{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5852", "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": 5852, "subject": "Ouen and Catherine", "messages": 5, "voices": 3, "first": "2010-12-21T23:52:08+00:00", "last": "2010-12-22T12:43:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T23:52:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ouen and Catherine", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nSeverian knew Dorcas before he knew Ouen. They might have even been\nlovers before he met Ouen.\nSo why bring up Ouen at all? Well, appearance suggests they /are/\nconnected. But another answer to your question might be that Dorcas is\nthe /only/ one who is important, and Ouen is her son. And in some sense\nby reuniting the two of them, Severian is reuniting himself to Dorcas." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, that explains his meeting with Ouen. It still seems to leave his\nspeculation about Ouen and Catherine as a totally false trail." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, that's an off-hand supposition. It is worth noting that false\nfamiliar ties is a staple of Wolfe. The Rajan calls Hoof, Hide, and\nSinew his sons. He warns Hide that Jahlee (in soul travel and bearing\nthe soul of Chenille) could be his \"sister or aunt\". Resurrected Horn\naccepts an inhumu bearing Sinew's soul as his son. Number Five calls\nMatre his father. This is all very mythological in that gods become the\nchildren and relatives of each other as told by mythographers although\nhistorically they were unrelated." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes indeed - another very striking one is Mucor as Marble's\ngranddaughter. But I wouldn't call these links false exactly, just\nskewed - not the kind of relationship one would normally expect.\nWhereas Severian's relation to Ouen seems to be simply a mistake." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In what way? Remember that the myths are very detailed. And if Severian\nfulfills them, I expect a detailed fulfillment." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think it has to be detailed. When Jesus is said to fulfil\nmyths, he isn''t expected to follow them in every detail; and the way\nin which stories (like Dr Talos's play, or Frankenstein) reflect\nreality but in an obscured way is an ongoing theme in the series.\nSeverian is a twin, his mother was a vrirgin priestess, he was brought\nup by torturers, who can well be called wolves, on a site adjoining\ngraves; the Naked One is in a way like Inire - though in another like\nPalaemon. (I don't know about 'The Student and his Son'. Any attempt\nto apply it either to Severian's life or to past events has the\nproblem that the sea-monsters aren't dead.)\n\n But Time-traveling is" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "worse in some ways. You put your finger on probably the most unsavory\naspect of the Clone Solution. It makes the story not just Deterministic,\nbut Super-Deterministic. Severian is not just destined to be the New\nSun. He was existentially designed for it. That's probably the aspect of\nthe The Book of the New Sun that I like the least: The entire race of\nthe Hierogrammates. But Time-traveling over-determines, and\n/incestuates/ the story in the same way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But as Lee said, time-travelling is undoubtedly present - we know of\ntwo journeys Severian made (within Briah) and he tells us he intends\nto make more. So I think that is the simplest answer (to the question\nof the mausoleum. Not having read RTTW, I can't say how Typhon fits\nin.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D11741E.1080005@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T03:44:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ouen and Catherine", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nBut another answer to your question might be that Dorcas is\nthe /only/ one who is important, and Ouen is her son. And in some sense\nby reuniting the two of them, Severian is reuniting himself to Dorcas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason-\nOK, that explains his meeting with Ouen. It still seems to leave his\nspeculation about Ouen and Catherine as a totally false trail.[snip]\nYes indeed - another very striking one is Mucor as Marble's\ngranddaughter. But I wouldn't call these links false exactly, just\nskewed - not the kind of relationship one would normally expect.\nWhereas Severian's relation to Ouen seems to be simply a mistake." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, not necessarily. In fact, I disagree. Ouen is similar to Severian \nin appearance. Very very similar. However, no one AFAIK actually SAYS \nhe's Severian's father. This is a paradox and one I would like spelled out.\n\nLook, I say that TUSSAH calling SILK his son is of the skewed kind, but \nexplanation of most people would seem to put it in your second category. \nYou can say he was his \"adopted\" son, but Tussah was not married to \nSilk's mother, did not formally adopt him, and if Silk ever met him, he \ndoesn't remember it. He's arguably less Tussah's son than Mucor is \nBlood's daughter. Yet Tussah called him \"his son\", even though (as was \ntrue for Horn with Hoof, Hide, and Krait) \"he was not the son of his \nbody\". Note that it was not necessary for Tussah to name a son as his \nsuccessor and he left no method for anyone to ascertain that Silk was \nthe one he was talking about anyway. He was merely making a statement of \nfact, as he saw it. In Horn's discussion with Silk on the floater, he \ntries to broach that riddle and Silk brushes it aside.\n\nWhat I'm getting at is that perhaps Ouen's relationship is of this \npeculiar skewed kind, but we are missing something key about their true \nrelationship. I think Ouen is associated with Severian, I just suspect \nhe's not associated in exactly the way we're led to believe." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think [Severian's fulfillment of the myth]\nhas to be detailed. When Jesus is said to fulfil\nmyths, he isn''t expected to follow them in every detail; and the way\nin which stories (like Dr Talos's play, or Frankenstein) reflect\nreality but in an obscured way is an ongoing theme in the series.\nSeverian is a twin, his mother was a vrirgin priestess, he was brought\nup by torturers, who can well be called wolves, on a site adjoining\ngraves; the Naked One is in a way like Inire - though in another like\nPalaemon." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmmm...I think we irreconcilable expectations from Wolfe's allusions. I \nthink this is a 'real' story." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason-\n(I don't know about 'The Student and his Son'. Any attempt\nto apply it either to Severian's life or to past events has the\nproblem that the sea-monsters aren't dead.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm really not certain about that. I think Erebus might well be dead and \nonly living on as a name or a ghost. As the southern monster he's the \none arguably closest to the Commonwealth, but the CW is apparently only \nin open war against the agents of Abaia in the North. Erebus and Abaia \nare often spoken of as a pair but only Abaia seems to have significant \nagents. Only some pirates raiding the southern islands, right? Finally, \nthere's Erebus's name, which is synonymous with the Darkness of the \nUnderworld, Death. So it is suspicious that the husband of Nox in \nmythology, the \"stepfather of princess Noctua\" as Wolfe has declared was \nthe ogre killed in that story.\n\nOn the other hand, I /am/ inclined to believe that the Student falling \nfrom his tower describes Typhon's death. So, who knows?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But as Lee said, time-travelling is undoubtedly present - we know of\ntwo journeys Severian made (within Briah) and he tells us he intends\nto make more. So I think that is the simplest answer (to the question\nof the mausoleum. Not having read RTTW, I can't say how Typhon fits\nin.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. I really like Witz's association with the stream to the Brook \nMadrigot. We don't really have anything solid on Severian's actual birth.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T04:54:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ouen and Catherine", "in_reply_to": "<4D11741E.1080005@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn- In fact, I disagree. Ouen is similar to Severian \nin appearance. Very very similar. However, no one AFAIK actually SAYS \nhe's Severian's father. This is a paradox and one I would like spelled out." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think, when the main text fails us in some way, we are meant to delve to a\ndifferent level of interpretation. I think mythological may serve here.\n \nI find it virtually undeniable that Severian and his life resemble those of a\ngeneric Greek hero, incest curse included. I may be alone in sensing an especially\nclose kinship of Severian to Hercules. Hercules was conceived via Zeus posing as\nAlcmene's husband Amphitryon (he was born a twin since the the real husband also\nimpregnated her on the same night). So, who does Hercules resemble, Zeus? impossible.\nSo it must be Amphitryon. Perhaps this theme at least indirectly suggests a solution \nto James' quandary or paradox. \n \nIf something similar happened in the Whorl, with Tussah and Silk, (Tussah being a \nkind of silk/worm) perhaps it happened also on Urth. And a similar situation with \nJesus and Joseph. Did Jesus resemble Joseph? I gather there is some controversy\nover whether Jesus was descended from the House of David through his mother's or \n\"father's\" line. But there is more than a suggestion that Jesus physically resembled \nJoseph\n \nWell, I don't have clear cut conclusions regarding this but the theme of an adoptive father \ngiving his resemblance to an adopted but divine son seems highly relevant to me. Severian\nreminds me of Hercules and Jesus more than any other legendary figures.\n \n \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T04:57:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ouen and Catherine", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason: I don't know about 'The Student and his Son'. Any attempt to apply it either \nto Severian's life or to past events has the problem that the sea-monsters aren't dead." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: I think Erebus might well be dead and only living on as a name or a ghost.\n...On the other hand, I /am/ inclined to believe that the Student falling from his tower describes \nTyphon's death." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think it is a mistake to take the text too literally about death when it comes to mythologically\nnamed characters. Again I find it helpful to frame these characters in mythological terms\nwhen the main text fails to explain them to us. What I mean is that the gods and monsters in BotNS \nshould be thought of as immortal.\n \nLet's look at immortality from a science and SF point of view. Let's assume all gods and monsters are \nancient literary metaphors for various human rulers. The human rulers have died, but as long as their\nmythological legends are told, they live on. They are immortal as long as some one believes in the stories\nof gods and monsters. \n \nIn the legends, the gods and monsters can be defeated, even vanquished, but they are immortal; they don't really \n\"die\" as humans do. They are trapped under rocks or chained up somewhere or placed in the sky as constellations etc. \nSo if we think we see Erebus or Typhon or some other such named character in BotNS die, know that they aren't really\ndead. Not in the way we define human death. They can be resurrected under the right conditions because they are \nimmortal in the way legends always are.\n \nNow in the Sun series, Gene Wolfe has seen fit to take gods and monsters and imply they have a fleshly existence \non Urth. How does he deal with the immortality issue? He almost explicitly makes them immortal in the way of \na sponge. How can you actually kill a giant organism when it can and has broken into many pieces which can reform?\n \nThis is what Wolfe is trying to tell us with The Whorl. What happens electronically to the gods there is what\nhappens biologically on Urth. They break into pieces and can reform.\n \n(there is more to this theme which I won't get into here. But I offer assurance that some natural objections to this \nview can be addressed) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D11F271.1030007@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T12:43:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ouen and Catherine", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn: I think Erebus might well be dead and only living on as a name or a ghost.\n...On the other hand, I /am/ inclined to believe that the Student falling from his tower describes\nTyphon's death." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee-\nI think it is a mistake to take the text too literally about death when it\ncomes to mythologically named characters." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For me, the implication is too strong that an obviously referenced \nmythological character (which Wolfe has identified) has the same name as \none of the monsters.\n\nu+16b9" } ] } ] }