not of the civilization's "ironically ignorant nature," with which I quite agree.

I've been deliberately using the utterly vague term "gazillion." I don't think we're meant to put a number on it.

Based on the cliff sediments and the forested moon, I vote for 3.5 gazillion years, give or take a gazillion. Jack

What a kind offer! What objective metric is being used by what fully informed party to judge the meaning of the text?

I don't think there's any cooling of Urth's core, from any cause, as we understanding here in 2008. The dimming of the old Sun and chilliads of environmental damage are more than enough to cover the general cooling of the surface.

Offer? I just met her!

None, as far as I know. Do you have any suggestions?

I thought someone cited a quote describing such cooling upthread, but can't remember the details. I'll check my older e-mail when I get home. If not, then obviously it ceases to be evidence for deep futurity.

Quandrum Gazilliometrics. the standard scale for mindfucks, methinks.

You ommit the other part of what I said "...or a reason for the lack thereof." Matthew

No I didn't. "Are we to presume Wolfe has worked this thing out perfectly so that there are no scientific implausibilities" this would be the reason for the lack thereof, that Wolfe didn't make a perfectly scientifically viable world here. Again, is he writing a fantasy or a prediction? we can give the guy a little leeway on the science speculation, surely. ~witz

Are those our only choices?

No, take as many choices as you need to realize that this isn't Science Fact.

I suppose my point was that SF is not (or at least is rarely) about prediction. Rather, it is (more frequently) about contemporary "reality," as viewed through the distorting/magnifying/reflecting eye of significant differance. (And thereby hangs an entire theoretical discussion which is more appropriate, perhaps, to a Delany list than to this list...)

Is there such a list? Because, well, I'd hang out there. Adam

There is a Delany list, but it doesn't get into theory discussions very often, alas...

Delany's the champion of the SF reading protocols theory, right? I suppose I am advocating a weak version of that, in that serious science fiction writers ought to be informed about such science as is commonly found elsewhere in the genre, which can easilly be presumed to include the Guiness Book of Records and Asmiov's corpus of non-fictional work.

Delany's "reading protocol" has less to do with actual science than with a willingness to allow language to affect our imaginations in ways that break usual possibilities. In some ways, it's the opposite of having a shared scientific background. It's more about readers being willing to allow their sense of "reality" (or, in this case, "scientific possibility") to be altered with a single word or phrase. He's got an example of a hypothetical story that starts out with the sentence: "The red sun is high, the blue low." And he talks about how a science fiction audience reacts to this kind of sentence by constructing a kind of consistency (or "world") around the given data/words rather than expecting it to conform. But that's from his early stuff. Later, he got all deconstruction-y. ----- Original Message ---- From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2008 7:40:11 PM Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute

Delany's the champion of the SF reading protocols theory, right? I suppose I am advocating a weak version of that, in that serious science fiction writers ought to be informed about such science as is commonly found elsewhere in the genre, which can easilly be presumed to include the Guiness Book of Records and Asmiov's corpus of non-fictional work. -- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com < http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

Me some too! .

Where is a Delany list? Can you say anything more about it? .

delany-list at yahoogroups.com (has been active in the past, not very right now) And there's a John Crowley list, but it's really dead: johncrowleyreaders at yahoogroups.com

Yes, he will start writing this totally egregious academic prose. I have never been able to read those passages. Every third line until it is over.... .

On the web! http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamletmill.htm .

John Crowley also keeps an interesting blog: http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com best, Mo # ~ # ~ # WolfeWiki now at: http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

Agreed, but is the leeway on his understanding of geological processes or engineering processes? :)

No I didn't. "Are we to presume Wolfe has worked this thing out perfectly so that there are no scientific implausibilities" this would be the reason for the lack thereof, that Wolfe didn't make a perfectly scientifically viable world here. Again, is he writing a fantasy or a prediction? we can give the guy a little leeway on the science speculation, surely. ~witz ************************************************************************************************ Find out more about us at www.bankofscotland.ie <http://www.bankofscotland.ie> The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or there are any problems please notify the originator immediately. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving Bank of Scotland Ireland's network. Bank of Scotland Ireland will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) reserves the right to monitor and record e-mail messages sent to and from this address for the purposes of investigating or detecting any unauthorised use of its system and ensuring its effective operation. Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Limited is part of HBOS plc and is regulated by the Financial Regulator. Registered in Ireland Number: 8545. Registered office: Bank of Scotland House, 124-127 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2 ****************************************************************************************************