{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5860", "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": 5860, "subject": "Losing Imitation", "messages": 68, "voices": 13, "first": "2010-12-28T22:14:19+00:00", "last": "2011-01-02T14:40:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-28T22:14:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: Actually, that's the opposite lesson of Dr Veil and of the evolutionary \nloss of the carapace. If the abos are perfect imitations, then they must lose the \nability to shape-shift away from their imitation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nOn this I must cite direct text as evidence:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Aunt Jeannine: \"If Veil was correct then you and I are abos from Sainte Anne, at least\nin origin...Do you think \"he\" was right?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Number Five: \"I don't think it makes any difference. He said the imitation would have to be \nperfect, and if it is, they're the same as we were anyway\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Aunt Jeannine: \"Number Five, you're too young for semantics and I'm afraid you've been led\nastray by that word 'perfect'...The imitation could hardly have been exact, since human \nbeings don't possess that talent and to imitate them 'perfectly' the abos would have to lose\nit.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Number Five: \"Couldn't they?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Aunt Jeannine: \"My dear child, abilties of every sort must evolve. And when they do they must\nbe utilized or they atrophy. If the abos had been able to mimic so well as to lose the power\nto do so, that would have been the end of them, and no doubt it would have come long before the\nfirst ships reached them....\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nThus inhumi on Urth, dream-travel be damned, cannot be perfect imitations of humans. They have the \nability to shift back to their original form and have not, can not lose it, on basic evolutionary \nprinciples. (according to Auntie Gene anyway)\n \n \nOf course Aunt Jeannine goes on to say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"veil, who wants a dramatic explanation for the cruelty and irrationality he sees around him, has \nhung fifty pounds of theory on nothing\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI'm sure most remember that Aunt Jeannine IS Dr Veil. Hilarious that Wolfe has anticipated both the\nwild theorists about his work and the conservative nay-sayers in one character. Which is he implying \nare the correct ones? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1B7322.1070601@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-29T17:42:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Aunt Jeannine: \"Number Five, you're too young for semantics and I'm afraid you've been led\nastray by that word 'perfect'...The imitation could hardly have been exact, since human\nbeings don't possess that talent and to imitate them 'perfectly' the abos would have to lose\nit.\" Number Five: \"Couldn't they?\" Aunt Jeannine: \"My dear child, abilties of every sort must evolve. And when they do they must\nbe utilized or they atrophy. If the abos had been able to mimic so well as to lose the power to do so, that would have been the end of them, and no doubt it would have come long before the first ships reached them....\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thus inhumi on Urth, dream-travel be damned, cannot be perfect imitations of humans. They have the\nability to shift back to their original form and have not, can not lose it, on basic evolutionary\nprinciples. (according to Auntie Gene anyway)\nOf course Aunt Jeannine goes on to say:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"veil, who wants a dramatic explanation for the cruelty and irrationality he sees around him, has\nhung fifty pounds of theory on nothing\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm sure most remember that Aunt Jeannine IS Dr Veil. Hilarious that Wolfe has anticipated both the\nwild theorists about his work and the conservative nay-sayers in one character. Which is he implying\nare the correct ones? \t\t \t \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think this applies to the inhumi and I think you have \nmisinterpreted the lesson. I think Wolfe is making a statement about \ncolonization here. It has always gone on. One group arriving to push out \nthe previous one. But in order for the colonization to stick, the \narrivals with have to take on the customs and eventually even the \nappearance of the natives--those attributes were not invented out of \nnothing. So the arrivals become the natives--in this case, by the \nnatives becoming the arrivals. And the native environment is huge and \ninexhaustible. The arrivals will never overwhelm the environment's \nability to absorb them. When Marsch goes into the outback, he finds abos \nexisting quite happily occassionally taking the form of cats or \nfour-eyed elks. He even find the abos in their original native state: \nlurid, white worms.\n\nAs for the inhumi, when they are in dream-travel, they aren't mimicking. \nThat is who they really are without the clothing of their bodies. They \nare no more mimicking than Cilinia was mimicking a night chough (as Pas \ndid before her). Returning to their reptilian form is only a matter \nputting their old clothes back on.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-29T19:41:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1B7322.1070601@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: I don't think this applies to the inhumi and I think you have \nmisinterpreted the lesson. I think Wolfe is making a statement about \ncolonization here. It has always gone on. One group arriving to push out \nthe previous one. But in order for the colonization to stick, the \narrivals with have to take on the customs and eventually even the \nappearance of the natives--those attributes were not invented out of \nnothing. So the arrivals become the natives--in this case, by the \nnatives becoming the arrivals. And the native environment is huge and \ninexhaustible. The arrivals will never overwhelm the environment's \nability to absorb them. When Marsch goes into the outback, he finds abos \nexisting quite happily occassionally taking the form of cats or \nfour-eyed elks. He even find the abos in their original native state: \nlurid, white worms.\nAs for the inhumi, when they are in dream-travel, they aren't mimicking. \nThat is who they really are without the clothing of their bodies. They \nare no more mimicking than Cilinia was mimicking a night chough (as Pas \ndid before her). Returning to their reptilian form is only a matter \nputting their old clothes back on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nJames it is interesting. We are seeing the same connection between Shadow Children and Inhumi \nbut in reversed perspective. Sainte Anne/St. Croix is the home planetary system of Shadow Children \nand Green/Blue is the home planetary system of Inhumi. Humans have come to both planets and have \nbeen killed/imitated/replaced by the natives in both places.\n \nShadow Children, like Inhumi, dream travel. Why do they do it? To lure prey to their planetary\nsystem. Why do Inhumi dream-travel? We don't really know. But we have the Whorl delivering prey\nto the Inhumi planetary system. \n \n(when the question comes up of why the Whorl was sent to Blue/Green all I've ever seen are shrugs)\n \n \nWhen you say the inhumi \"really are human\" in dream travel, what does that mean? That they show\nthe human form of someone they have bitten? I can't really understand any other meaning. These \nthings are really vampires or reptiles or vines or white worms.\n \n(FWIW, Dracula author Bram Stoker also wrote Lair Of the White Worm. I don't think the vampire connection\nis coincidental)\n \nBy analogy I must guess that the Shadow Children appear human to those humans they contacted via\ndreams. Perhaps it is redundant to note that both the locals from Ste. Anne and the locals from\nGreen are pretty bad at using tools. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1B9C20.9090703@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-29T20:37:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(when the question comes up of why the Whorl was sent to Blue/Green all I've ever seen are shrugs)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In fairness, that's what Wolfe did when asked why the Whorl was sent.\nHe also said Typhon didn't know about the inhumi, and they weren't part \nof /his/ plan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When you say the inhumi \"really are human\" in dream travel,\nwhat does that mean? That they show the human form of someone\nthey have bitten? I can't really understand any other meaning. These things are really vampires or reptiles or vines or white worms." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Their bodies are reptilian vampires. Their souls are human. Pas and his \nfamily are human in this regard as well...not in the eyes of God \nperhaps...but in every other way. At least the way, Wolfe sees it.\n\nIt true that inhumi in dream-travel tend to be promiscuous. But that is \nbecause their plight is like that of the chems...human souls trapped in \ninhuman corporeal forms (and that is exactly what I think the chems \nare). When they get their human (okay, human-ish) bodies, they want to \nuse them. They want to be loved by humans. It's the Pinocchio story \nagain. Its like the giants in The Wizard Knight. (It true these bodies \ndon't need to eat, but they can be killed in the conventional ways, so I \npresume if you cut them open, you would find human organs.)\n\nThe Rajan says they are truly human. Perhaps he is prejudiced by his \nmemory of Hyacinth. But he is the best authority we have on this \nsubject, so I am inclined to believe him. He also says that sex with \nthem is wrong. And perhaps that is Silk talking (he did speak of a \n\"taint\" between them that doesn't come from either of them)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(FWIW, Dracula author Bram Stoker also wrote Lair Of the White Worm. I don't think the vampire connection\nis coincidental)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps, but Wolfe has denied any physical connection between Green/Blue \nand St Anne/St Croix. But Wolfe might have had some thought of that \nsomewhere in the mix as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "By analogy I must guess that the Shadow Children appear human to those\nhumans they contacted via dreams. Perhaps it is redundant to note that\nboth the locals from Ste. Anne and the locals from Green are pretty bad\nat using tools." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, twins share dreams, so it is not unlikely that they contact other \nentities through dreams. But I'd want evidence that they APPEAR in dreams.\n\nI don't think I'd draw so close a correlation between Fifth Head and \nShort Sun. Wolfe is reusing parts, but I don't think the \nNeighbors/Inhumi are Shadow Children/abos. Only in part because I think \nthe abos ARE Shadow Children. I just think Sandwalker and the psychic \ntribe he meets in the pit are descended from different waves of human \ncolonization.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-29T22:19:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Lee Berman\" \nShadow Children, like Inhumi, dream travel. Why do they do it? To lure \nprey to their planetary\nsystem." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't remember them dream travelling. And they certainly did not lure \nhumans to their system - quite the opposite. (I'm ignoring for the purposes \nof this point that the Shadow Children are human.) The abos don't dream \ntravel like Silk etc. either, although the twin brothers enter each others' \nmind in dreams. And there is no evidence that they lured prey, or preyed on \nhumans to any significant extent." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why do Inhumi dream-travel? We don't really know. But we have the Whorl \ndelivering prey\nto the Inhumi planetary system.\n\n(when the question comes up of why the Whorl was sent to Blue/Green all \nI've ever seen are shrugs)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Isn't it obvious? There are habitable planets there. Presumably they have \nsuitable atmospheric chemical signatures, as determined by spectroscopy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When you say the inhumi \"really are human\" in dream travel, what does that \nmean? That they show\nthe human form of someone they have bitten? I can't really understand any \nother meaning. These\nthings are really vampires or reptiles or vines or white worms." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Their spirits are human. They see that as their true identity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "By analogy I must guess that the Shadow Children appear human to those \nhumans they contacted via\ndreams." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which humans are those?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps it is redundant to note that both the locals from Ste. Anne and \nthe locals from\nGreen are pretty bad at using tools." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Some species are technological, some aren't.\n\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1BBC1A.4050102@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-29T22:54:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/29/2010 4:19 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\nAnd they certainly did not lure humans to their system - quite the \nopposite. (I'm ignoring for the purposes of this point that the Shadow \nChildren are human." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If Wolfe is to be credited, they are not." } ] }, { "message_id": "<31815A2F2A98406C985615F03F4E55FB@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-30T00:43:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1BBC1A.4050102@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nOn 12/29/2010 4:19 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And they certainly did not lure humans to their system - quite the \nopposite. (I'm ignoring for the purposes of this point that the Shadow \nChildren are human." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Wolfe is to be credited, they are not." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!\n\nAs you say, he made some comment to that effect. But the book indicates \notherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess theories about \ntwo groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason for believing that.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1BE488.7040803@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T01:46:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<31815A2F2A98406C985615F03F4E55FB@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\n(I'm ignoring for the purposes of this point that the Shadow \nChildren are human." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nIf Wolfe is to be credited, they are not." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nHe also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It doesn't mean it isn't true. It only means it has not been established \nHOW it is true. I think it is true. I only doubt that the Blue/Green sun \nis Urth's Sol." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nAs you say, he made some comment to that effect. But the book \nindicates otherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess \ntheories about two groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason \nfor believing that." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There are at least two OTHER groups of abos identified. Furthermore we \nKNOW abos sometimes take the forms of trees if the stories of their \nreproduction are to be believed. And only a very naive Wolfean reader \nwould think VRT's pussy cat is just a pussy cat.\n\nThere were multiple groups of humans that came to St A/St C. Why would \nthe abos, so famous for changing their appearance, be in only one form?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<42C9E368AD7C4B62BDDF3769932EAEA3@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-30T03:05:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1BE488.7040803@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nGerry Quinn-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "(I'm ignoring for the purposes of this point that the Shadow Children \nare human." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "James Wynn-\nIf Wolfe is to be credited, they are not." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nHe also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It doesn't mean it isn't true. It only means it has not been established \nHOW it is true. I think it is true. I only doubt that the Blue/Green sun \nis Urth's Sol." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Completely different planets, completely different biota, completely \ndifferent stars, you get from one to the other in a generation ship..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nAs you say, he made some comment to that effect. But the book indicates \notherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess theories \nabout two groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason for believing \nthat." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There are at least two OTHER groups of abos identified." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "True, but the hillmen and marshmen seem to differ culturally, not \nbiologically." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Furthermore we KNOW abos sometimes take the forms of trees if the stories \nof their reproduction are to be believed. And only a very naive Wolfean \nreader would think VRT's pussy cat is just a pussy cat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know about the cat, but I am pretty sure the trees are not abos. \nThere is some sexual symbolism / mythology regarding trees, and the abos \nseem to think the trees father children. Nevertheless male abos exist and \nhave sex with females, who bear children as humans do." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There were multiple groups of humans that came to St A/St C. Why would the \nabos, so famous for changing their appearance, be in only one form?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They copied the humans who landed first - presumably just one group, \npossibly monoracial. Abos have both genders and individual appearances.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1C0AA2.1000600@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T04:29:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<42C9E368AD7C4B62BDDF3769932EAEA3@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Gerry Quinn-\nHe also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "J Wynn-\nIt doesn't mean it isn't true. It only means it has not been \nestablished HOW it is true. I think it is true. I only doubt that the \nBlue/Green sun is Urth's Sol." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "G Quinn-\nCompletely different planets, completely different biota, completely \ndifferent stars, you get from one to the other in a generation ship..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And yet, the author has something to say that throws a kink in our \ninitial interpretation. This reasoning of yours is like a little child's \nwho thinks his father has become scary when he puts on a halloween mask \nand no assurances from him will make a difference. That actors in \nwesterns are actually cowboys. You created a category based on what you \nread, and you can't be influenced by evidence to the contrary because \nthe categories are the categories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "J Wynn-\nThere are at least two OTHER groups of abos identified." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "G Quinn-\nTrue, but the hillmen and marshmen seem to differ culturally, not \nbiologically." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Seeming is not being. There's no evidence the marshmen are capable of \npsychic connections is there? We really don't have enough evidence on \nthe matter. But even if it were true, the hillmen and marshmen sure \n_seem_ a lot more human-like than the \"Shadow Children\" (for clarity's \nsake I'll labeling them as though the distinction were exclusive). This \nbelies your argument. The Shadow Children are not so different in looks \nfrom Sandwalker that mere human differentiation could not account for \nit. They are far more different from humans in psychic abilities. Why \nnot assume they are _all_ human?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "J Wynn-\nFurthermore we KNOW abos sometimes take the forms of trees if the \nstories of their reproduction are to be believed. And only a very \nnaive Wolfean reader would think VRT's pussy cat is just a pussy cat. \nThere were multiple groups of humans that came to St A/St C. Why \nwould the abos, so famous for changing their appearance, be in only \none form?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "G Quinn-\nI don't know about the cat, but I am pretty sure the trees are not \nabos. There is some sexual symbolism / mythology regarding trees, and \nthe abos seem to think the trees father children. Nevertheless male \nabos exist and have sex with females, who bear children as humans do. \nThey copied the humans who landed first - presumably just one group, \npossibly monoracial. Abos have both genders and individual appearances. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmmm...so when reference is made to trees during mating, that's \nsexual/symbolism--not to be taken literally--even though that is what \nthe stories about abos among humanity say (such humanity as exists on St \nC). But gender differentiations could NOT be merely formal distinctions \namong an alien race MIMICKING human behavior. What evidence causes you \nto fall one way or another? Do you have an extra-textual model in mind \nthat you are bringing to the story?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-30T05:47:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1C0AA2.1000600@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nGerry Quinn-\nHe also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "J Wynn-\nIt doesn't mean it isn't true. It only means it has not been established \nHOW it is true. I think it is true. I only doubt that the Blue/Green sun \nis Urth's Sol." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "G Quinn-\nCompletely different planets, completely different biota, completely \ndifferent stars, you get from one to the other in a generation ship..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And yet, the author has something to say that throws a kink in our initial \ninterpretation. This reasoning of yours is like a little child's who \nthinks his father has become scary when he puts on a halloween mask and no \nassurances from him will make a difference. That actors in westerns are \nactually cowboys. You created a category based on what you read, and you \ncan't be influenced by evidence to the contrary because the categories are \nthe categories." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Correct me if I'm wrong - but didn't Wolfe say he was joking when he said \nUrth is Green, and that he regretted it?\n\nAnd do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent when \nit comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "J Wynn-\nThere are at least two OTHER groups of abos identified." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "G Quinn-\nTrue, but the hillmen and marshmen seem to differ culturally, not \nbiologically." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Seeming is not being." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "All the universe of the story is in the book 5HoC - if \"seeming\" means \"what \nthe text tells us\", then seeming is in fact being. But anyway that is \nbeside the point. If you are saying there could be other possibilities than \nthe obvious, of course you are right." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's no evidence the marshmen are capable of psychic connections is \nthere?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Eastwind located his twin and had him captured - the twins' connection works \nboth ways. Of course Eastwind was born a hillman.\n\nDo you mean the psychic connection between Sandwalker and the Shadow \nChildren? It's true that no marshman[*] is shown to be capable of that, but \nthere is also no evidence that they are not. The Shadow Children say \"it is \na long time since we took a Shadow-friend from among the native populace\" - \nthey do not indicate that there are different types of natives.\n\n[*] I almost wrote \"marschman\" for some reason, and then for a moment I \nwondered if there was any connection between \"marsh\" and \"Marsch\". But I \ndon;t think there's anything there - the human mind can make infinitely many \nlinks... and not all can be meaningful." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We really don't have enough evidence on the matter. But even if it were \ntrue, the hillmen and marshmen sure _seem_ a lot more human-like than the \n\"Shadow Children\" (for clarity's sake I'll labeling them as though the \ndistinction were exclusive). This belies your argument. The Shadow \nChildren are not so different in looks from Sandwalker that mere human \ndifferentiation could not account for it. They are far more different from \nhumans in psychic abilities. Why not assume they are _all_ human?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Shadow Children do give an explanation for their powers. They also \nindicate that their psychic powers in part come from the native population \n(the astral travelling in Short Sun that requires both humans and inhumi \nechoes this).\n\nThe idea that all the 'abos' are human is interesting, but it discards all \nthe evidence for shapeshifting etc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "J Wynn-\nFurthermore we KNOW abos sometimes take the forms of trees if the \nstories of their reproduction are to be believed. And only a very naive \nWolfean reader would think VRT's pussy cat is just a pussy cat. There \nwere multiple groups of humans that came to St A/St C. Why would the \nabos, so famous for changing their appearance, be in only one form?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "G Quinn-\nI don't know about the cat, but I am pretty sure the trees are not abos. \nThere is some sexual symbolism / mythology regarding trees, and the abos \nseem to think the trees father children. Nevertheless male abos exist \nand have sex with females, who bear children as humans do. They copied \nthe humans who landed first - presumably just one group, possibly \nmonoracial. Abos have both genders and individual appearances." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hmmm...so when reference is made to trees during mating, that's \nsexual/symbolism--not to be taken literally--even though that is what the \nstories about abos among humanity say (such humanity as exists on St C)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The main reason I don't take it literally is that Sandwalker and Seven Girls \nWaiting mate in the ordinary way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But gender differentiations could NOT be merely formal distinctions among \nan alien race MIMICKING human behavior. What evidence causes you to fall \none way or another? Do you have an extra-textual model in mind that you \nare bringing to the story?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't totally discount the possibility that the abos have some weird \nbiology in which trees are male and smaller mobile abos are female, except \nwhen they are imitating males of another species. I just don't see much \nevidence for it.\n\nThat the symbolism is evident to the abos themselves is not in doubt: \"His \ntree had grown large, and she wrapped it with her hands.\"\n\nAnd of course all this is filtered through the mind of VRT, who may have \ncreated his own concept of abo mythology. No doubt he has been taught \nsomething of it by his mother, but his ideas are likely distorted. Also, \nthere is some meta-fictional play within the story; David in the first \nnovella could not reasonably know much of abo culture, yet some of what he \nsays appears in the second novella.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1C5214.2060404@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T09:34:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "G Quinn-\nCorrect me if I'm wrong - but didn't Wolfe say he was joking when he \nsaid Urth is Green, and that he regretted it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, he said he should just keep his mouth shut. It's a pretty random \njoke if that's all it was. The nasty sarcasm in such a joke totally \nalien to my interactions with Wolfe. But none of that explains the \nactual textual references in the novel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent \nwhen it comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What we have is a paradox. These planets cannot be the same. But the \nstory has some very significant that references that equate the Green \nand possibly the City of the Inhumi with Urth and the Neighbors and \ntheir culture with Urth and Nessus and humanity. I think we should \nembrace the paradox in order to find out what is going on. Pretending \nnothing weird is going on is not going to get us anywhere. I puzzled for \nyears over why Hyancinth was like the shape-changing Ladley Worm before \ncoming to a conclusion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you are saying there could be other possibilities than the obvious, \nof course you are right." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's usually true with Wolfe. But there is nothing obvious about the \n\"Shadow Children\". They tell multiple stories about their origins. I \nbelieve as many of them as I possibly can." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "There's no evidence the marshmen are capable of psychic connections \nis there?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Eastwind located his twin and had him captured - the twins' connection \nworks both ways. Of course Eastwind was born a hillman." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, like Sandwalker. So we agree that there is no evidence that the \nmarshmen have such powers. But, obviously, I wouldn't be surprised if \nthey did. Hillmen, marshmen, little people--they are all abos. When \nSandwalker psychically connected to the Shadow Children, he became \none...because biologically they are not really different." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you mean the psychic connection between Sandwalker and the Shadow \nChildren? It's true that no marshman[*] is shown to be capable of \nthat, but there is also no evidence that they are not. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ummm...Can I use that sort of argument for one _my_ theories in the future?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Shadow Children say \"it is a long time since we took a \nShadow-friend from among the native populace\" - they do not indicate \nthat there are different types of natives." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not in this specific quote." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[*] I almost wrote \"marschman\" for some reason, and then for a moment \nI wondered if there was any connection between \"marsh\" and \"Marsch\". \nBut I don;t think there's anything there - the human mind can make \ninfinitely many links... and not all can be meaningful." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The link was obviously intended by Wolfe. I have always presumed the \nname implied that VRT is of the Marshman branch. One can debate over \nwhat is intended. However, it is doubtful that a pun like that would \nhave been missed by the author. The name Marsch was not picked at \nrandom. It's not a common name." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Shadow Children do give an explanation for their powers. They \nalso indicate that their psychic powers in part come from the native \npopulation (the astral travelling in Short Sun that requires both \nhumans and inhumi echoes this)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's no evidence that any human in the universe except the Rajan can \nastral travel with the aid of inhumi. Well, you know why this makes \nsense to me.\n\nI don't remember this quote about where their powers come from. I'm sure \nit can't be emphatic. As for where they come from, the \"Shadow Children\" \nhave some interesting things to say about that. They say they \"either \ncame here recently or long, long ago\". They say this twice. Well, of \ncourse both are true. They are abos (long, long ago) who replaced humans \n(recently) and took on their history. They say \"We had no names before \nmen came out of the sky. We were mostly long and lived in holes in the \nroots of trees\". We could debate what that means, but it doesn't imply \nthey were always human. I don't make much of the shadow children saying \nthey came from Gondwanaland, but I believe these statements." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The idea that all the 'abos' are human is interesting, but it discards \nall the evidence for shapeshifting etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I certainly never implied such an idea. But you made much of the \napparent lack of biological difference between the hillmen and marshmen \nas opposed to the \"shadow children\". I was pointing out that the \ndifferences should be irrelevant to you since you believe that the \ninhuman shadow children are human and the hillmen and marshmen are not." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The main reason I don't take it literally is that Sandwalker and Seven \nGirls Waiting mate in the ordinary way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How so? I seem to recall a tree involved. As expected, based on lore." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't totally discount the possibility that the abos have some weird \nbiology in which trees are male and smaller mobile abos are female, \nexcept when they are imitating males of another species. I just don't \nsee much evidence for it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems to me to be staring us in the face." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That the symbolism is evident to the abos themselves is not in doubt: \n\"His tree had grown large, and she wrapped it with her hands.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "hello!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And of course all this is filtered through the mind of VRT, who may \nhave created his own concept of abo mythology. No doubt he has been \ntaught something of it by his mother, but his ideas are likely distorted. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that abos and humans could breed. \nMuch more so in a story in which evolutionary theory takes so large a \nrole. VRT is playing the role of the son of his mother's father." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, there is some meta-fictional play within the story; David in the \nfirst novella could not reasonably know much of abo culture, yet some \nof what he says appears in the second novella." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The second novella was written by a psychic being who was in David's \nhouse for quite a while. He has Sandwalker dream one of Number Five's \ndreams as well.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1C5A3A.8060104@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T10:08:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1C5214.2060404@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/30/2010 3:34 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nVRT is playing the role of the son of his mother's father. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mother's husband that is." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T12:21:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1C5A3A.8060104@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James, we may still disagree on Aunt Jeannine's assessment of whether abos\nretain their imitative abilities while in human guise, but that was a truly\nimpressive display of knowledge, insight and patience in your explication of\n5HoC to Gerry. Bravo! \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<811648A3-9EED-410F-8432-100B13740FAC@liftingfaces.com>", "from": { "name": "Ryan Dunn", "address": "ryan at liftingfaces.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T14:54:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1C5214.2060404@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it possible that the passage in CotA about the \"divine year\" opens up a window to the idea that all of these are the same planet in different universe cycles? Could this be a product of recycling reestablished world building without reinventing it each time?\n\nI have not read Long Sun so my question is more prodding than anything, but thought I would ask.\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Dec 30, 2010, at 3:34 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nAnd do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent when it comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What we have is a paradox. These planets cannot be the same. But the story has some very significant that references that equate the Green and possibly the City of the Inhumi with Urth and the Neighbors and their culture with Urth and Nessus and humanity. I think we should embrace the paradox in order to find out what is going on. Pretending nothing weird is going on is not going to get us anywhere. I puzzled for years over why Hyancinth was like the shape-changing Ladley Worm before coming to a conclusion." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1CAC8C.3030402@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T16:00:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee-\nJames, we may still disagree on Aunt Jeannine's assessment of whether abos\nretain their imitative abilities while in human guise..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I agree they RETAIN it in theory. But they can't use it. VRT stays \nin his prison, not because he CAN'T escape but because he can't imitate \nJohn V. Marsch and escape. Marsch could not get through those bars and \nso neither can he. Thus Veil's paradox is answered. Veil is only wrong \nin arguing that the abos would cease to exist if they could perfectly \nmimic humans. Humanity sees themselves as gods compared to their \nenvironment (the Shadow Children say something like that when \nremembering their appropriated human history). But in fact they are \ninsignificant.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T16:06:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1CAC8C.3030402@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn: Is it possible that the passage in CotA about the \"divine year\" opens up a window \nto the idea that all of these are the same planet in different universe cycles? Could this be a \nproduct of recycling reestablished world building without reinventing it each time?\nI have not read Long Sun so my question is more prodding than anything, but thought I would ask." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think it is worth asking. Tzadkiel's Ship seems to travel the length of the universe to get to\nits end and on to the higher one. I think most would agree the Whorl doesn't do this.\n \nMy best conception of the Bang/Gnab universes is as an ascending coil or spiral (shape supported by\nApheta's cave). This shape would actually allow a portal from one universe to the one just above or\nbelow to facilitate transport even more quickly and easily than driving the length of your own\nuniverse/coil. If you had the right mechanism.\n \n(I think it is possible that just the city or even portions of the city are extending across planets;\nperhaps also across universes?)\n \n \n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1CB0AE.8000608@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T16:17:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<811648A3-9EED-410F-8432-100B13740FAC@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ryan Dunn-\nIs it possible that the passage in CotA about the \"divine year\" opens up a window to the idea that all of these are the same planet in different universe cycles? Could this be a product of recycling reestablished world building without reinventing it each time?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suggested this recently. There are problems with it.\nhttp://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2010-December/020017.html\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<257346.89248.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T16:26:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<31815A2F2A98406C985615F03F4E55FB@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry, I have to comment on this whole mess. i was in contact with Wolfe very frequently at about that time when the light started to turn on for Short Sun for me in 2002, and I sent him my ideas about trees hybridizing and Horn in Babbie but I said I couldn't find a way for the transport across space to zero in on Blue at that different time. He sent me a letter written on a manuscript page from IGJ, but I still didn't see anything there. So I sent him a Christmas card with a long haired man with a staff, and I drew a little face on the staff, and inside was a christmas tree, and I put scary teeth in the tree, and big eyes, and I asked if the astral transport through the distance of space that the ship in UotNS went through allowed blue to be Urth, and he sent his own Christmas card, and on the back, it said, no, no, no Green is urth. \n\nAnd that's where I become the bad guy, because I first posted that Gene had told me something, Nick Gevers frantically convinced me to share it with him, he confronted Gene in disbelief, Gene told Nick he was joking because Nick's attitude to me when he heard it was \"he's pulling your leg.\"? Gene never told me he was joking, he just told me he should have learned to keep his mouth shut by now. But my problem, that they were planning on going to green, and wound up on Urth which I thought should be Blue, was solved by these words, and there is a mechanism for that mistaken transport in the text which was not there for Blue=Urth.\n\nWhether the discussion ever discovers what Blue or Green is, or whether they are connected, I believe what Gene told me, and I am very sorry that my inquiries led to him being so harassed. \n\nIn eschatology and genesis it states anything can emerge from the black hole at the center of the sun.\n\n--- On Wed, 12/29/10, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\nHe also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!\n\nAs you say, he made some comment to that effect. But the book indicates otherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess theories about two groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason for believing that.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1CB40E.6020505@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T16:32:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<257346.89248.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini-\nHe sent me a letter written on a manuscript page from IGJ, but I still \ndidn't see anything there. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What page was it?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9127A40C-33AF-49AA-BB50-2200CEB5D1B3@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-30T17:25:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<811648A3-9EED-410F-8432-100B13740FAC@liftingfaces.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 30, 2010, at 6:54 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:\nIs it possible that the passage in CotA about the \"divine year\" opens up a window to the idea that all of these are the same planet in different universe cycles? Could this be a product of recycling reestablished world building without reinventing it each time?\n\nI have not read Long Sun so my question is more prodding than anything, but thought I would ask.\n\n...ryan" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OH MY GOD, RYAN!\nRead it! Considering what you're up to.\n\nPlus, dunnoh if this happened to you, but my first read of BotNS was befuddling and frustrating. It opened up later. Long Sun was thrilling and fascinating from the get go, at all points. You don't have to discover the Second House to enjoy Long Sun.\n\nOh my god you're gonna love it. Read read read!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 30, 2010, at 3:34 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent when it comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What we have is a paradox. These planets cannot be the same. But the story has some very significant that references that equate the Green and possibly the City of the Inhumi with Urth and the Neighbors and their culture with Urth and Nessus and humanity. I think we should embrace the paradox in order to find out what is going on. Pretending nothing weird is going on is not going to get us anywhere. I puzzled for years over why Hyancinth was like the shape-changing Ladley Worm before coming to a conclusion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1CC1C9.9040302@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T17:30:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/30/2010 10:06 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ryan Dunn: Is it possible that the passage in CotA about the \"divine year\" opens up a window\nto the idea that all of these are the same planet in different universe cycles? Could this be a\nproduct of recycling reestablished world building without reinventing it each time?\nI have not read Long Sun so my question is more prodding than anything, but thought I would ask." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it is worth asking. Tzadkiel's Ship seems to travel the length of the universe to get to\nits end and on to the higher one. I think most would agree the Whorl doesn't do this.\n\nMy best conception of the Bang/Gnab universes is as an ascending coil or spiral (shape supported by\nApheta's cave). This shape would actually allow a portal from one universe to the one just above or\nbelow to facilitate transport even more quickly and easily than driving the length of your own\nuniverse/coil. If you had the right mechanism." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My reading also supports this, though the gradual ascenscion of the \nBriah spiral may be very gradual, and not monotonically upward; some \ncosmic years may lose ground, leaving the Yesodis fretting to undo the \ntangle. Which they can, via the Corridors, though with much finer \ninstruments than Tzadkiel's cyclopean Ship." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-30T17:35:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<257346.89248.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 30, 2010, at 8:26 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nand he sent his own Christmas card, and on the back, it said, no, no, no Green is urth. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Scan that shit already, dude.\n~witz" } ] }, { "message_id": "<181604.29975.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-30T18:16:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1CB40E.6020505@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The manuscript page was? In Greens Jungles p 339. I looked on that page in the book and suddenly I realized maybe he was pointing my attention to that page in the published book instead of what he sent me. That guy is tricky!. — I can't find this actual page in the book right now so I'm just going to type half of it here and maybe you can find it.\n\n\"they're moving again. This is it.\"?\n\"They're not galloping,\" I protested.\n\"Trotting.\"? They won't gallop until they're up close. Did you think they would?\"\n\"I nodded. \"It would be better if they did.\"\n\"that's why they don't.\" He nudged me to make sure I understood taht he was joking. \"you've never seen a charge?\"\n\"I have, but they are much closer.\"\n\"they will be.\"\n\"I started for Kupus' unevein line of men and boys with slug guns, but Inclito caught my elbow. \"the women and sprats are scare already, remember? The men are, too, and I mean you and me. So walk.\"\n\n......etc\n\nthe page ends with\n\"Something - some stir, perhaps, among the women and elderly -\n\nSo let's look at both pages, pg 339 and this one, in In Green's Jungles.\n\n--- On Thu, 12/30/10, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: James Wynn \nSubject: Re: (urth) Losing Imitation\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, December 30, 2010, 8:32 AM\nMarc Aramini-\nHe sent me a letter written on a manuscript page from IGJ, but I still didn't see anything there. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What page was it?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<323FBF2A1F754D888E260514E3477B79@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-30T19:52:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<4D1C5214.2060404@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nG Quinn-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Correct me if I'm wrong - but didn't Wolfe say he was joking when he said \nUrth is Green, and that he regretted it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, he said he should just keep his mouth shut. It's a pretty random \njoke if that's all it was. The nasty sarcasm in such a joke totally alien \nto my interactions with Wolfe. But none of that explains the actual \ntextual references in the novel." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What textual references? There may be some metaphorical references, but I \ndon't recall anywhere at all where the text seems to be seriously implying \nthat these planets are literally the same place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent \nwhen it comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What we have is a paradox. These planets cannot be the same. But the story \nhas some very significant that references that equate the Green and \npossibly the City of the Inhumi with Urth and the Neighbors and their \nculture with Urth and Nessus and humanity. I think we should embrace the \nparadox in order to find out what is going on. Pretending nothing weird is \ngoing on is not going to get us anywhere." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you are only seeing a paradox because you take certain metaphors too \nliterally. I have yet to be convinced that there is any paradox to embrace \n(or otherwise solve)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you are saying there could be other possibilities than the obvious, of \ncourse you are right." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's usually true with Wolfe. But there is nothing obvious about the \n\"Shadow Children\". They tell multiple stories about their origins. I \nbelieve as many of them as I possibly can." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They don't really, if you read with care." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "There's no evidence the marshmen are capable of psychic connections is \nthere?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Eastwind located his twin and had him captured - the twins' connection \nworks both ways. Of course Eastwind was born a hillman." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yeah, like Sandwalker. So we agree that there is no evidence that the \nmarshmen have such powers. But, obviously, I wouldn't be surprised if they \ndid. Hillmen, marshmen, little people--they are all abos. When Sandwalker \npsychically connected to the Shadow Children, he became one...because \nbiologically they are not really different." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't remember any indication that Sandwalker ever became a Shadow child - \nwhere do you get this from?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do you mean the psychic connection between Sandwalker and the Shadow \nChildren? It's true that no marshman[*] is shown to be capable of that, \nbut there is also no evidence that they are not." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ummm...Can I use that sort of argument for one _my_ theories in the \nfuture?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sure, when it's appropriate!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The Shadow Children say \"it is a long time since we took a Shadow-friend \nfrom among the native populace\" - they do not indicate that there are \ndifferent types of natives." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not in this specific quote." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Do they anywhere?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "[*] I almost wrote \"marschman\" for some reason, and then for a moment I \nwondered if there was any connection between \"marsh\" and \"Marsch\". But I \ndon;t think there's anything there - the human mind can make infinitely \nmany links... and not all can be meaningful." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The link was obviously intended by Wolfe. I have always presumed the name \nimplied that VRT is of the Marshman branch. One can debate over what is \nintended. However, it is doubtful that a pun like that would have been \nmissed by the author. The name Marsch was not picked at random. It's not a \ncommon name." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What name in 5HoC is? Whatever name he picked, one could come up with a \nbunch of associations. There's no point making much of it unless they are \nbacked up by other evidence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The Shadow Children do give an explanation for their powers. They also \nindicate that their psychic powers in part come from the native \npopulation (the astral travelling in Short Sun that requires both humans \nand inhumi echoes this)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's no evidence that any human in the universe except the Rajan can \nastral travel with the aid of inhumi. Well, you know why this makes sense \nto me.\n\nI don't remember this quote about where their powers come from. I'm sure \nit can't be emphatic" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Once there was a people using their hands - when they had hands - only to \ntake food; there came among them another who crossed from star to star. \nThen it was found that the first heard the sogs of the second and sent them \nout again - greater, greater, greater than before. Then the second felt \ntheir songs more strongly in all their bones - but touched, perhaps, by the \nfirst.\"\n\nAs the Shadow Children are killed, the Old Wise One derives an increasing \nproportion of his mentality from Sandwalker and becomes confused as to the \nrespective identities of the two (count 'em, two - not one, not three) \npeoples. But this is really not hard to explain.." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": ". As for where they come from, the \"Shadow Children\" have some interesting \nthings to say about that. They say they \"either came here recently or long, \nlong ago\". They say this twice. Well, of course both are true. They are \nabos (long, long ago) who replaced humans (recently) and took on their \nhistory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And just how do you think they \"took on their history\"?\n\nThere's no need for any of these complex theories when you realise that the \nOld Wise One (the source for all this information) is increasingly composed \nfrom more of Sandwalker and less of the Shadow Children, which causes him to \nsuffer some confusion of identity. [Wolfe spells it out by showing him \ngetting taller (a bit like SilkHorn again), and he even says \"Now I am half \na man\".]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They say \"We had no names before men came out of the sky. We were mostly \nlong and lived in holes in the roots of trees\". We could debate what that \nmeans, but it doesn't imply they were always human. I don't make much of \nthe shadow children saying they came from Gondwanaland, but I believe \nthese statements." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And you are right - the Old Wise One, who says this, is referring to the abo \npart of him.\n\nThe speaker is the Old Wise One, who at this time is only half a Shadow \nChild. (Even Sandwalker corrects him on this point.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The idea that all the 'abos' are human is interesting, but it discards \nall the evidence for shapeshifting etc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I certainly never implied such an idea. But you made much of the apparent \nlack of biological difference between the hillmen and marshmen as opposed \nto the \"shadow children\". I was pointing out that the differences should \nbe irrelevant to you since you believe that the inhuman shadow children \nare human and the hillmen and marshmen are not." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not sure what you are saying here to be honest." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The main reason I don't take it literally is that Sandwalker and Seven \nGirls Waiting mate in the ordinary way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How so? I seem to recall a tree involved. As expected, based on lore." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't totally discount the possibility that the abos have some weird \nbiology in which trees are male and smaller mobile abos are female, \nexcept when they are imitating males of another species. I just don't \nsee much evidence for it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It seems to me to be staring us in the face." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That the symbolism is evident to the abos themselves is not in doubt: \n\"His tree had grown large, and she wrapped it with her hands.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "hello!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Do you mean you think this is referring not to Sandwalker's penis, but to \nsome kinkiness involving an actual tree? Sandwalker's own special tree, at \nthat, which isn't mentioned in the text but happened to be just where he \nfound the bees, out in the wilderness?\n\n He moved her shoulders gently. \"No,\" she said, \"not on top of me. I'd \nsplit. I'd\n be sick. Like this.\"\n\nShe's stuffed with honey and bee larvae, and isn't keen on the missionary \nposition. There's no actual tree around anyway, but even if there was I \nimagine she'd have been even less inclined to climb up it to do whatever you \nimagine abo girls do with trees!\n\nNope, the imitation extends to mating. Now you might point out that the \ninhumi have a sort of spiritual mating as humans before they do their \nreptile thing, and arguably the chems could also be said to parody human \nmating. But as regards the abos, we know the women at least gestate and \nbear and feed young just as humans do." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And of course all this is filtered through the mind of VRT, who may have \ncreated his own concept of abo mythology. No doubt he has been taught \nsomething of it by his mother, but his ideas are likely distorted." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that abos and humans could breed. \nMuch more so in a story in which evolutionary theory takes so large a \nrole. VRT is playing the role of the son of his mother's father." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think biological evolutionary theory plays much part in 5HoC. \nCultural evolution is much more key. Besides, by the same token the plants \nand animals of the twin planets should be inedible to humans, but they \naren't.\n\nBut anyway, there's no reason to suppose that abos and humans can interbreed \nif you don't want to. VRT could have had an abo father, who would - from \nwhat we know of abo culture - have had as little to do with his upbringing \nas he would have if in truth he were a tree. Abo women can live with human \nmales - whether or not they look elsewhere for impregnation is not stated. \n[One could hypothesise a cuckoo lifestyle, in which the abo child takes on \ncertain physical characteristics of the supposed human father in order to \ngull him into acceptance of the child - indeed, it would be a more plausible \nmechanism for whatever truth there is in Veil's Hypothesis than vampiric \nabos pouncing on random humans in the night and replacing them; the \nsituation with Marsch was very unusual. But this is really an unknown - I \ndon't believe there is enough textual evidence to say anything definitive \nabout it.]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Also, there is some meta-fictional play within the story; David in the \nfirst novella could not reasonably know much of abo culture, yet some of \nwhat he says appears in the second novella." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The second novella was written by a psychic being who was in David's house \nfor quite a while. He has Sandwalker dream one of Number Five's dreams as \nwell." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I personally prefer the metafictional idea here, but perhaps you are right. \nBut if so there are considerable problems believing anything in the second \nnovella. For example, it is David who asserts that the abos mated with \ntrees.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<003b01cba8c6$432859e0$eacf4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2010-12-31T08:39:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<323FBF2A1F754D888E260514E3477B79@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn quoted and wrote:\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nG Quinn-" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Correct me if I'm wrong - but didn't Wolfe say he was joking when he\nsaid\nUrth is Green, and that he regretted it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, he said he should just keep his mouth shut. It's a pretty random\njoke if that's all it was. The nasty sarcasm in such a joke totally\nalien\nto my interactions with Wolfe. But none of that explains the actual\ntextual references in the novel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What textual references? There may be some metaphorical references, but I\ndon't recall anywhere at all where the text seems to be seriously implying\nthat these planets are literally the same place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And do you not accept that the four points I made are somewhat cogent\nwhen it comes to the question of whether these planets are the same?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What we have is a paradox. These planets cannot be the same. But the\nstory\nhas some very significant that references that equate the Green and\npossibly the City of the Inhumi with Urth and the Neighbors and their\nculture with Urth and Nessus and humanity. I think we should embrace the\nparadox in order to find out what is going on. Pretending nothing weird\nis\ngoing on is not going to get us anywhere." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think you are only seeing a paradox because you take certain metaphors\ntoo\nliterally. I have yet to be convinced that there is any paradox to\nembrace\n(or otherwise solve)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It isn't going to make any difference; I know because I've been through this\nbefore, but I have to say something before I just get disgusted and leave\nthe List, which is probably what I should do anyway. Facts are facts,\nregardless of who likes them or doesn't. There seem to be some people left\nwho put more stock in the text than fanciful interpretations that belie it\nor distort it beyond reason. Maybe this will interest those people.\n\nThere has been a lot of crap bandied about of late that I don't have the\ntime or interest to get involved with, but one issue, the notion that the\nCity of the Inhumi is actually Nessus, really bugs me. It just isn't so, and\nno amount of wishing will make it so. Silkhorn wrote down the story he told\nat dinner at Inclito's house about Horn's encounter with the Neighbor on\nGreen who wanted him to clear the sewer. He wrote:\n\n\"The buildings of that city were not built by the inhumi themselves, for the\ninhumi do not like tools or use them skillfully. Its builders were the\nVanished People, the same master builders who began this gracious house of\nyours.\" (IGJ, 60) And to anticipate the argument that Silkhorn doesn't know\nwhere he is or Horn was, there is the testimony of the same Neighbor. After\nwalking through the ruins of the city that is crumbling under the onslaught\nof the encroaching jungle, the Neighbor said:\n---------------\n \"How we deceived ourselves!\" the man of the Vanished People who had been\nhis guide said. \"We thought we were building here for the ages. Another\nthousand years, and everything you see will be gone.\" (63)\n---------------\n\nEven if Silkhorn had his head up his ass, I don't see how anyone could\nbelieve that the Neighbors didn't know who they were, where they came from,\nor what they themselves had built. And to suggest that the Neighbor just\nlied is not credible. There are other details that unimaginative assholes\nlike me notice that indicate that the City on Green is not Nessus. The black\nsword that Horn was given came from a selection of swords inside a \"bronze\ntablet\" (23) that was located in a ruined building. There was a black sheath\nthat came with it, and a sword belt with many thin straps (24) that \"had\nnever been intended for such a body as his (61). That is, not a human body.\n\nSoon after Horn and the Neighbor entered the sewer they came to \"an altar of\nbronze and stone\" (64). Behind it was an image too worn for Horn to make out\nwhat it looked like. The Neighbor told him, \"This was our goddess of\npurity\". That is, it was a Neighbor shrine for a Neighbor goddess. Horn\nprayed to it and was rewarded with the little light that he used in the\nsewer.\n\nThere is no doubt about it; the ruined City on Green was built by the\nNeighbors, for the Neighbors and used by the Neighbors before they abandoned\nit. If this is another \"asinine\" reading by me of the simple textual facts,\nso be it.\n\nGerry, you seem to have gotten all over you a lot of crap that really has\nmore to do with me than you, as you have probably figured out by now. Sorry\nabout that, but I'm not flinging it. \n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T14:12:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "<003b01cba8c6$432859e0$eacf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: There is no doubt about it; the ruined City on Green was built by the\nNeighbors, for the Neighbors and used by the Neighbors before they abandoned\nit. If this is another \"asinine\" reading by me of the simple textual facts,\nso be it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n\"Asinine\" and \"unimaginative asshole\" are terrible things to call someone. Roy, you've \nreceived high praise for your contributions to the lupine world many times in the past\nand present and I wish to join in that.\n \nBut is it possible for a bit of imagination to help? Marc finds evidence that\nthe ruins on Green are like Nessus. Roy says this is impossible because the ruins on Green\nwere built by Neighbors. Must one be wrong and the other right?\n \nJames finds paradox. For me, understanding paradox is like understanding an optical \nillusion. Flip your perspective and recognize the truth in both views. What if Nessus,\non Urth was built (at least partially) by Neighbors?\n \nDo we know when Nessus was first built? Is it impossible that it was built during a time\nperiod when Urth was part of an interstellar empire with back and forth commerce and travel \nfor both humans and aliens?\n \n Fomalhaut is a pretty close star. Could this be the source of the name \"Neighbors\"?\n \nGerry has noted that Fomalhaut is a red star in BotNS. But so is Sol. Both are young stars now; \nneither is red now. Perhaps Wolfe was hinting at a similar stellar history. Perhaps there is \nthe suggestion that any Fomalhaut planets may have gone through periods of black holes\nin the sun and the subsequent white fountain recovery + Flood. The Fish references only bolster\nthe idea that aliens on Urth may have come from a flooded planet.\n \nRobert Borski has suggested that the multi-limbs (and heads?) of Neighbors is an auctorial clue\nthat Blue is the home planet of Typhon. Father Inire and The Cumaean are supposed to be aliens. \nWhat planet do they come from? How could Typhon, Inire and the Cumaean (none of whom have saint \nnames) come from the same place? They are so different. It might be possible if their home star \nhad two planets and two species.\n \nIs it possible the Neighbor-Inhumi conflict/interaction was played out in Urth's history as well\nas on Blue and Green?\n \nI'll leave it at that for now, just saying that I prefer such a synthesis of everyone's ideas to\neach insisting they are correct and all others wrong. Gerry likes to insist that some ideas are\nbad but I have respect for all the people (Roy, Borski, Marc, etc.) who have contributed their\nwell-thought out and researched ideas here. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T14:17:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "oh, yeah, forgot to mention that Roy's mention of the jungle-covered ruins\non Green really do remind me of the moss-covered ruins of Nessus that Severian \nsees downriver on the Samru.\n \nSeemed worth adding. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<7A30882ADFD5428B925B0F0989920FC4@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-12-31T14:28:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<257346.89248.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I shouldn't fret too much about it - I'm sure most authors, however much being questioned by enthusiasts for their works annoys them, would be more annoyed still if it all went away ;-)\n\nHave you considered the possibility that \"Urth is Green\" has a metaphorical meaning? That Green is what Earth/Urth can become if we lose our humanity? It would seem to fit reasonably well with the themes Wolfe is exploring in the Short Sun trilogy.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n ----- Original Message ----- \n From: Marc Aramini \n To: The Urth Mailing List \n Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 4:26 PM\n Subject: Re: (urth) Losing Imitation\n\n\n Gerry, I have to comment on this whole mess. i was in contact with Wolfe very frequently at about that time when the light started to turn on for Short Sun for me in 2002, and I sent him my ideas about trees hybridizing and Horn in Babbie but I said I couldn't find a way for the transport across space to zero in on Blue at that different time. He sent me a letter written on a manuscript page from IGJ, but I still didn't see anything there. So I sent him a Christmas card with a long haired man with a staff, and I drew a little face on the staff, and inside was a christmas tree, and I put scary teeth in the tree, and big eyes, and I asked if the astral transport through the distance of space that the ship in UotNS went through allowed blue to be Urth, and he sent his own Christmas card, and on the back, it said, no, no, no Green is urth. \n\n And that's where I become the bad guy, because I first posted that Gene had told me something, Nick Gevers frantically convinced me to share it with him, he confronted Gene in disbelief, Gene told Nick he was joking because Nick's attitude to me when he heard it was \"he's pulling your leg.\" Gene never told me he was joking, he just told me he should have learned to keep his mouth shut by now. But my problem, that they were planning on going to green, and wound up on Urth which I thought should be Blue, was solved by these words, and there is a mechanism for that mistaken transport in the text which was not there for Blue=Urth.\n\n Whether the discussion ever discovers what Blue or Green is, or whether they are connected, I believe what Gene told me, and I am very sorry that my inquiries led to him being so harassed. \n\n In eschatology and genesis it states anything can emerge from the black hole at the center of the sun.\n\n --- On Wed, 12/29/10, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n He also said Urth = Green, and look at the trouble THAT'S caused!\n\n As you say, he made some comment to that effect. But the book indicates otherwise, so I tend to believe he misspoke, though I guess theories about two groups of abos are tenable if one has some reason for believing that.\n\n - Gerry Quinn\n\n\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<236126.56429.qm@web58208.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T15:41:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy, if Green is Urth, the Neighbors are what people become, I think. That's all. You know, the \"Vanished People\".\n\nIs that such an impossible asssertion?\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Lee Berman wrote:\n\noh, yeah, forgot to mention that Roy's mention of the jungle-covered ruins\non Green really do remind me of the moss-covered ruins of Nessus that Severian \nsees downriver on the Samru.\n\nSeemed worth adding. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T15:49:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Losing Imitation", "in_reply_to": "<7A30882ADFD5428B925B0F0989920FC4@jill>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: Have you considered the possibility that \"Urth is Green\" has a metaphorical meaning? \nThat Green is what Earth/Urth can become if we lose our humanity? It would seem to fit reasonably \nwell with the themes Wolfe is exploring in the Short Sun trilogy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think this is insightful. Still, being SF, I think Wolfe tends to take what is metaphor on Earth\nand turn it into reality on Urth (\"fleshed from dreams\", so to speak). \n \nI think there is evidence that humans on Urth during Severian's time DID lose their humanity, evidenced\nby the relentless institutionalized cruelty with which they treat each other, both in the Commonwealth\nand in Ascia, the only two places on Urth we are able to see.\n \nLikewise, there is evidence that the Neighbors lost their..erm...Neighborhoodiness?..on Green and did\nnot treat other beings in their star system (including in the Whorl) very well.\n \nWe could haggle over time frames, but I think there is a suggestion that the star (whatever it might\nbe named) of Blue and Green may have gone through a black hole/white fountain process affecting both \nplanets. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<438225.5720.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T15:55:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<236126.56429.qm@web58208.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let me get all your rebuttals in order, because I feel like we just argue in circles and circles.\n\n1) The vegetation and life are too different. - I think vegetative evolution and hybridization is going on. This quote from shadow of the torturer, chapter 2:\n\n\"Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them infinitely precious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself would stop .... the colored days that had so long been drawn forth like a chain of conjuror?s scarves come to an end, the sullen sun wink out at last. The second was that there existed somewhere a miraculous light - which I sometimes conceived of as a candle, sometimes as a flambeau - that engendered life in whatever objects it fell upon, so that a leaf plucked from a bush grew slender legs and waving feelers, and a rough brown brush opened black eyes and scurried up a tree.\" \n(Shadow and Claw 18) \n\nAs early as Chapter 2 of New Sun, the coming of the New Sun is animating vegetation.\nAll life left on green is a result of that hybridization.\n\n2) Time travel is not involved in Silk's astral travel - he shows up in the story in the past at the beginning of iGJ\n\n3)? The neighbors made the city on Green - I think the people of Urth are the neighbors, or will become them.\n\n4) Rigoglio is responsible for them winding up on Urth. The text at least shows that Silk is thinking of Green at a time before it was corrupted? and his son Sinew when they make the jump. This muddles the jump.\n\n5) What is blue, and how do you see the light from space? paradoxes explain everything, baby. But seriously, this is what we need to work on. \n\nSaying the neighbors built green or that Silk says they are different places are not very useful as absolute refutation because he does not even understand who he is. In RttW I can quote Silk as saying \"I am Horn.\", but the end, where \"Silk nodded\" works against that assertion.\n\nI honestly believe Gene sat down and said, who, what, when, where, and how are going to be very hard to distinguish in this book, and a central mystery answers all of these questions. Even Horn's fate is answered by paying attention to the vegetation.\n\n\nn Fri, 12/31/10, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, December 31, 2010, 7:41 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRoy, if Green is Urth, the Neighbors are what people become, I think. That's all. You know, the \"Vanished People\".\n\nIs that such an impossible asssertion?\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Lee Berman wrote:\n\noh, yeah, forgot to mention that Roy's mention of the jungle-covered ruins\non Green really do remind me of the moss-covered ruins of Nessus that Severian \nsees downriver on the Samru.\n\nSeemed worth adding. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? \n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "<978213.84427.qm@web58205.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T16:09:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) empires of flower", "in_reply_to": "<438225.5720.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Anybody ever notice any planetary statements in Empires of Foliage and Flower? Need to go over that again I guess. Oh, Father Thyme :(\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<28AA3A0E-EE24-4073-A42A-AB27689D4F89@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-31T17:02:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<003b01cba8c6$432859e0$eacf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 12:39 AM, \"Roy C. Lackey\" wrote:\nIt isn't going to make any difference; I know because I've been through this\nbefore, but I have to say something before I just get disgusted and leave\nthe List, which is probably what I should do anyway. Facts are facts,\nregardless of who likes them or doesn't. There seem to be some people left\nwho put more stock in the text than fanciful interpretations that belie it\nor distort it beyond reason. Maybe this will interest those people.\n\nThere has been a lot of crap bandied about of late that I don't have the\ntime or interest to get involved with, but one issue, the notion that the\nCity of the Inhumi is actually Nessus, really bugs me. It just isn't so, and\nno amount of wishing will make it so. Silkhorn wrote down the story he told\nat dinner at Inclito's house about Horn's encounter with the Neighbor on\nGreen who wanted him to clear the sewer. He wrote:\n\n\"The buildings of that city were not built by the inhumi themselves, for the\ninhumi do not like tools or use them skillfully. Its builders were the\nVanished People, the same master builders who began this gracious house of\nyours.\" (IGJ, 60) And to anticipate the argument that Silkhorn doesn't know\nwhere he is or Horn was, there is the testimony of the same Neighbor. After\nwalking through the ruins of the city that is crumbling under the onslaught\nof the encroaching jungle, the Neighbor said:\n---------------\n \"How we deceived ourselves!\" the man of the Vanished People who had been\nhis guide said. \"We thought we were building here for the ages. Another\nthousand years, and everything you see will be gone.\" (63)\n---------------\n\nEven if Silkhorn had his head up his ass, I don't see how anyone could\nbelieve that the Neighbors didn't know who they were, where they came from,\nor what they themselves had built. And to suggest that the Neighbor just\nlied is not credible. There are other details that unimaginative assholes\nlike me notice that indicate that the City on Green is not Nessus. The black\nsword that Horn was given came from a selection of swords inside a \"bronze\ntablet\" (23) that was located in a ruined building. There was a black sheath\nthat came with it, and a sword belt with many thin straps (24) that \"had\nnever been intended for such a body as his (61). That is, not a human body.\n\nSoon after Horn and the Neighbor entered the sewer they came to \"an altar of\nbronze and stone\" (64). Behind it was an image too worn for Horn to make out\nwhat it looked like. The Neighbor told him, \"This was our goddess of\npurity\". That is, it was a Neighbor shrine for a Neighbor goddess. Horn\nprayed to it and was rewarded with the little light that he used in the\nsewer.\n\nThere is no doubt about it; the ruined City on Green was built by the\nNeighbors, for the Neighbors and used by the Neighbors before they abandoned\nit. If this is another \"asinine\" reading by me of the simple textual facts,\nso be it.\n\nGerry, you seem to have gotten all over you a lot of crap that really has\nmore to do with me than you, as you have probably figured out by now. Sorry\nabout that, but I'm not flinging it. \n\n-Roy" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I missed the name calling, but please don't leave, Roy.\nWho else would slap sense into us?\n\nI'm trying to open up to the possibility that \"Green is Urth\" (which is how he wrote it to Marc, not the other way around, which makes it seem as if it is not a joke, though he regretted the telling)\nIt's a bit ugly. Maybe it fits. I won't say it doesn't unless I've really considered it. Of course, it's a HUGE leap, without much of anything to fill the plot gaps. But it is interesting.\n\nAs Roy points out, the City on Green is not Nessus, and not built by people with bodies like ours. I don't see how the Whorl could have been gone long enough to the transformation from man to multi-limb neighbors, and all the other flaura and fauna changes, along with Moon and Blue swapping (do either blue or green have moons, I forget?) but then I don't really grok all the relativity time wonkorama rules. Perhaps all this has passed between the Whorls's Exile and Return.\n\nAs for what all this does for the themes, well that might seem tastier the more we chew it, but it starts out with a very funky flavor.\n\nI think it's \"not exactly right\" to frame these books with any single, over-arching phrase-theme, such as, \"You can't go home,\" or \"the ramifications of a world without Jesus,\" though I might be guilty of hammering the \"Resurrection and Death\" label here. These are useful framing concepts that help with that Gestalt-o-Vision, but none is likely to encompass the vast amount of thematic material here. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jordon Flato", "address": "jordonflatourth at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T17:28:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<438225.5720.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That line about the leaf turning into a bug is a symbol, a day dream...not\nsomething that actually happened. How can that be used as evidence?\n\nOn Dec 31, 2010 7:55 AM, \"Marc Aramini\" wrote:\n\nLet me get all your rebuttals in order, because I feel like we just argue in\ncircles and circles.\n\n1) The vegetation and life are too different. - I think vegetative evolution\nand hybridization is going on. This quote from shadow of the torturer,\nchapter 2:\n\n\"Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them infinitely\nprecious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself would\nstop .... the colored days that had so long been drawn forth like a chain of\nconjuror?s scarves come to an end, the sullen sun wink out at last. The\nsecond was that there existed somewhere a miraculous light - which I\nsometimes conceived of as a candle, sometimes as a flambeau - that\nengendered life in whatever objects it fell upon, so that a leaf plucked\nfrom a bush grew slender legs and waving feelers, and a rough brown brush\nopened black eyes and scurried up a tree.\"\n(Shadow and Claw 18)\n\nAs early as Chapter 2 of New Sun, the coming of the New Sun is animating\nvegetation.\nAll life left on green is a result of that hybridization.\n\n2) Time travel is not involved in Silk's astral travel - he shows up in the\nstory in the past at the beginning of iGJ\n\n3) The neighbors made the city on Green - I think the people of Urth are\nthe neighbors, or will become them.\n\n4) Rigoglio is responsible for them winding up on Urth. The text at least\nshows that Silk is thinking of Green at a time before it was corrupted and\nhis son Sinew when they make the jump. This muddles the jump.\n\n5) What is blue, and how do you see the light from space? paradoxes explain\neverything, baby. But seriously, this is what we need to work on.\n\nSaying the neighbors built green or that Silk says they are different places\nare not very useful as absolute refutation because he does not even\nunderstand who he is. In RttW I can quote Silk as saying \"I am Horn.\", but\nthe end, where \"Silk nodded\" works against that assertion.\n\nI honestly believe Gene sat down and said, who, what, when, where, and how\nare going to be very hard to distinguish in this book, and a central mystery\nanswers all of these questions. Even Horn's fate is answered by paying\nattention to the vegetation.\n\n\nn *Fri, 12/31/10, Marc Aramini * wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, December 31, 2010, 7:41 AM\n\nRoy, if Green is Urth, the Neighbors are what people become, I think." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's all. You know, t...\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth...." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E29C7.9030808@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-12-31T19:06:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<003b01cba8c6$432859e0$eacf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nessus was built by the Neighbors! Roy said so.\n\nUrth is Green!\n\n;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 3:39 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nThere is no doubt about it; the ruined City on Green was built by the\nNeighbors, for the Neighbors and used by the Neighbors before they abandoned\nit. If this is another \"asinine\" reading by me of the simple textual facts,\nso be it." } ] }, { "message_id": "<226614.44717.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T19:19:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<28AA3A0E-EE24-4073-A42A-AB27689D4F89@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Witz, hybridization is instant speciation, which is why its such an important theme in the first chapter of OBW, almost no time at all has to pass.\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Son of Witz wrote:\n\n\n?I don't see how the Whorl could have been gone long enough to the transformation from man to multi-limb neighbors, and all the other flaura and fauna changes, \n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<356917.97870.qm@web58206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T19:23:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You are right Jordan. That line about the miraculous light coming was just a daydream. How can that be used as evidence for the new sun?\n\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Jordon Flato wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Jordon Flato \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jordon Flato", "address": "jordonflatourth at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T19:58:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<356917.97870.qm@web58206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well now thats just cheeky, marc! The way you wrote it made it sound as if\nyou thought the new sun literally changed the leaf to a bug, which is not\nsomething we are ever even remotely shown. The new sun as tje harbingwr of\nnew life for urth is certsinly given life in that metaphor\n\nOn Dec 31, 2010 11:23 AM, \"Marc Aramini\" wrote:\n\n\nYou are right Jordan. That line about the miraculous light coming was just\na daydream. How can that be used as evidence for the new sun?\n\n\n--- On *Fri, 12/31/10, Jordon Flato * wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Jordon Flato \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Friday, December 31, 2010, 9:28 AM\n\nThat line about the leaf turning into a bug is a symbol, a day dream...not\nsomething that actua..." } ] }, { "message_id": "<731376.69791.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T20:01:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just find it odd that his two certainties include this strange sentience coming to vegetation in light of the Green Man and the life on Green. I think its more than a throwaway daydream.\n\nAlso, Father Thyme in Empires of Foliage and Flower is a vegetable of some kind who just absorbs water when it rains, something his little girl can't do, she has to drink water tinged with blood. I just feel like there was some vegetative schema for the future of Urth from the very beginning, whether good or bad I don't know.\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Jordon Flato wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Jordon Flato \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5F851C09-72FA-41DC-A477-DF285E573C46@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-31T23:04:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<226614.44717.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sure, but the fauna on these planets isn't fresh from the lab." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 11:19 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nWitz, hybridization is instant speciation, which is why its such an important theme in the first chapter of OBW, almost no time at all has to pass.\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Son of Witz wrote:\n I don't see how the Whorl could have been gone long enough to the transformation from man to multi-limb neighbors, and all the other flaura and fauna changes,\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-31T23:12:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<731376.69791.qm@web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re: Vegetative schema there from the beginning:\nIt dawned on me today that there IS a a big component that points towards this, The Tale of the Town That Forgot Fauna. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 12:01 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI just find it odd that his two certainties include this strange sentience coming to vegetation in light of the Green Man and the life on Green. I think its more than a throwaway daydream.\n \nAlso, Father Thyme in Empires of Foliage and Flower is a vegetable of some kind who just absorbs water when it rains, something his little girl can't do, she has to drink water tinged with blood. I just feel like there was some vegetative schema for the future of Urth from the very beginning, whether good or bad I don't know.\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Jordon Flato wrote:\n\nFrom: Jordon Flato \nSubject: Re: (urth) City on Green\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, December 31, 2010, 11:58 AM\n\nWell now thats just cheeky, marc! The way you wrote it made it sound as if you thought the new sun literally changed the leaf to a bug, which is not something we are ever even remotely shown. The new sun as tje harbingwr of new life for urth is certsinly given life in that metaphor" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<915395.30723.qm@web58203.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T23:30:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<5F851C09-72FA-41DC-A477-DF285E573C46@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, it isn't from the lab now, and I'm not sure if it ever was, BUT I do think it is instant recombination (ie - where Neighbor Horn comes from, the munching of and recombination with human Horn by a big Tree, like the trees that eat trees on Green - my take on the pit is that it is the maw of a ginormous tree, the kind that were seen making up other islands on Blue).\n\n--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Son of Witz wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSure, but the fauna on these planets isn't fresh from the lab.\n\nOn \n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E6B1F.2000405@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-31T23:45:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<003b01cba8c6$432859e0$eacf4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi Roy,\n\nYou're right in your frustration at the way some behave sometimes; all \nthe same I don't think everything is worthless fancy. If I bother \npointing out problems in some theories that appear here, it's solely in \nthe hope that they'll be improved on, or interesting alternatives \ndeveloped. Granted, it is not well received, but on the whole I think it \nkind of works.\n\nI don't think Green is Urth either, though obviously that's \nunfalsifiable: given enough leeway (and time is relative so we have as \nmuch as we want to) anything can turn into anything else (I think some \ncontributors here haven't yet gotten that). I do think the relationship, \nif any, betweem the City of the Inhumi and Nessus is worth exploring. \nYour objections would be unsurmountable if we were discussing a short \nperiod of earthly history, but we're not.\n\n- When did the Neighbours leave the scene? Those buildings won't last \nanother thousand years - that means they can't be that old, or that \nwouldn't be remarkable - what are the odds that the Whorl would reach \nBlue/Green almost at the same time, broadly speaking, that the \nNeighbours have vanished?\n\n- Again, what the hell is the purpose of the City of the Inhumi (pace \nBenewicz). Heck, we don't have a city on Blue, where the Neighbours came \nfrom, but we have an impressive one on Green?\n\n- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association. \nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?\n\n\nA nice year 2 all." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E745E.6070406@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T00:25:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<356917.97870.qm@web58206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 1:23 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nYou are right Jordan. That line about the miraculous light coming was\njust a daydream. How can that be used as evidence for the new sun?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's a method of presenting an idea to the reader that is meant to be \ntaken less than completely literally, but should still be considered \notherwise why bother to introduce it at all? It is a similar device to \nthe \"true\" lies in various characters' dialogue: they suggest to the \nreader something that needs to taken into consideration, though since \nthe lies tend to be less symbolic and less figurative since they are \nintended by the speaking characters to be believed as if literally \ntrue, of course, which limits the author. A wholly internal conceit on \nthe other hand can be as fanciful as necessary." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E7571.2030402@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T00:29:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E6B1F.2000405@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\n- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom \nwith closed roads." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2011-01-01T00:54:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Closed Roads", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E7571.2030402@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think I just had Gestalt-O-Vision with the \"Closed roads\"\nWhat the hell is the purpose of the closed roads?\n\nThe closed roads seem to represent how there is no growth, only stagnation. No new paths. Society's dead body with stalled arteries. works for me at least.\n\n~witz" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 4:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom with closed roads.\n\n-- \nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6B308E21-FEE7-4082-AC6F-D86C4686C7B0@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T01:08:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E7571.2030402@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom with closed roads." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Nessus\" is the centaur whose blood killed Hercules. I always took it as kind of an ironic inversion of \"Buenos Aires\"; \"foul blood\" as opposed to \"fair winds\".\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E8589.5010409@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T01:38:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Closed Roads", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 6:54 PM, Son of Witz wrote:\nI think I just had Gestalt-O-Vision with the \"Closed roads\"\nWhat the hell is the purpose of the closed roads?\n\nThe closed roads seem to represent how there is no growth, only stagnation. No new paths. Society's dead body with stalled arteries. works for me at least." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The old Autarch says they closed the roads to paralyze the social order. \nI assume this means that not being free to travel easily, the bulk of \nthe people are stuck with their lot.\n\nIt doesn't exactly represent stagnation or death so much as the only \nstable solution that has been found; he lists the other alternatives \nthat suck more." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1E8636.8030901@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T01:41:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<6B308E21-FEE7-4082-AC6F-D86C4686C7B0@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 7:08 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:\n\nOn Dec 31, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom with closed roads." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Nessus\" is the centaur whose blood killed Hercules. I always took it as kind of an ironic inversion of \"Buenos Aires\"; \"foul blood\" as opposed to \"fair winds\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm down with all of that, it's just that nexus implies that separate, \ndistant things are being brought together and attached, which is belied \nby the walls, gates, roadblocks, and so forth that keep people separated \nand apart." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8E813629-E0C6-406C-899A-37640B004C2E@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2011-01-01T04:04:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Closed Roads", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E8589.5010409@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 31, 2010, at 5:38 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 6:54 PM, Son of Witz wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I just had Gestalt-O-Vision with the \"Closed roads\"\nWhat the hell is the purpose of the closed roads?\n\nThe closed roads seem to represent how there is no growth, only stagnation. No new paths. Society's dead body with stalled arteries. works for me at least." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The old Autarch says they closed the roads to paralyze the social order. I assume this means that not being free to travel easily, the bulk of the people are stuck with their lot.\n\nIt doesn't exactly represent stagnation or death so much as the only stable solution that has been found; he lists the other alternatives that suck more.\n\n-- \nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course, that is the ploughman's meaning. I think my explanation aims for sooth sayers meaning. All that you said is true.\n\nSometimes I find it easier to see the symbols if you can map the themes out and retell the story with them, sometimes like a cheesy movie trailer. \nIn that spirit:\n \"In a world where the sun is dying and the Urth is cold, in a shut down kingdom where there is no hope and the roads are closed, one man comes to forge a new path to the future, as well as to the past.\"\n(is that cheesy enough? Did you read it in that trailer guy's voice? It works best that way. I heard he just died.)\n\nSo that's all I'm saying. They represent, plotwise, exactly what you laid out. I just never saw the thematic purpose. I'm convinced most every plot element is there for such a reason.\n\n~witz" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "aaron", "address": "aaronsingleton at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T04:11:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Closed Roads", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E8589.5010409@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Closing the roads makes it easier to keep people out of certain areas--\nthat's the obvious reason for me. Otherwise, just to discourage travel I\nsuppose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 6:54 PM, Son of Witz wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think I just had Gestalt-O-Vision with the \"Closed roads\"\nWhat the hell is the purpose of the closed roads?\n\nThe closed roads seem to represent how there is no growth, only\nstagnation. No new paths. Society's dead body with stalled arteries. works\nfor me at least." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The old Autarch says they closed the roads to paralyze the social order. I\nassume this means that not being free to travel easily, the bulk of the\npeople are stuck with their lot.\n\nIt doesn't exactly represent stagnation or death so much as the only stable\nsolution that has been found; he lists the other alternatives that suck\nmore.\n\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1EADB1.30408@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-01T04:29:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E6B1F.2000405@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thinking of the etymology of \"Nessus,\" I recall that it is the name of a \ncentaur slain by a poisoned arrow. When we visit Nessus, we see the \nriver Gyoll many times, which must be very polluted by the time it \nreaches the dead zones. As it slashes across Nessus, it is very like a \npoisoned arrow. I assume this is the conventional view.\n\nWhen we visit the city of the Neighbors/Inhumi, we mostly encounter the \nbig sewer. I don't like where this leads, but there it is. (It's like \nthe flushing of the Vincula at Thrax, too, so maybe this is not a \nremarkable similarity.)\n\nAs for the vastness: the city of Nessus is uncontrollable, like a living \nthing that is born and dies daily. It is a megacity, technically. Such \ncities are indeed nexuses." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 6:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:\nHi Roy,\n\nYou're right in your frustration at the way some behave sometimes; all \nthe same I don't think everything is worthless fancy. If I bother \npointing out problems in some theories that appear here, it's solely \nin the hope that they'll be improved on, or interesting alternatives \ndeveloped. Granted, it is not well received, but on the whole I think \nit kind of works.\n\nI don't think Green is Urth either, though obviously that's \nunfalsifiable: given enough leeway (and time is relative so we have as \nmuch as we want to) anything can turn into anything else (I think some \ncontributors here haven't yet gotten that). I do think the \nrelationship, if any, betweem the City of the Inhumi and Nessus is \nworth exploring. Your objections would be unsurmountable if we were \ndiscussing a short period of earthly history, but we're not.\n\n- When did the Neighbours leave the scene? Those buildings won't last \nanother thousand years - that means they can't be that old, or that \nwouldn't be remarkable - what are the odds that the Whorl would reach \nBlue/Green almost at the same time, broadly speaking, that the \nNeighbours have vanished?\n\n- Again, what the hell is the purpose of the City of the Inhumi (pace \nBenewicz). Heck, we don't have a city on Blue, where the Neighbours \ncame from, but we have an impressive one on Green?\n\n- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb \nassociation. What's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast \nthe city is?\n\n\nA nice year 2 all." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1EAEAC.9040702@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-01T04:33:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1E7571.2030402@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, definitely. But this only forces us to think of what else it may be \nthe nexus of, if not a global network of large cities." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 7:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a \nkingdom with closed roads." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1EAF5B.3050804@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-01T04:36:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<6B308E21-FEE7-4082-AC6F-D86C4686C7B0@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oops, Nessus killed Hercules, not the other way. Well, we might wonder \nthen who is Hercules." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 8:08 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:\nOn Dec 31, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 12/31/2010 5:45 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "- What's the meaning/etymology of Nessus? Nexus is a superb association.\nWhat's the purpose of our being told repeatedly how vast the city is?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Nexus\" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom with closed roads." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Nessus\" is the centaur whose blood killed Hercules. I always took it as kind of an ironic inversion of \"Buenos Aires\"; \"foul blood\" as opposed to \"fair winds\".\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1EC067.6090804@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T05:49:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1EAF5B.3050804@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 10:36 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nOops, Nessus killed Hercules, not the other way. Well, we might wonder \nthen who is Hercules." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hercules also killed Nessus, if that helps. As I recall, Deionara, who \nwas Mrs. Hercules? The main squeeze of Hercules? had Nessus help her \nacross a river, and then he tried to rape her, and then Hercules killed \nhim (with a poison arrow? Don't remember), and, dying, he said to her \nsomething like, \"if Hercules wears a shirt soaked in my blood, he will \nnever love another.\"\n\nSo of course she does the Dillinger-hankie thing, and then Hercules puts \nit on, and OOPS AGONIZING DEATH.\n\nNota bene: I didn't look any of this up, so I could be *totally wrong*.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1ECE73.3060903@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T06:49:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Closed Roads", "in_reply_to": "<8E813629-E0C6-406C-899A-37640B004C2E@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 10:04 PM, Son of Witz wrote:\n\n\nOn Dec 31, 2010, at 5:38 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 12/31/2010 6:54 PM, Son of Witz wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think I just had Gestalt-O-Vision with the \"Closed roads\"\nWhat the hell is the purpose of the closed roads?\n\nThe closed roads seem to represent how there is no growth, only stagnation. No new paths. Society's dead body with stalled arteries. works for me at least." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The old Autarch says they closed the roads to paralyze the social order. I assume this means that not being free to travel easily, the bulk of the people are stuck with their lot.\n\nIt doesn't exactly represent stagnation or death so much as the only stable solution that has been found; he lists the other alternatives that suck more.\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, that is the ploughman's meaning. I think my explanation aims for sooth sayers meaning. All that you said is true.\n\nSometimes I find it easier to see the symbols if you can map the themes out and retell the story with them, sometimes like a cheesy movie trailer.\nIn that spirit:\n \"In a world where the sun is dying and the Urth is cold, in a shut down kingdom where there is no hope and the roads are closed, one man comes to forge a new path to the future, as well as to the past.\"\n(is that cheesy enough? Did you read it in that trailer guy's voice? It works best that way. I heard he just died.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Donald Leroy \"Don\" LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 — September 1, 2008)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So that's all I'm saying. They represent, plotwise, exactly what you laid out. I just never saw the thematic purpose. I'm convinced most every plot element is there for such a reason." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, there's a copious buttload of obstacles for the protagonist to \novercome, it makes for the dying (but not quite dead yet) earth thing \nlike you said, and it provides for lots of plot meandering so that there \nis gradual motion in the direction of the greater arc while having \nplenty of time to layer up all of the acquaintances and curious \nhappeninigs and other motifs used to build the larger themes of the \nBook, eh?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1ED2BB.3070801@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T07:07:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1EC067.6090804@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/31/2010 11:49 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:\nOn 12/31/2010 10:36 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Oops, Nessus killed Hercules, not the other way. Well, we might wonder\nthen who is Hercules." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hercules also killed Nessus, if that helps. As I recall, Deionara, who\nwas Mrs. Hercules? The main squeeze of Hercules? had Nessus help her\nacross a river, and then he tried to rape her, and then Hercules killed\nhim (with a poison arrow? Don't remember), and, dying, he said to her\nsomething like, \"if Hercules wears a shirt soaked in my blood, he will\nnever love another.\"\n\nSo of course she does the Dillinger-hankie thing, and then Hercules puts\nit on, and OOPS AGONIZING DEATH.\n\nNota bene: I didn't look any of this up, so I could be *totally wrong*." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Technically it was everlasting agony from which the only escape was \ndeath - though since he was half-immortal, once the mortality was burnt \naway, he ascended." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T07:13:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1ED2BB.3070801@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam got the Hercules-Nessus story right. I'll drone on that I think Severian's story\nparallels that of Hercules more than any other legendary hero. I think the fouled waters\nof Gyoll are associated with the poison somewhere in the text.\n \nI don't think it is a contradiction for Nessus to have closed roads and have gotten its \nname (at least auctorially) from an association with the word \"nexus\". If it has closed roads \nit means they once were open. If it has a closed spaceport it means there was once an open space \nport. I think the city had the name Nessus long before the roads were closed and perhaps before\nthe space port was closed. \"All roads lead to nexus/Nessus\"? Why is Urth closed off...is someone\ntrying to keep something in or keep something out?\n \nThe end of CotA was meant to be the end of the series. I would think the ending would be important. \nPart of the ending has Severian flying around the Citadel and being unable to find the \ntop of Valeria's tower. Where is it? What sort of beings can construct towers that have roots on \nUrth and tops lost in time/space?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wikipedia: Shirt Of Nessus: In Greek mythology, it is the shirt (chiton) daubed with the tainted blood \nof the centaur Nessus that Deianeira, Hercules' wife, na?vely gave Hercules, burning him, and driving \nhim to throw himself onto a funeral pyre." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Metaphorically, it represents \"a source of misfortune from which there is no escape; a fatal present; \nanything that wounds the susceptibilities\"[2] or a \"destructive or expiatory force or influence\"[3]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nin UotNS it is the pain from his destruction of Nessus that sends grief-stricken Severian lunging and \nhurtling to the distant past to assuage his misery in the primitive life of Apu Punchau.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T07:19:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: I just feel like there was some vegetative schema for the future of Urth \nfrom the very beginning, whether good or bad I don't know." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nMarc, James has suggested that Spring Wind may be a disguised legend of Typhon (also Alexander).\nSpring Wind was conceived via his mother screwing around with the juices of a certain plant.\nBorski has suggested Typhon may have originated on Blue.\n \nProbably not helpful to your theory but I thought I'd throw those ideas at you, just in case.\n\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1EDBB8.7030900@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T07:46:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/1/2011 1:13 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nIf it has closed roads\nit means they once were open. If it has a closed spaceport it means there was once an open space\nport." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since Nessus moves upriver over time, it cannot be said for certain that \nthe roads and the port were part of the city when they were open in the \nsame way they are in Severian's time." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T12:26:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "<4D1EDBB8.7030900@io.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Since Nessus moves upriver over time, it cannot be said for certain that \nthe roads and the port were part of the city when they were open in the same way they \nare in Severian's time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI was aware of that movement but I think I can still say for certain Nessus was the center\nof things on Urth for all intents and purposes. Autarch Somebody closed the roads so it wasn't \nso long ago when that happened. Nessus seems to be the capital city of the capital planet of an \ninterstellar empire in Typhon's time. Severian starts in Nessus and returns time and time again. \nIf the story is a Labryrinth with twisting paths turning in upon themselves, Nessus is surely \nits center. \n \nPerhaps Wolfe had no thoughts of the word nexus when he chose the name of this city with \nmulti-book importance. But I don't see the value in postulating that Nessus was not the \ncenter of civilization in Urth's visible past. We could say, \"Maybe it was Yorkessus in \nAscia. Or maybe Seoulessus in the Xanthic Lands\", but what is the point of that? If you \ndon't like the idea of the name Nessus being related the word nexus, why not just say that?\n \n[FWIW, poking around the text on this issue uncovered some possible support for James' idea\nthat Typhon mirrors Alexander The Great. As Severian is being taken from the Citadel to\nTyphon's mountain retreat, the accompanying soldiers are described as, \"maintained with the \ndisciplined precision of hand-colored troops commanded by a child..\" \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1F241B.808@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-01T12:54:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/1/2011 6:26 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson: Since Nessus moves upriver over time, it cannot be said for certain that\nthe roads and the port were part of the city when they were open in the same way they\nare in Severian's time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I was aware of that movement but I think I can still say for certain Nessus was the center\nof things on Urth for all intents and purposes. Autarch Somebody closed the roads so it wasn't\nso long ago when that happened. Nessus seems to be the capital city of the capital planet of an\ninterstellar empire in Typhon's time. Severian starts in Nessus and returns time and time again.\nIf the story is a Labryrinth with twisting paths turning in upon themselves, Nessus is surely\nits center." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's the beginning and the end; if it had a center, I'd say it would be \nthe House Absolute, which is also where the capital is, judging by the \nextern ambassadors being received there. Nessus is the population \ncenter, but that's not the same thing.\n\nNessus is probably within a length of its original position at the time \nof Ymar, given that Inire establishes the Botanic Gardens that time or \nlater and it is still barely within the patrolled area of the city by \nSev's time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps Wolfe had no thoughts of the word nexus when he chose the name of this city with\nmulti-book importance. But I don't see the value in postulating that Nessus was not the\ncenter of civilization in Urth's visible past. We could say, \"Maybe it was Yorkessus in\nAscia. Or maybe Seoulessus in the Xanthic Lands\", but what is the point of that? If you\ndon't like the idea of the name Nessus being related the word nexus, why not just say that?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I said it was ironic, but irony suits me fine." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D1F31DC.3040006@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-01T13:53:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City On Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Modeling Severian after Hercules certainly would have given Wolfe the \nability to construct a seemingly loose, episodic narrative with a higher \npurpose. Such as we have here.\n\nOther than the Augean Stables, has anyone compared Hercules' \nchores/feats/tasks/miracles one for one with Severian's?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/1/2011 2:13 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nAdam got the Hercules-Nessus story right. I'll drone on that I think Severian's story\nparallels that of Hercules more than any other legendary hero. I think the fouled waters\nof Gyoll are associated with the poison somewhere in the text.\n\nI don't think it is a contradiction for Nessus to have closed roads and have gotten its\nname (at least auctorially) from an association with the word \"nexus\". If it has closed roads\nit means they once were open. If it has a closed spaceport it means there was once an open space\nport. I think the city had the name Nessus long before the roads were closed and perhaps before\nthe space port was closed. \"All roads lead to nexus/Nessus\"? Why is Urth closed off...is someone\ntrying to keep something in or keep something out?\n\nThe end of CotA was meant to be the end of the series. I would think the ending would be important.\nPart of the ending has Severian flying around the Citadel and being unable to find the\ntop of Valeria's tower. Where is it? What sort of beings can construct towers that have roots on\nUrth and tops lost in time/space?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Wikipedia: Shirt Of Nessus: In Greek mythology, it is the shirt (chiton) daubed with the tainted blood\nof the centaur Nessus that Deianeira, Hercules' wife, na?vely gave Hercules, burning him, and driving\nhim to throw himself onto a funeral pyre." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Metaphorically, it represents \"a source of misfortune from which there is no escape; a fatal present;\nanything that wounds the susceptibilities\"[2] or a \"destructive or expiatory force or influence\"[3]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " in UotNS it is the pain from his destruction of Nessus that sends grief-stricken Severian lunging and\nhurtling to the distant past to assuage his misery in the primitive life of Apu Punchau.\n \t\t \t \t\t\n__________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001901cbaa37$8d53e580$bacc4a0c@rclackey>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2011-01-02T04:43:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<438225.5720.qm@web58207.mail.re3.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3) The neighbors made the city on Green - I think the people of Urth are\nthe neighbors, or will become them.<\n[snip]\nSaying the neighbors built green or that Silk says they are different\nplaces are not very useful as absolute refutation because he does not even\nunderstand who he is. In RttW I can quote Silk as saying \"I am Horn.\", but\nthe end, where \"Silk nodded\" works against that assertion.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--------------\n\nAs I said when I started this thread, it was a *Neighbor*, not Silkhorn, who\nclaimed that his race built the City on Green. It was also a Neighbor in the\nLand of Fires who told Horn that his race (the Neighbors) originated on\nBlue. The Neighbors did not suffer from Silkhorn's identity confusion.\n\nHumans originated on Urth. If Green is Urth, then the Neighbors did not\noriginate there. The Neighbors did not, could not have built Nessus. There\nis no evidence, no suggestion at all that the Neighbors ever existed in\nUrth's past, and Severian went all the way back many thousands of years into\nthe past to the dawn of history in the time of Apu-Punchau, long before\nNessus even existed.\n\nIf Green is post-deluge Urth, i.e. Ushas, the Neighbors still did not\noriginate there; they came from Blue. Further, ignoring that, if you want to\nsay that the remnants of humanity Severian saw on Ushas somehow evolved or\notherwise changed into the race of double-limbed Neighbors (never mind all\nthe other creatures), it is very doubtful that the ruins of a drowned Nessus\nwould still be standing in the time that likely would have taken. Ignoring\nthat, there is the Green Man from Ushas's future who, apart from being green\nand living off of sunlight, looked like a man -- with two arms and two legs.\n\nIf you want to argue that the Green Man represented a stage between humans\nand Neighbors, then it is even less likely that the ruins of Nessus would\nstill be standing at the time Horn saw the City on Green.\n\nThe Hierogrammates had examined the future of Urth and found it probable\nthat the humans of Ushas would become the Hieros who would bring about the\nrace of Hierogrammates. Apheta, a larval-stage Hierogrammate, looked like a\nhuman woman and said that her form was that of the race that had fashioned\nhers, the Hieros.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-02T07:37:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "<001901cbaa37$8d53e580$bacc4a0c@rclackey>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy C. Lackey: Humans originated on Urth. If Green is Urth, then the Neighbors did not\noriginate there. The Neighbors did not, could not have built Nessus. There\nis no evidence, no suggestion at all that the Neighbors ever existed in\nUrth's past, and Severian went all the way back many thousands of years into\nthe past to the dawn of history in the time of Apu-Punchau, long before\nNessus even existed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI think Roy makes pretty good arguments for Green not being Urth (yet, still, considering \nthe private Wolfe correspondence, I can easily see why Marc isn't ready to drop the idea \nlike it is the lit stink bomb Roy implies).\n \nBut I think Roy is wrong in the above paragraph, specifially the part about \"Neighbors did\nnot, could not have built Nessus.\"\n \nCiting Severian's time travels is not relevant. He only travels to two places in Urth's past,\nApu Punchau's time when there was no advanced technology and the end of Typhon's reign when\ninterstellar travel is dwindling to nil (the ships at the Citadel site are already \"hulks\"). \nWe do know that in between these two times have been periods of great interstellar travel to\nand from Urth. Nessus was at least partially built (and perhaps named) in this time period.\n \nWe are told there are numerous alien races and we know some representatives spend time on \nUrth. We know Blue and Green are in reachable space from Urth. It seems eminently *possible*\nthat Neighbors and/or Inhumi have made it to Urth in real (as opposed to dream-) travel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From my perspective, it is not only possible but probable that Neighbors and/or Inhumi have\nmade it to Urth in history previous to Severian's times there. I base this probablity on the\nDr. Talos principle. Like the impressario, Gene Wolfe prefers not to have different actors\nplay all the different roles in his dramas. Instead he likes to have a smaller stable of\nactors who don disguises to play the various roles." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nThus, I think he is loathe to create two completely unrelated species to put into an offshoot\nstory from BotNS. If he wanted no relationship he would have created a completely, unconnected\nstory. (so yes, I do think Neighbors and Inhumi are disguised versions of aliens found on Urth\nthough it is actually vice-versa; [angels and fallen angels])\n\nLike most here, I think Gene Wolfe did NOT have Neighbors and Inhumi specifically in mind when he\nwrote BotNS. However, I think one single word provides the strong suggestion that Wolfe meant some \nof the aliens who travel to Urth have the capacity to become entwined in identity with humans. Nephilim.\n \nNephilim are giants (or \"men of reknown) who result from the mating between humans and a superior race. \nWe have numerous giants in the extended story, we have humans and we have superior alien races. But can \nhumans and alien species mate?\n \nHere is the thing: In dream travel, we know that Inhumi go to Urth and all they want to do is have sex. \nBut, (it might be argued), that's just a dream. It doesn't result in offspring (or does it?). *But* on \nBlue/Green, all Inhumi really want to do is suck blood out of humans. This IS related!\n \nWhen we humans mate with each other it involves a fluid exchange which results in the blending of the \nidentity of two beings. That process is also true for Inhumi biting humans. Wolfe MEANS for us to get \nthe connection.\n\n(James thinks there is identity blending not only between humans and inhumi but also between human and \nNeighbor. I think the idea has merit, and if it does, I think inhumi are the vector for the identity\nmerging. James thinks Horn merges with a Neighbor at his death in the Pit. When Horn wakes up there the\nfirst thing he sees is an inhumu, Krait) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-02T08:01:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff-Other than the Augean Stables, has anyone compared Hercules' \nchores/feats/tasks/miracles one for one with Severian's?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI gave it a preliminary shot. I think I had comparisons for five or six of\nthe twelve labors. Some were awfully metaphorical: Hercules captures the deer\nwith golden antlers= Severian's relationship with Dorcas (name means \"gazelle\"). \nHercules, like Severian, carries the weight of the world on his shoulders when\nhe subs for Atlas. etc.\n \n \nI think \"one for one\" may be too much to ask...it would be like Typhon having 100 heads \nlike his mythological namesake. Too direct and obvious a borrowing for Wolfe. Still, \nNessus, a twin, disguised parentage, mysterious strengths and indominability are pretty\ngood clues. I think there are others, not yet discovered.\n \n \nSomeone recently mentioned The Town That Forgot Fauna. I think there is much there which \nreflects on the founding of Nessus. It is on a river. It has grand walls and towers. There\nare black beans mentioned. We never learn the \"grand name\" of this city but its nicknames\n\"Urbis\" and \"Pestis\" are highly evocative of the name \"Nessus\" to me.\n \nUnexplored, I think, is the name of the owner of the original piece of land, Fauna. This \nRoman goddess is significant to me in that she is the daughter of the god Faunus. As I \nhave noted elsewhere, an epithet for Faunus is Innus, derived from the copulatory verb,\n\"inire\" and a name associated with monkeys. BotNS does have a male and female character \nwho are both very old. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D208E74.2080801@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-02T14:40:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) City on Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I googled \"Urbis\" and \"Pestis\" to see what loose associations might come \nup. There were none of any great interest: pestis (plague) is the \nspecies name of the Black Death, and Urbis tends to bring up Rome, but \nyou would expect that. Rome is the Eternal City, which Nessus resembles \nin its lifespan, and of course both cities are notorious for other \nreasons. Thinking of Nessus as a Nexus in the sense that postimperial \nRome was a nexus might be productive.\n\nFor those of you who like puzzles, however, I present the Stanford \nDigital Forma Urbis Romae Project,\n\n\n DIGITAL MAP OF THE SLABS OF THE FORMA URBIS ROMAE:\n\nhttp://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURslabmap.html" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/2/2011 3:01 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\nSomeone recently mentioned The Town That Forgot Fauna. I think there is much there which\nreflects on the founding of Nessus. It is on a river. It has grand walls and towers. There\nare black beans mentioned. We never learn the \"grand name\" of this city but its nicknames\n\"Urbis\" and \"Pestis\" are highly evocative of the name \"Nessus\" to me." } ] } ] }