{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/544",
    "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": 544,
    "subject": "Korean CATCH-22",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-02T17:28:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-02T17:28:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0010-0064@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-02T17:28:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Korean CATCH-22",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It really doesn't take excessive imagination to read TBOTNS as\na historical/psychological realistic novel about \"the psychological\nbreakdown and flight into fantasy by a young infantryman named Gene\nWolfe at the frontlines in the Korean War.\"\n\nAfter all, Wolfe has said in interviews that Severian's path to the\nwar is pretty much like his own.  Plus there are tons of details on\nWolfe's Korean War experience in LETTERS HOME.\n\nSo, there you have it.\n\nThe Citadel of the Autarch = Texas A & M.\nValeria = Rosemary Dietsch.\nAtrium of Time = the Dietsches' (front/back)yard in Peoria, Illinois\nA.D. 1935.\nJolenta = Marilyn Monroe (Wolfe saw her when she visited the troops).\nTriskele = Snooper the dog (one paw crushed by tread).\nPelerines = Red Cross girls.\nPyrotechnic polearms = B.A.R. and the Chinese Forward Observers that\nWolfe saw burned to death by flamethrowers on Hill Chinese 200.\nAgia's ploy at Mine = prostitutes working out of caves.\nErebus = USSR (aiding/directing North Korea).\nAbaia = Communist China (aiding/directing North Korea).\nAscia = North Korea.\nNessus = Seoul (\"there was a time when they [Ascians] laid waste to\nNessus\" [IV, ch. 24]; i.e., at beginning of Korean War, Seoul was overrun\nVodalus = Howard Hughes-like anarcho-aristocrat.\nBaldanders = the Atomic Bomb (Little Boy/Fat Man) [especially check out\nthat mushroom cloud formation when flying saucer is parked over his\ntower].\nTyphon = Gen. MacArthur, \"American Caesar\" as well as \"Arthur awakened\nfrom the mountain where he sleeps.\"\nKim Lee Soong = K-92, one of Wolfe's Korean \"katusa\" pals.\nJonas = Algis Budrys and/or Hawkeye of M.A.S.H. fame.\nI, CLAUDIUS = one of the books Wolfe re-read at the front.\nThe 18th Bacele of Irregular Contarii = the 1st Battallion of the 17th\n[attention 17 watchers!] Infantry (Wolfe's unit).\nOrinthyia = Porkchop Hill.\nThe Samru = troopship Marine Phoenix, which brought Wolfe back to the\nUS (May 18, 1954).\nMarriage to Valeria/ascent to the throne = Marriage to Rosemary (A.D.\n1956) and conversion to Roman Catholocism.\n\nThus and so, Yossarian Severian Gosseyne, drawn into a war he didn't\nbelieve in, finally escaped by losing his grip on consensual reality\nand going Sane.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}