Subject: (urth) Drotte-Roche mixup (was: Introduction and Breath)

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:53:36 +0000

I wrote:
> I've always felt that this looks far more like a faux-pas on the part
> of Wolfe than anything to do with Severian's memory.

and Ant?nio Pedro Marques:
> Obviously one can't complain about feelings, but I just can't
> understand how you may feel that way. Only if you feel it's too
> cartoonish to be true, but this isn't at all the only instance of such
> humour by GW.

A few reasons why I feel this way:
Firstly, because substituting one name for another is an easy mistake
for a writer to make, and a hard one for an editor to spot. Mistakes
get published all the time.

Secondly, because substituting one word for an associated one is a
common error not of memory, but of language. We all do it. You
mentally reach for a word, and because your attention is elsewhere,
you don't notice that you've taken the one that was lying next to it
instead. If a journalist writes that 'the sherrif opened the new
sports field' when he meant to write 'the mayor opened the new sports
field', it isn't because he remembers a man with a pointy badge and a
ten-gallon hat cutting the ribbon.

If Severian consistently recalled that Roche was the one who said he
saw the pikes, and then three books later, in a chance remark, Drotte
remembered saying it, that would be a good way to show that Severian's
memory was suspect. But that doesn't happen. Severian says Roche said
it, then almost immediately he says Drotte said it. If that's an error
of memory, then Severian has not only remembered an incident in two
completely different ways in the space of a couple of paragraphs, but
he's forgotten what he *wrote* just two paragraphs ago. That's not
imperfect memory. That's serious brain damage.

>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:47:16 +0100
> From: Matthew Knapton <eruantien at gmail.com>
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Introduction and Breath
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>
> Hi.
>
> I haven't read any ..Sun books outside of the Book of the New Sun, and don't
> have them to hand to look up references. However!
>
> I buy into the unreliable-Severian. While it's certainly possible that his
> repeatedly-claimed perfect memory isn't actually perfect (and either he
> lies, or has convinced himself that his subconscious inventions are real
> memories), we can be generous to Severian and assume that his memory is
> indeed perfect. But that doesn't help his case, because perfect recall isn't
> the only thing required to be an omniscient narrator - he lacks perfect
> understanding as well. He might be able to remember every scene of his life,
> but if he misunderstands what he sees, or attributes purposes and
> implications to the actions and appearance of people around him incorrectly,
> he's just as unreliable a narrator as someone who doesn't well remember the
> scene in question. Maybe even more unreliable, so to speak, or at least less
> helpful, since the person-without-perfect-memory would admit to gaps in the
> story.
>
> And of course, having a perfect memory doesn't mean it's all transcribed
> into his writing. At some point I think Severian actually writes that he has
> "left out details which are unimportant", noting a few sentences later
> (without irony) that he has "no sense of perspective".
>
> Personally I also think his memory is faulty (though I tend to think he's
> deceiving himself that what he remembers is perfect, rather than 'actively'
> lying); the bits which got me early on were his recollections of Thecla.
> Like I say I don't have my copies of the books to hand, but fairly early on
> doesn't he give one account of Thecla's death, and then later (in an offhand
> comment) give an entirely different one? His description of their
> relationship as sexual or platonic seems to change as the books goes on,
> too.
>
> I feel like cataloguing examples sort of misses the point though; if there's
> one thing a reader of Gene Wolfe knows it's that he isn't going to spell
> anything out in crayon :) and "unreliable narration", for one reason or
> another, does seem to be a recurring theme throughout a lot of his books.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So glad people are asking about Severian as unreliable narrator! ?I suspect
>> it's one of those ideas that someone said in a review and then it got
>> blurbed on a jacket cover and then it just became the 'official'
>> interpretation and is now in an endless repeat loop. ?I don't think I have
>> ever yet mentioned it in comments or reviews about New Sun as I simply don't
>> understand it. ?I'm totally open to being shown how it is the case, but the
>> reasons given in this thread are, frankly, unconvincing. ?They show how
>> Wolfe's narrative art overall is strange and tricksy and indirect and
>> elusive - things I *do* talk about in commenting on all of Wolfe's fiction
>> - but not how Severian himself overall is helpfully and accurately described
>> as an 'unreliable narrator' or how this is a central and significant trope
>> that characterises tBotNS. ?It's all hints and suspicions and possibilities
>> - which are great, but should be left at that I think.
>>
>> We still await the carefully documented and argued case for Severian as
>> unreliable narrator.
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> 2011/4/15 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>>
>>> Antonin Scriabin wrote (15-04-2011 17:48):
>>>
>>> ?Severian's perfect memory seems selective. ?There are moments
>>>> where seems to say "I have a perfect memory, except for when I don't".
>>>>
>>>
>>> Am I misremembering, or one of the first pages of NS goes like this: 'So
>>> Drotte was doing something... did I mention I have a perfect memory? I have
>>> a perfect memory! Anyway, Roche was doing something...'?
>>>
>>> Almost cartoonish. Roger Rabbitish.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urth Mailing List
>>> To post, write urth at urth.net
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>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 11:35:20 -0500
> From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Introduction and Breath
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> Depending on what you feel constitutes the beat criteria for an "unreliable narrator," I suppose SilkHorn in Short Sun would be just as good if not a better candidate for the label than Severian. His either confused or repressed or deliberately self-forgetting memory of his own identity makes him particularly difficult.
>
> On Apr 16, 2011, at 6:47 AM, Matthew Knapton <eruantien at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>>
>> I haven't read any ..Sun books outside of the Book of the New Sun, and don't have them to hand to look up references. However!
>>
>> I buy into the unreliable-Severian. While it's certainly possible that his repeatedly-claimed perfect memory isn't actually perfect (and either he lies, or has convinced himself that his subconscious inventions are real memories), we can be generous to Severian and assume that his memory is indeed perfect. But that doesn't help his case, because perfect recall isn't the only thing required to be an omniscient narrator - he lacks perfect understanding as well. He might be able to remember every scene of his life, but if he misunderstands what he sees, ?or attributes purposes and implications to the actions and appearance of people around him incorrectly, he's just as unreliable a narrator as someone who doesn't well remember the scene in question. Maybe even more unreliable, so to speak, or at least less helpful, since the ?person-without-perfect-memory would admit to gaps in the story.
>>
>> And of course, having a perfect memory doesn't mean it's all transcribed into his writing. At some point I think Severian actually writes that he has "left out details which are unimportant", noting a few sentences later (without irony) that he has "no sense of perspective".
>>
>> Personally I also think his memory is faulty (though I tend to think he's deceiving himself that what he remembers is perfect, rather than 'actively' lying); the bits which got me early on were his recollections of Thecla. Like I say I don't have my copies of the books to hand, but fairly early on doesn't he give one account of Thecla's death, and then later (in an offhand comment) give an entirely different one? His description of their relationship as sexual or platonic seems to change as the books goes on, too.
>>
>> I feel like cataloguing examples sort of misses the point though; if there's one thing a reader of Gene Wolfe knows it's that he isn't going to spell anything out in crayon :) and "unreliable narration", for one reason or another, does seem to be a recurring theme throughout a lot of his books.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So glad people are asking about Severian as unreliable narrator! ?I suspect it's one of those ideas that someone said in a review and then it got blurbed on a jacket cover and then it just became the 'official' interpretation and is now in an endless repeat loop. ?I don't think I have ever yet mentioned it in comments or reviews about New Sun as I simply don't understand it. ?I'm totally open to being shown how it is the case, but the reasons given in this thread are, frankly, unconvincing. ?They show how Wolfe's narrative art overall is strange and tricksy and indirect and elusive - things I do talk about in commenting on all of Wolfe's fiction - but not how Severian himself overall is helpfully and accurately described as an 'unreliable narrator' or how this is a central and significant trope that characterises tBotNS. ?It's all hints and suspicions and possibilities - which are great, but should be left at that I think.
>>
>> We still await the carefully documented and argued case for Severian as unreliable narrator.
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> 2011/4/15 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>> Antonin Scriabin wrote (15-04-2011 17:48):
>>
>> Severian's perfect memory seems selective. ?There are moments
>> where seems to say "I have a perfect memory, except for when I don't".
>>
>> Am I misremembering, or one of the first pages of NS goes like this: 'So Drotte was doing something... did I mention I have a perfect memory? I have a perfect memory! Anyway, Roche was doing something...'?
>>
>> Almost cartoonish. Roger Rabbitish.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>>
>>
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>> To post, write urth at urth.net
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---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:39:33 +0000

> get published all the time.
[...]
> imperfect memory. That's serious brain damage.

We do know that various office functions are still being expected of Sev
as he writes. Time passes, Dr Talos comes and goes. Sev could as easily
gone a final weekend trip, moved his bowels, and approved a dozen
executions between writing "Roche" and "Drotte".

---

From: António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:55:36 +0000

> get published all the time.

This is the part I find unbelievable. A mistake such as this doesn't 
happen on such a passage from such an author. First, it'd be much of a 
coincidence; second, it's the kind of stuff I'm positive he cares more 
about in his proof-readings; third, it's too conspicuous, I got it 
outright, dense as I am, and absolutely not on the lookout for such 
stuff at the time; fourth, it's right in the beginning of the book(s), 
with all the spotlights on it.

(And from the moment I don't find this believable, there has to be a 
motive for the mixup, whatever it is.)

> common error not of memory, but of language. We all do it (...)

That's a good point. But for one it doesn't completely hold. Such memory 
errors - in 'such' I include the proximity of paragraphs - *are* 
possible. But more importantly, it may well be a simple language error, 
yet it makes the point: even if his memory *is* perfect, even if he's 
not out to fool us, there are still ways in which the narrative may 
deceive us.

If it's a GW error, well, it looks just like the best of what he usually 
does.

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:18:42 +0000

> executions between writing "Roche" and "Drotte".

He takes a break on page *two* of his memoirs? In the middle of
writing an exciting bit? I don't find that very persuasive. Moreover,
the reason we know about these little interruptions is because
Severian tells us when they happen. If Wolfe wanted us to think that
Severian had made a memory slip across such an interruption, he could
have written it that way.

> with all the spotlights on it.

Wolfe is as fallible as every writer, and every writer makes mistakes.
And it doesn't matter how much Wolfe cares about getting it right. You
can't strap-on a larger brain just because you care.

Vigilance will net you 99% of the mistakes in a manuscript. But
doubling that vigilance will only net you 99.1%. Why? Because the
mistakes you miss are the ones where your brain doesn't *see* a
mistake at all. Wolfe spelt correctly all sorts of obscure and archaic
words in TSotT, but he still got a basic one, 'onagers', wrong. Why?
Because he *thought* it was the right spelling. Why did the
copy-editor miss it? Because he assumed that clever Mr Wolfe knew what
he was talking about. This is how mistakes get through.

I proofread for a living, and you wouldn't believe the things I see,
or the things that both I and the editor miss. I remember a writer who
wrote 'inseminate' when he meant 'estimate', and I'm not making that
up. Yesterday evening - and British TV viewers could back me up on
this one - I heard a BBC 2 announcer inform us that in a few minutes
we'd see a documentary in which Ernest Shackleton's ancestors retraced
his fateful journey to the Antarctic. I watched, but there was a
disappointing lack of zombies.

The fact that the Drotte-Roche mixup is in chapter I doesn't impress
me much either. Who are Drotte and Roche to us then but
interchangeable cyphers, the Merry and Pippin of future-earth? Here's
something else that's in Chapter I: a line that goes 'While he shifted
his ground I saw Vodalus wrench the knife free and drive it into the
leader's throat.'

Except that in my copies of TSotT, the letter 'f' is missing from the
third word. I kid you not.

Again, British readers could back me up on this. I have the 1981 Arrow
paperbacks, but I vaguely recall seeing the same mistake in later
imprints. I assume this is a typesetter's error and not found in US
editions, or someone would have mentioned it by now.

Finally, purely as a point of interest, in the manuscript Wolfe
submitted chapter I *wasn't* the beginning of the book anyway. It was
chapter II. It was moved because it made for a punchier opening.

So maybe everyone really was super-vigilant at proofreading the start
of the novel, and the mistake was missed when they all kicked back and
relaxed in chapter II.

Only joking. :-)

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:13:28 +0000

From: "Tony Ellis" <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>

> have written it that way.

Some supporting evidence that Severian is hard to interrupt when he gets 
into the flow of writing:
"I have also ordered that Nicarete be brought to me, and when I was writing 
of our capture, a moment ago, my chamberlain entered to say she waited my 
pleasure." (The Claw of the Conciliator)

The capture was some 25-30 pages earlier.

Hopefully some functionary of Severian's made sure that Nicarete was 
supplied with tea and buns while she waited in Severian's antechamber...

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:28:00 +0000

I have seen plenty of blatant errors in novels, including when a 
character's name is wrong, albeit usually in worse and cheaper books 
than Wolfe's. It is quite possible for an editor to simply miss the 
significance of what we regard as plain clues.

As an example, in the audio version of Calde of the Long Sun, the 
narrator (who does great voices even if he occasionally misses an easy 
pronunciation!) gives Blood a new voice at Maytera Mint's sacrifice, 
when Blood plainly appears as himself (his approximate age, weight, 
perfume, shorter dark young man with him) but is not named. It is clear 
that the narrator simply didn't realize this person was Blood. (Too bad, 
because his voicing of Blood is tremendous.)

And Tony is right that Drotte and Roche mean nothing to the reader at 
this point, perhaps especially because the chapter might have been 
insufficiently rewritten to make it serve as chapter 1.

It could have been worse: In one of the other such errors I have seen, 
there is a love triangle between two men and a woman. Man #1 is arguing 
with the woman in her house when suddenly his part of the conversation 
is taken over by Man #2. It's quite disorienting.

And it wasn't science fiction. I have thought many times since then that 
an experimental novel of creeping errors indicating the true chaotic 
nature of the universe (in the vein of /At Swim-Two-Birds/) might be fun 
to write, but this was not that novel.

I am not sure Wolfe would have had Severian say anything as plain as 
"Well, as I was saying before the chambermaid came to empty the 
chamberpot, Drotte said...." Severian's bona fides as having eidetic 
memory must be established before such games can be played, but even 
then he cannot be portrayed as being so easily thrown off as that. His 
errors are less easily discovered, and should be expected to be 
deliberate ones (on Severian's part), such as pretending he didn't know 
he was sleeping with his grandmother.

On 4/17/2011 3:18 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:
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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:30:49 +0000

Good catch!

(bonus points for antechamber reference, except I recall matte and 
chocolate being the two choices---???)

On 4/17/2011 4:13 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Some supporting evidence that Severian is hard to interrupt when he 
> gets into the flow of writing:
> "I have also ordered that Nicarete be brought to me, and when I was 
> writing of our capture, a moment ago, my chamberlain entered to say 
> she waited my pleasure." (The Claw of the Conciliator)
>
> Tested on: 4/17/2011 4:13:55 PM

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From: entonio at gmail.com <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:52:53 +0000

That's all well, Troy, but aside from the chapter having not been the  
original first, it's nothing you hadn't said before. I'm certainly not  
about to change your opinion, but mine hasn't changed either.

I'm afraid that if we have to admit authorial mistakes without  
definite evidence as an explanation for this kind of stuff, we may as  
well not discuss half of Gene Wolfe's work.

---

From: entonio at gmail.com <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:58:44 +0000

No dia 2011/04/17, ?s 21:28, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>  
escreveu:

> And Tony is right that Drotte and Roche mean nothing to the reader  
> at this point, perhaps especially because the chapter might have  
> been insufficiently rewritten to make it serve as chapter 1.

I vehemently disagree. I think this kind of analysis is just what  
Wolfe as a writer has been working against since forever.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:14:39 +0000

Wolfe as a writer has been working against the kind of analysis that 
allows for authorial error in the case of obvious discrepancies that 
have no possible meaning consistent with the rest of the work? That, 
i.e., authors are infallible?

Or was Drotte momentarily Roche, or Roche Drotte?

Is Severian to be seen, on the basis of one passage, as a clumsy 
bumbling oaf who can't remember anything? Does it mean that he really 
doesn't have a good memory at all but that he pretends and makes things 
up and isn't even very good at it, except that 100% of the rest of the 
time he's extremely good at it? Hey, maybe he made up the whole 
acid-trip to Yesod.

It's not OUR theory that would make analysis of BOTNS impossible---it's 
yours. It's certainly possible that we could discover "errors" that are 
explained by Thecla's or some other's presence in his brain, but this is 
not one of them. YOU are going to have to convince US, Antonio.

Or maybe we could agree that GW the translator screwed up, but Wolfe can 
commit no error.

On 4/17/2011 4:58 PM, entonio at gmail.com wrote:
> Wolfe as a writer has been working against since 
> forever._______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:21:44 +0000

> writing an exciting bit? I don't find that very persuasive.

Dude, he's the pope-king of the world and there's war on. Anything could
come up at any time. Not that we know for sure this is his first draft, it
could easily be one page among thousands writ and thousands yet to come.

> Moreover,

Towards the end, he mentions that he has spent days before his departure
writing his autobiography. He does not mention making water during this
time. Are we to assume that class of unrecorded interruption also does not
happen?

> or the things that both I and the editor miss.

I'm a fact-checker, peer-reviewer, and a computer programmer, so I might
give you a bit more credulity than that. It remains that that less one
says explicitly, the more one may mean implicitly.

Regards,
Jeff

---

From: António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:28:04 +0000

> i.e., authors are infallible?

I wasn't even commenting on that, rather on your 'the chapter might have 
been insufficiently rewritten' bit. Wolfe has been working against the 
kind of analysis that wants art to be shaped according to certain 
parametres. The chapter is what it is; barring some strong evidence to 
the contrary, it is just how the author intended it to be.

I'm talking about critics who go on about how a particular work should 
have more of this or less of that based on what they think would be more 
didactical to the target audience. Do they think when the author reads 
their critic, he'll slap his forrid like 'Damn, if only I'd though of 
that!'? Certainly it's a rare work of art that its author will think is 
perfect; but if there should have been anything different - and most of 
the time there isn't any identifiable thing - it's seldom if ever what 
such critiques suggest.

Certainly I think the Book of the Long Sun has 135% the length it should 
have, but I wouldn't know how to correct that. 'Editing' isn't an 
answer, unless it means returning the manuscript with the single 
recommendation of 'shorten it' until the author could find out how to do 
it himself.

> time he's extremely good at it?

No, he isn't. His memory is convincingly good in what regards 
recollecting even minor events, but can be faulty when it comes to the 
details of those events (usually the unimportant ones, but who knows).

> Hey, maybe he made up the whole
> acid-trip to Yesod.
>

I am going to have to convince YOU in order for ME to remain convinced 
of what I am convinced?

> Or maybe we could agree that GW the translator screwed up, but Wolfe can

You seem hung up on the idea that the opposition to the idea that this 
is a mistake entails the belief that GW the real person doesn't make 
mistakes. I'm yet to see where you got that idea from.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:30:18 +0000

That's an objection in search of an argument.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:07:39 +0000

> That's an objection in search of an argument.

It may very well have been, but I've slept since I wrote it.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:13:38 +0000

On 4/17/2011 7:28 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> I wasn't even commenting on that, rather on your 'the chapter might 
> have been insufficiently rewritten' bit. Wolfe has been working 
> against the kind of analysis that wants art to be shaped according to 
> certain parametres. The chapter is what it is; barring some strong 
> evidence to the contrary, it is just how the author intended it to be.
>
> have more of this or less of that based on what they think would be 
> more didactical to the target audience. Do they think when the author 
> reads their critic, he'll slap his forrid like 'Damn, if only I'd 
> though of that!'? Certainly it's a rare work of art that its author 
> will think is perfect; but if there should have been anything 
> different - and most of the time there isn't any identifiable thing - 
> it's seldom if ever what such critiques suggest.
>
> Certainly I think the Book of the Long Sun has 135% the length it 
> should have, but I wouldn't know how to correct that. 'Editing' isn't 
> an answer, unless it means returning the manuscript with the single 
> recommendation of 'shorten it' until the author could find out how to 
> do it himself.
How do you know "Wolfe has been working against the kind of analysis 
that wants art to be shaped according to certain parametres"? Seriously.

Certainly he struggles against assumptions of what SF is. But these 
topics have little to do with one another. If characters are introduced 
and described in chapter 1 and chapter 2 does not repeat these 
descriptions, and subsequently chapter 2 becomes chapter 1 (by the 
publisher's decision), then the author faces a very practical problem of 
reworking the text so that readers aren't confused in a way that is not 
"intended" by the author. ("INTENDED.")

Your assumption that the chapter is always "just how the author intended 
it to be" regardless of actual historical fact is what I was satirizing 
as an assumption that the author is infallible even when in error. The 
first assumption leads to the other.

In fact it's possible the error was introduced in just such a reworking.
> details of those events (usually the unimportant ones, but who knows).
I think if Severian can't keep his sole boyhood companions apart then 
he's a bit more far gone than you allow. Their identity is not an 
"unimportant detail."

But can you give an example of such an error? Such an example might help 
your case.
> I am going to have to convince YOU in order for ME to remain convinced 
Now that's just weird. First, I am suggesting that you proffer your own 
theory explaining the discrepancy, since you are "unconvinced" by the 
one presented. Second, I am pointing out that the bad result you say 
follows from Tony's assumptions actually follows from your own.
> mistakes. I'm yet to see where you got that idea from.

 From you, Antonio. Although you are exaggerating it for effect.
> Tested on: 4/17/2011 7:31:27 PM

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---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:10:09 +0000

>That's an objection in search of an argument.

It certainly doesn't address the argument I was making.

Antonio Marques wrote:
>original first, it's nothing you hadn't said before.

I don't think that's true, Antronio, but it's not worth arguing over.

>well not discuss half of Gene Wolfe's work.

We don't make life any easier for ourselves if we admit undetectable
toilet-breaks during which Severian fabricates memories.

It occurs to me that a fun way to resolve this would be for us all to
write in to Wolfe's publishers, disingenuously complaining about the
'error' we found on page 2, then see what happens in the next reprint.
:-)

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:17:01 +0000

When I get home, I intend to see if the Marble/Mint mix-up in the "The 
Book of Long Sun" was replicated in the "Epiphany of the Long Sun" 
re-release. Wolfe seemed quite annoyed by mistakes like that when he was 
asked. If it is there, I will accept it as possible that an editorial 
mistake like that could be considered Set In Stone and reproduced in all 
subsequent volumes.

If it was fixed in subsequent volumes, then I will have ask why the 
Drotte/Roche error was never fixed in all the re-releases in that last 
31 years.

J

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:35:26 +0000

Which Marble/Mint mixup is that? I'm pretty sure I fell for it myself, 
but I don't recall where it is.

It's certainly an understandable error.

On 4/18/2011 5:17 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> re-release. Wolfe seemed quite annoyed by mistakes like that when he 
> was asked. If it is there, I will accept it as possible that an 
> editorial mistake like that could be considered Set In Stone and 
> reproduced in all subsequent volumes.
>
> Virus Database (VPS): 110418-1, 04/18/2011
> Tested on: 4/18/2011 6:25:23 PM

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---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:40:13 +0000

I think it is in Exodus of the Long Sun. There is a passage where "Mint" 
is mistakenly says "Marble" and another in a different place where 
"Marble" is mistakenly says "Mint". It was moderately confusing since it 
was as though the two had momentarily switched places in the story.
J

On 4/18/2011 5:35 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> When I get home, I intend to see if the Marble/Mint mix-up in the 
>> "The Book of Long Sun" was replicated in the "Epiphany of the Long 
>> Sun" re-release. Wolfe seemed quite annoyed by mistakes like that 
>> when he was asked. If it is there, I will accept it as possible that 
>> an editorial mistake like that could be considered Set In Stone and 
>> Drotte/Roche error was never fixed in all the re-releases in that 
>> last 31 years.
>>
>> J
>>

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:49:00 +0000

I think I remember that---thanks.

I always had trouble with them anyway. If I recall, Mint is a bio, 
Marble is a chem with fleshy prostheses, and Rose was an old bio with 
metal prostheses.

On 4/18/2011 6:40 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> I think it is in Exodus of the Long Sun. There is a passage where 
> "Mint" is mistakenly says "Marble" and another in a different place 
> where "Marble" is mistakenly says "Mint". It was moderately confusing 
> since it was as though the two had momentarily switched places in the 
> story.
> J
>
>> Which Marble/Mint mixup is that? I'm pretty sure I fell for it 
>> myself, but I don't recall where it is.
>>
> Tested on: 4/18/2011 6:41:29 PM

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---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:49:10 +0000

James Wynn wrote (18-04-2011 22:17):
> When I get home, I intend to see if the Marble/Mint mix-up in the "The Book
> of Long Sun" was replicated in the "Epiphany of the Long Sun" re-release.
> Wolfe seemed quite annoyed by mistakes like that when he was asked. If it is
> there, I will accept it as possible that an editorial mistake like that
> could be considered Set In Stone and reproduced in all subsequent volumes.
>
> Drotte/Roche error was never fixed in all the re-releases in that last 31
> years.

The Marble/Mint mixup `*does* look like a mistake. Though at that point 
anything goes...

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:55:29 +0000

Marble is a chem. Although she used to have facades that looked 
generally realistic or possibly very realistic, they have long-ago worn 
away.

Rose is an old bio with many prostheses. In addition she has prosthetic 
hands that have been made to look realistically old and veiny.

When Rose dies, the hands fit just fine on Marble's arms. Rose's 
memories and identity have been downloaded effortlessly into the hands. 
I think all of that is significant, but there are detractors.

J

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:00:49 +0000

Ahhh ... that makes sense. I did not know Rose was actually in Marble's 
hands, or that her hands were not flesh. That explains my confusion.

Wolfe has a thing for that, doesn't he---Sidero, for example?

On 4/18/2011 6:55 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> Correction:
> generally realistic or possibly very realistic, they have long-ago 
> worn away.
>
> Rose is an old bio with many prostheses. In addition she has 
> prosthetic hands that have been made to look realistically old and veiny.
>
> memories and identity have been downloaded effortlessly into the 
> hands. I think all of that is significant, but there are detractors.
>
> J
>
> Tested on: 4/18/2011 6:56:28 PM

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---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 02:36:56 +0000

> Wolfe has a thing for that, doesn't he---Sidero, for example?

and Jonas, and Thecla, and Chelle, and Nicky De Vore....

---

From: soloviev at irit.fr <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:01:04 +0000

Dear James and David,

I am not so sure that this explanation is right. Please, remind, James,
where it is said that Rose's prosthetic hands are not flesh?
In the "Book of the New Sun" Severian has a friend Jonas, who
is a chem (at Urth at this time they are not called so), but
Jonas has one hand and some other parths taken from a bio -
he explains it himself to Severian. So the combination is
possible.

I don't remember where it was said, maybe it is your own
deduction that they (Rose's hands) are not flesh, only
"realistically veined", because they could be "grafted"
to Marble?

Best regards

Sergei Soloviev

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:49:27 +0000

Sorry, I forgot to actually say what I was talking about. I meant the 
wrapping-a-body-in-a-body thing specifically. (If a body meet a body 
wrapped in a body coming through the rye...)

Rose's hands appear to be gloves of a kind, that seem to work on both 
bios and chems by covering the limb, not replacing it. That is, I doubt 
Rose actually lost her limbs and needed new ones---she merely lost the 
use of them due to extreme age.

But of course this kind of thing is just a subcategory of prostheses and 
cyborg-robotics in general among Wolfe's characters.

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:56:49 +0000

I'd like to see James' evidence too. But Rose is a bio---that's certain. 
My assumption was the same as yours, that her hands were (cyborg) flesh. 
But Marble's easy use of them is a bit hard to understand. How is it 
kept alive when it is not attached to Rose's circulatory system?

Bios need new limbs for 2 reasons: (1) loss of the original, often due 
to accident (Jonas) or combat; (2) loss of use of the original. It is 
far more likely that an ancient sibyl would lose the use of her hands 
than that she would get them blown off. Of course I'm just realizing 
this now.

It's a variation on the same theme.

On 4/19/2011 4:01 AM, soloviev at irit.fr wrote:
> Tested on: 4/19/2011 4:01:45 AM

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:47:56 +0000

Well, in "Exodus of the Long Sun", in chapter 14, "The Best Thieves in 
the Whorl", page 313 (HB version),
Siyuf is having a discussion with Mint. Marble is not there.

A paragraph starts:
Siyuf looked back to Maytera Marble. "You wish to tell me of the Charter 
of your city before this man have interrupt you. I find this of interest."

In "Epiphany of the Long Sun", this typo is repeated.
There is another typo in the book that does the same thing but I don't 
need to look it up. It is surely there.
Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the Roche/Drotte mix-up c

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:57:02 +0000

On 4/19/2011 6:49 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> bios and chems by covering the limb, not replacing it. That is, I 
> doubt Rose actually lost her limbs and needed new ones---she merely 
> lost the use of them due to extreme age.

On 4/19/2011 6:56 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> It is far more likely that an ancient sibyl would lose the use of her 
> hands than that she would get them blown off. Of course I'm just 
> realizing this now.

Rose lost her hands due to amputation required from some slow 
flesh-destroying disease. Leprosy, to take a guess. When she visited 
Blood at his foster home when he was a child, she only had one of them.

" 'I remember when she lost her arm,' Blood told her. 'She used to pat 
me on the head and say, you know, my, he's getting big. One day it was a 
hand like yours--'
'It was this one.' Maytera Marble displayed it." ~ Chapter 10, Calde of 
the Long Sun

> "realistically veined", because they could be "grafted"

Who would graft them on to Marble? She did it herself. There is no 
reason to believe Marble had the medical knowledge to graft bio hands to 
her body.

" 'Is that really the same hand?' Blood eyed it curiously.
'Yes, it is. It's hard to change hands yourself, Bloody, because you 
have to do it one-handed. It was particularly hard for me, because by 
then I already had a great many new parts.  Or rather, I had RECLAIMED a 
great many old ones.' ~ Ibid (emphasis added. See the link below for why).

What I believe about chems and Marble/Rose is this:

1) Rose's prostheses are old chem parts.

2) The hands originally were used by old Maytera Betel, and that is why 
they were mocked to look old old ~ because there was a certain shame in 
where they came from.
(Whatever one believes about those hands, a speculative theory is 
required to explain why a prosthesis made for a forty-something sibyl 
--when Rose lost her first arm--would have been mocked to look old. No 
woman is going to prefer such a thing.)

See here for my full explanation of Rose's hands
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/molybdenum.htm
And, yes, Roy does has a visceral aversion to my explanation, but I'm 
not willing to accept that the trouble passages he himself acknowledges 
are a result of Marble lying or being confused. Nor do I find it 
credible that the hands were mocked to look old in order to keep Rose 
humble).

3) I believe chems/robots were designed to be ensouled by 
mind-wiped/manipulated scans of humans. And that is why a) Rose's hands 
so happily absorbed her identity and memories, b) why the chems were so 
easily configured to receive the Ayuntamiento's consciousness, and c) 
why Marble remembers Urth's Short Sun but appears to have no actual 
memories of her service on Urth. This is also why female chems use 
perfume even though there is no reason to program such aesthetic desires 
into them.
And, finally, that is why chems are persons. As Rose-in-Marble said, "I 
am still a person, because I always was."

J.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:01:04 +0000

Looks like I cut my own response. To continue:

"Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the Roche/Drotte mix-up 
could be a typo and that copyrights and Library of Congress submissions 
being what they are, it is too much trouble to fix it in subsequent 
editions.

Or perhaps it is a philosophical issue with Wolfe: "After publication, 
the tree lies where it falls."

J

On 4/19/2011 9:47 AM, James Wynn wrote:
> Siyuf looked back to Maytera Marble. "You wish to tell me of the 
> Charter of your city before this man have interrupt you. I find this 
> of interest."
>

---

From: DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:21:28 +0000

Great explanation, James. I also appreciate the discussion of the nature of chems---it explains half a dozen minor mysteries, not just one. And raises new ones for me:

Were Mamelta and Marble bio and chem versions of the same thing? empty vessels filled with stored souls with only the vaguest memories of Urth? Or did Typhon take existing brainwiped bios and put some in the Whorl and others into storage? What was (who were?) the source of chem personalities? can personalities be reproduced like an mp3 file, or is it only 1 per body?

And you must be right about leprosy. It's about the only thing I can think of that would cause a sibyl to lose a hand and certainly the only disease. Maybe syphilis, but that's unlikely for a sibyl---or is it? 

Either one would tend to shorten a life span, when we know Rose was old (or was that merely my impression based on her hands?), and then there is the question of how either would ultimately be cured in a world where either would be a problem in the first place. I guess preemptive amputation might stop leprosy. Maybe sometimes it just stops.

More new mysteries: did Betel and Rose therefore have the same disease? or was Betel a chem? If she was a chem, why was she made old?

if not, what chem did the hands come from? Were all female chems made to look human? Were some made to look old? Were the first sibyls chem crones? How does one get to be a sibyl anyway--can you have a shameful past life?

I think Rose would have been quite happy to accept crone arms, and as a sibyl she is supposed to be uninterested in the vanities of flesh anyway.

--- On Tue, 4/19/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Drotte-Roche mixup
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 11:57 AM
> > Rose's hands appear to be gloves of a kind, that seem
> to work on both bios and chems by covering the limb, not
> replacing it. That is, I doubt Rose actually lost her limbs
> and needed new ones---she merely lost the use of them due to
> extreme age.
> 
> > It is far more likely that an ancient sibyl would lose
> the use of her hands than that she would get them blown off.
> Of course I'm just realizing this now.
> 
> Rose lost her hands due to amputation required from some
> slow flesh-destroying disease. Leprosy, to take a guess.
> When she visited Blood at his foster home when he was a
> child, she only had one of them.
> 
> " 'I remember when she lost her arm,' Blood told her. 'She
> used to pat me on the head and say, you know, my, he's
> getting big. One day it was a hand like yours--'
> 'It was this one.' Maytera Marble displayed it." ~ Chapter
> 10, Calde of the Long Sun
> 
> 
> >? I don't remember where it was said, maybe it is
> your own
> Who would graft them on to Marble? She did it herself.
> There is no reason to believe Marble had the medical
> knowledge to graft bio hands to her body.
> 
> 'Yes, it is. It's hard to change hands yourself, Bloody,
> because you have to do it one-handed. It was particularly
> hard for me, because by then I already had a great many new
> parts. Or rather, I had RECLAIMED a great many old
> ones.' ~ Ibid (emphasis added. See the link below for why).
> 
> 2) The hands originally were used by old Maytera Betel, and
> that is why they were mocked to look old old ~ because there
> was a certain shame in where they came from.
> (Whatever one believes about those hands, a speculative
> theory is required to explain why a prosthesis made for a
> forty-something sibyl --when Rose lost her first arm--would
> have been mocked to look old. No woman is going to prefer
> such a thing.)
> 
> And, yes, Roy does has a visceral aversion to my
> explanation, but I'm not willing to accept that the trouble
> passages he himself acknowledges are a result of Marble
> lying or being confused. Nor do I find it credible that the
> hands were mocked to look old in order to keep Rose
> humble).
> 
> mind-wiped/manipulated scans of humans. And that is why a)
> Rose's hands so happily absorbed her identity and memories,
> b) why the chems were so easily configured to receive the
> Ayuntamiento's consciousness, and c) why Marble remembers
> Urth's Short Sun but appears to have no actual memories of
> her service on Urth. This is also why female chems use
> perfume even though there is no reason to program such
> aesthetic desires into them.
> And, finally, that is why chems are persons. As
> Rose-in-Marble said, "I am still a person, because I always
> was."
> 
> J.
>

---

From: DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:34:47 +0000

I've never really understood this problem. When you do a new edition, you change what feel you need to change, and that ought to include obvious errors. The copyright owner and publisher decide together, of course. 

It's not the technology. You make the changes, repaginate according to the format (size and length) of the new edition, slap a new cover on it, and print. This has been done at least semi-electronically for decades with increasing ease and still the typos remain, so it can't be blamed entirely on the fact that each new typesetting introduced new errors. It might depend on the file format of the "master" files, though, and who knows what that means for the Sun books.

Certainly a living author has to agree to these corrections (and it's difficult to convince a dead author), but this is something you see so often I can't believe Wolfe is very special in this regard. Maybe it's the agents who are to blame, or the lawyers. The Library of Congress doesn't care as long as you submit your paperwork (which is now done online).

--- On Tue, 4/19/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 12:01 PM
> "Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the
> Roche/Drotte mix-up could be a typo and that copyrights and
> Library of Congress submissions being what they are, it is
> too much trouble to fix it in subsequent editions.
> 
> Or perhaps it is a philosophical issue with Wolfe: "After
> publication, the tree lies where it falls."
> 
> J
> 
> > Well, in "Exodus of the Long Sun", in chapter 14, "The
> Best Thieves in the Whorl", page 313 (HB version),
> > Siyuf looked back to Maytera Marble. "You wish to tell
> me of the Charter of your city before this man have
> interrupt you. I find this of interest."
> > 
> > There is another typo in the book that does the same
> thing but I don't need to look it up. It is surely there.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:38:21 +0000

I don't understand the reason for perpetuating the error. But in the 
List Q&A Wolfe confirmed that the Marble/Mint mix-ups were typos and 
that he was very annoyed about them. He also mentioned that such errors 
inevitably get through.

On 4/19/2011 11:34 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
> --- On Tue, 4/19/11, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> From: James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com>
>> To: "The Urth Mailing List"<urth at lists.urth.net>

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:48:05 +0000

I'm glad it helped, David.

My answers to a lot of your questions are implied by my explanation at 
the link I gave.

I'll take a shot a few of them anyway.

1) I believe we are tipped about origins of some of the chem's souls. I 
think Sand for example is Typhon himself. I think that is the source of 
Silk's speculation in Blood's house about he and Sand being "brothers" 
in some broader Outsider's world. I think Silk and Sand being --in a 
way-- Typhon is why they were key to resurrecting him. If you buy that 
Mamelta was the original Kypris then she is a good candidate for Marble 
(if you accept this, then there are references that will buttress that 
Mamelta/Kypris was the mother of the original Silk).

If one accepts that Auk is also a clone, then there are references to 
argue that Auk/Hammerstone are sort-of twins in a similar way that Silk 
and Sand are twins.

2) It is theoretically possible for Mamelta be possessed by the Marble's 
scan. The possibility is suggested by the ability of Whorl gods to 
possess bios. It is simpler to just say that Kypris is a scan of Mamelta.

3) There is no reason that a single scan could not be used for multiple 
chems. That would be more efficient.

4) I do not believe Betel was a chem. For my answer to that and as for 
where the hands came from, see the link.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:01:47 +0000

On 4/19/2011 11:48 AM, James Wynn wrote:
> See the link.

Looking at that link again. I should say that I no longer believe 
Molybdenum's unused parts ever went anywhere except the attic in the 
cenoby. They had to be there for Rose to continuously claim them as she 
required replacement prostheses. Until there was barely any human parts 
left of her.
J

---

From: DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:57:44 +0000

And Moly was Hammerstone's girlfriend ... ?

I will read your link. Thanks!

--- On Tue, 4/19/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2011, 1:01 PM
> Looking at that link again. I should say that I no longer
> believe Molybdenum's unused parts ever went anywhere except
> the attic in the cenoby. They had to be there for Rose to
> continuously claim them as she required replacement
> prostheses. Until there was barely any human parts left of
> her.
> J
>

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:54:47 +0000

Diabetes is perhaps a more likely disease than leprosy (and Betel was 
fat), but it tends to strike the lower limbs before the hands. I suppose 
if Rose had access to legs, no one would have known she had a problem at 
all ... you'd think the hands would have been replaced much later, but 
she was 40 when she lost one arm.

I suspect that Betel was diabetic but Rose had another condition.

On 4/19/2011 12:48 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> 1) I believe we are tipped about origins of some of the chem's souls. 
> I think Sand for example is Typhon himself. I think that is the source 
> of Silk's speculation in Blood's house about he and Sand being 
> "brothers" in some broader Outsider's world. I think Silk and Sand 
> being --in a way-- Typhon is why they were key to resurrecting him. If 
> you buy that Mamelta was the original Kypris then she is a good 
> candidate for Marble (if you accept this, then there are references 
> that will buttress that Mamelta/Kypris was the mother of the original 
> Silk).
>
> argue that Auk/Hammerstone are sort-of twins in a similar way that 
> Silk and Sand are twins.
>
> 2) It is theoretically possible for Mamelta be possessed by the 
> Marble's scan. The possibility is suggested by the ability of Whorl 
> gods to possess bios. It is simpler to just say that Kypris is a scan 
> of Mamelta.
>
> 3) There is no reason that a single scan could not be used for 
> multiple chems. That would be more efficient.
>
>> Great explanation, James. I also appreciate the discussion of the 
>> nature of chems---it explains half a dozen minor mysteries, not just 
>> one. And raises new ones for me:
>>
>> Were Mamelta and Marble bio and chem versions of the same thing? 
>> empty vessels filled with stored souls with only the vaguest memories 
>> of Urth? Or did Typhon take existing brainwiped bios and put some in 
>> the Whorl and others into storage? What was (who were?) the source of 
>> chem personalities? can personalities be reproduced like an mp3 file, 
>> or is it only 1 per body?
>>
>> And you must be right about leprosy. It's about the only thing I can 
>> think of that would cause a sibyl to lose a hand and certainly the 
>> only disease. Maybe syphilis, but that's unlikely for a sibyl---or is 
>> it?
>>
>> Either one would tend to shorten a life span, when we know Rose was 
>> old (or was that merely my impression based on her hands?), and then 
>> there is the question of how either would ultimately be cured in a 
>> world where either would be a problem in the first place. I guess 
>> preemptive amputation might stop leprosy. Maybe sometimes it just stops.
>>
>> More new mysteries: did Betel and Rose therefore have the same 
>> disease? or was Betel a chem? If she was a chem, why was she made old?
>>
>> if not, what chem did the hands come from? Were all female chems made 
>> to look human? Were some made to look old? Were the first sibyls chem 
>> crones? How does one get to be a sibyl anyway--can you have a 
>> shameful past life?
>>
>> I think Rose would have been quite happy to accept crone arms, and as 
>> a sibyl she is supposed to be uninterested in the vanities of flesh 
>> anyway.
>>
>
> Virus Database (VPS): 110419-1, 04/19/2011
> Tested on: 4/19/2011 6:29:05 PM

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---

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:38:35 +0000

>James Wynn: "Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the Roche/Drotte mix-up 
>could be a typo..
 
I wouldn't go so far as to say it couldn't be a typo. But one reason I lean toward Antonio's
view and why Drotte-Roche might need a somewhat higher level of typo evaluation than the Maytera 
Marble example is the obvious- Severian is (self-) purported to have a perfect memory. I would 
expect an author to find ways to support and/or undercut the "perfect memory" assertion in the 
first few chapters. So it could be purposeful. 
 
Horn makes no such claim and Wolfe has openly identified the "Marble" mistake as a typo.  If Drotte-
Roche was also a typo, why has he not made the same identification? It has received so much more
attention.
 
Perhaps a third possibility exists..that it was originally a typo but it was not corrected, being
seen as a happy accident that served Wolfe's purposes nicely. (Does an observed but purposefully 
uncorrected typo cease to be a typo?)

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:28:55 +0000

> Lee Berman:
> Horn makes no such claim and Wolfe has openly identified the "Marble" mistake as a typo.

Well, Wolfe was specifically asked about the Mint/Marble typos. Has 
anyone done so regarding this one? I think it would be a good idea.

It is true that it occurs in the first 5 paragraphs when proof-readers 
would be expected to still be paying close attention, but the 
Mint/Marble errors do not even require anyone to be paying close attention.

Conclusion: It's either a typo and means nothing, or it is NOT a typo 
and re-focuses the whole book.

Reason:
1) This "error" occurs immediately after Severian makes his first claim 
to a perfect memory --in highly lyrical form.

2) Sev is told by the Heirogrammates that it is his perfect memory that 
makes him a worthy "epitome" for mankind. If he does not have a perfect 
memory, then either Heirogs are LYING (ala Peter Wright) or Wolfe is 
saying something about what is happening when Severian tinkers with the 
Time streams and using Sevs perfect memory to clearly identify that that 
is happening.

> uncorrected typo cease to be a typo?) 		 	   		

But then we must know what that purpose was.

Still, we must accept (based on the "Long Sun" examples) that Tor has an 
established pattern of simply not correcting overt typos in Wolfe's 
novels even when they serve no narrative purpose. Even when they have 
proved to be confusing to the readers. Even when the errors greatly 
annoy the author. So without the author or publishers weighing in, it is 
impossible to know for sure.

J.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:42:19 +0000

> cyborg-robotics in general among Wolfe's characters.

I think it might be part of his theme about how a single action can 
serve many purposes, variously good and evil, ultimately doing the will 
of the Increate. Even Nicky, who wears his own hands in "The Death of Dr 
Island", has a divided self. The non-speaking Nicky crassly gropes , but 
considering how the speaking Nicky can gratuitously simulate the rage 
denied him by medication, it may really be an act of kindness to 
discourage the girl from being too close to his dangerous self.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:47:01 +0000

> It's not the technology. You make the changes, repaginate according to the format (size and length) of the new edition, slap a new cover on it, and print. This has been done at least semi-electroni…

While this sort of thing is possible, chatter in the spec-fic forums 
leads me to think it's often skipped or done with minimal amounts of 
underinformed entry-level labor, as it can't be shown that any money 
spent on fiddling typo corrections will sell more books.

> Certainly a living author has to agree to these corrections (and it's difficult to convince a dead author), but this is something you see so often I can't believe Wolfe is very special in this rega…

I'm not sure where the LC comes into it; since 1978, copyright vests 
upon creation in a tangible form, and few typos aren't going to affect 
what is a derivative work or not.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:56:06 +0000

Probably no one asked him. I'd assume each series has a couple of bloopers.

If the rate of "errors" is found to be the same throughout the books, 
that is merely as would be predicted by the "error" hypothesis.

On 4/20/2011 10:38 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
> Virus Database (VPS): 110420-1, 04/20/2011
> Tested on: 4/20/2011 10:39:14 AM

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---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:59:24 +0000

Interesting. So the basic idea is body-as-a-tool? That is, a tool can be 
used for good or evil, and therefore so can a person?

In addition, I'm sure, to the whole question of what-is-a-person and 
what-is-a-soul.

On 4/20/2011 11:42 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> serve many purposes, variously good and evil, ultimately doing the 
> will of the Increate. Even Nicky, who wears his own hands in "The 
> Death of Dr Island", has a divided self. The non-speaking Nicky 
> crassly gropes , but considering how the speaking Nicky can 
> gratuitously simulate the rage denied him by medication, it may really 
> be an act of kindness to discourage the girl from being too close to 
> his dangerous self.
>

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:03:15 +0000

Right, the LoC doesn't care if you fix typos. But you do need to buy a 
new ISBN and  apply for CIP info for any new edition. Which can get 
burdensome when you own thousands of titles ... but I think it's all 
basically art vs commerce at this point. They'd fix Harry Potter if 
Rowling asked for it. Wolfe is an award-winner, not a money-maker.

On 4/20/2011 11:47 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> I've never really understood this problem. When you do a new edition, 
>> you change what feel you need to change, and that ought to include 
>> obvious errors. The copyright owner and publisher decide together, of 
>> course.
>>
>> It's not the technology. You make the changes, repaginate according 
>> to the format (size and length) of the new edition, slap a new cover 
>> on it, and print. This has been done at least semi-electronically for 
>> decades with increasing ease and still the typos remain, so it can't 
>> be blamed entirely on the fact that each new typesetting introduced 
>> new errors. It might depend on the file format of the "master" files, 
>> though, and who knows what that means for the Sun books.
>
>> Certainly a living author has to agree to these corrections (and it's 
>> difficult to convince a dead author), but this is something you see 
>> so often I can't believe Wolfe is very special in this regard. Maybe 
>> it's the agents who are to blame, or the lawyers. The Library of 
>> Congress doesn't care as long as you submit your paperwork (which is 
>> now done online).
>

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---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:07:57 +0000

Viron has a desert to the south, cities to the north, and a long lake 
nearby. Which may or may not be a salt lake, depending on whether Typhon 
wanted to send any Urth saltwater species along (it seems to be large 
for the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say whether there are other lakes 
like it). Is anyone else reminded of a certain place on Earth?

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---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:14:31 +0000

> used for good or evil, and therefore so can a person?

I think it would be more than demanding than that: Wolfe gives the reader
a peek behind the veil, a glimpse both of how separate things are
connected and of how connected things can be separate in purposes, which
complicate the question of whether any given act accomplishes more of good
or of evil. A human being can make and use a tool mostly reliably because
he gives it purpose and knows its makeup, but only the Increate can truly
make use of human beings the way we use tools because only the Increate
can know their true nature and purpose (according to Wolfe via Tzadkiel).
It follows that it would be hubris for humans to attempt the same without
that divine insight; the best they can do is to avoid what is plainly more
harmful than beneficial, and remain open to progressively improving in
this fashion.

It may also be a more literal comment on integrity, duplicity, or
equivocation.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:28:18 +0000

Perhaps if this were Orson Scott Card, I would think you were on to 
something.
J.

On 4/20/2011 6:07 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> nearby. Which may or may not be a salt lake, depending on whether 
> Typhon wanted to send any Urth saltwater species along (it seems to be 
> large for the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say whether there are 
> other lakes like it). Is anyone else reminded of a certain place on 
> Earth?
>

---

From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:42:05 +0000

Judea?

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 21, 2011, at 11:28 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps if this were Orson Scott Card, I would think you were on to something.
> J.
> 
>> Viron has a desert to the south, cities to the north, and a long lake nearby. Which may or may not be a salt lake, depending on whether Typhon wanted to send any Urth saltwater species along (it seems to be large for the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say whether there are other lakes like it). Is anyone else reminded of a certain place on Earth?
>> 
>

---

From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:19:04 +0000

> J.

Haha!
DOJP

On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 5:42 PM, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote:

> wanted to send any Urth saltwater species along (it seems to be large for
> the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say whether there are other lakes like
> it). Is anyone else reminded of a certain place on Earth?
> >>
> >
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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:15:52 +0000

Very roughly, yes. Not that it would mean much anyway. But Silk seems to 
be the closest thing to an overtly Christian character anywhere in 
Wolfe. His world seems more than vaguely Mediterranean in climate and 
culture as well. If the Commonwealth is patterned in part after South 
America, then surely the Whorl could have had another model that we can 
identify.

I could be wrong about the shape of the lake anyway. But I recall the 
town is at one end of it.

On 4/21/2011 12:42 PM, Lane Haygood wrote:
> Judea?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 21, 2011, at 11:28 AM, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> Virus Database (VPS): 110421-1, 04/21/2011
> Tested on: 4/21/2011 12:43:07 PM

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---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:45:39 +0000

I'm pretty sure that Viron's culture is South American--presumably that 
of the Commonwealth. The "ball game" is based on the Nahuatl game. It's 
an analogous Catholic culture.

Still, that doesn't mean that Viron couldn't be based on Jerusalem of 
course.

On 4/21/2011 6:15 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> Very roughly, yes. Not that it would mean much anyway. But Silk seems 
> to be the closest thing to an overtly Christian character anywhere in 
> America, then surely the Whorl could have had another model that we 
> can identify.
>
>>>> Viron has a desert to the south, cities to the north, and a long 
>>>> lake nearby. Which may or may not be a salt lake, depending on 
>>>> whether Typhon wanted to send any Urth saltwater species along (it 
>>>> seems to be large for the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say whether 
>>>> there are other lakes like it). Is anyone else reminded of a 
>>>> certain place on Earth?
>>>>

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:01:58 +0000

True.

On 4/22/2011 2:45 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that Viron's culture is South American--presumably 
> that of the Commonwealth. The "ball game" is based on the Nahuatl 
> game. It's an analogous Catholic culture.
>
>>>>> seems to be large for the Whorl, although Wolfe doesn't say 
>>>>> whether there are other lakes like it). Is anyone else reminded of 
>>>>> a certain place on Earth?
>>>>>
> Virus Database (VPS): 110422-0, 04/22/2011
> Tested on: 4/22/2011 2:46:51 PM

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---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:36:21 +0000

> I'm pretty sure that Viron's culture is South American--presumably that of 
> the Commonwealth. The "ball game" is based on the Nahuatl game. It's an 
> analogous Catholic culture.
>

I agree that it is plausibly South American, though I'm not terribly 
convinced by the above points.  The Commonwealth did not exist when the 
Whorl was launched, and the Whorl contains elements from numerous cultures 
(e.g. an Indian culture which provided the forebears of Gaon).  The religion 
of the Whorl is allegedly a parody of the state religion of Typhon's time, 
which would have been worldwide - and anyway the Catholic religion is hardly 
confined to South America .  The ballgame is not specifically the 
aforementioned game, in which catching the ball in one's hand is illegal, 
though it has elements of it.

On the other hand, the coloration of the people fits, and Mamelta had a pet 
parrot named Chiquita.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: soloviev at irit.fr <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 08:21:03 +0000

Dear participants of the thread -

my impression is that this discussion is based on slightly
distorted premisses - as if some perfect correspondence between
different places in our world and in the Whorl is to be expected.
Would this correspondence be the main secret of the universe
described by GW?

Urth itself is in some correspondence to our Earth,
in geography as well, but this correspondence
is not an isomorphism. It looks like Nessus is somewhere
in southern hemisphere, like Buenos-Aires (there are pampas,
mountains like Andes), there are Ascians coming from another continent,
but at the
same time there are hints that the continents are different;
it is some sort of "parallel Earth". I think
the geography of URTH was discussed before but I had no
time to look. It is not the main point.

Was such correspondence a prime concern of GW himself? I don't
think so. I think much more important is the idea that Pas
is a sort of an impostor, a demiurge trying to substitute
himself for the Increate or Outsider, and as such his
creation cannot be perfect. It looks much more plausible
that he (Pas-Typhon) tried in some imperfect way to
put in his cosmic Arc the representatives of all main
human cultures. It seems that the question about the role
of Pas is much more important, AND GW illustrated it
in particular using this imperfect correspondence between
cultures and places.

By the way, the story of Silk and Hyacinth in Viron reminds
also Romeo an Juliet in Verona. At the same time
the culture and institutions are more hispano-american
as it was mentioned. I believe that the absence of
perfect correspondence was intended by GW, and it is
useless to look for 'ultimate truth" in this - the
possibilty to establish perfect correspondence would be
contrary to his intentions.

The language of the Trivigauntis is semitic, (maliki etc).
At the West pole (sick bay) there
are people of african descent. The people
in Pajarocu and Wichote are amerindians.

All this makes sense if the Whorl was filled up in haste,
probably when the revolts against Typhon already started.

Severian meets Typhon twice - first time as a mummy
that resuscitates afterwards, and second as the Conciliator
just before his demise. We get the information that
Typhon had two heads (before going to mummified state)
only during relatively short period,
about one year. He had no time to take under control
all the functions of the body belonging to his
slave Piaton, and he obviously was scanned for the
Whorl during this short period. So the Whorl was
launched in the last year before the end of his rule.
Scylla (a copy from Whorl) says that she died young,
when she looked at her coffin, less that a year after
her scan. Implication: the family of Typhon
was probably killed in the same revolts.

One more thing: duco Rigoglio mentions the same
"Loganstone" (some cosmic vessel) as Hethor
in the "Book of the New Sun". A vessel used to fill
the Whorl?

Best regards,

Sergei Soloviev

> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
>
>
>> of

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 11:32:11 +0000

From: <soloviev at irit.fr>
> is not an isomorphism.

I agree that there is no special importance in any correspondences between 
places on Urth and present-day Earth.  Likewise it is unimportant where the 
various individual cultures of the Whorl cities came from.  I agree with you 
abouty the imperfection of the Whorl - Typhon arguably made about as good 
aWhorl as is humanly possible to make, yet it is lamentably imperfect 
compared with the outside universe.

> contrary to his intentions.

I don't quite see the Romeo and Juliet correspondence!  But indeed, I agree 
that there is no intended mirror of any culture, event or myth.  Wolfe uses 
fragmentary reflections of many other stories for various purposes, 
including humour.  But his stories are always his own - they are never 
retellings of some earlier story.

> was probably killed in the same revolts.

Obviously the timescale of Typhon's life is finite, and many things must 
have happened fast.  Your argument above makes a lot of sense, and yet I 
have a feeling that it should not be pushed too far in matters of detail. 
The iconography of two-headed Typhon seems to have been very strongly 
established among the early colonists, suggesting a relatively long period 
of rule by him in this form,  On the other hand, Mamelta talks about the 
royal family wandering through her dreams, as well as never having to 
speak - it's clear that some alarmingly intrusive brain-networking 
technology was prevalent on Urth at the time, so such iconography might have 
been established rapidly.  (My pet theory is that the *removal* of this 
technology was what was done to the colonists on the Whorl - they remember 
it as the destruction of their memories whereas in fact they were being set 
free, at least partially.  It is also conceivable, of course, that the 
two-headed iconography was implanted as a sort of joke.)

As for Scylla, my impression was that she revolted against Typhon and was 
killed by him.  But I don't know; your theory is perfectly possible also.

Wolfe wasn't thinking about the history surrounding the launch of the Whorl, 
and probably not thinking much about the details of Typhon's story at all, 
when he depicted him in Sword of the Lictor.  I think later when he was 
writing Book of the Long Sun, he saw how he could do a lot with the 
two-headed concept.  So he used it even though logically Typhon probably had 
two heads for too short a time for its use to be 100% believable.   Maybe 
I'm underestimating Wolfe, but I think picking at such threads in too much 
detail, or chronological logic, may lead to the construction of random 
unintended stuff.

> in the "Book of the New Sun". A vessel used to fill

It is Mamelta I recall as referring to the Loganstone, and indeed that is 
what it seems to be, although there is some inconsistency in her talk about 
it which I will put down to confusion.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 11:34:35 +0000

The Whorl always struck me as a kind of Tower of Babel. Does that fit?

It's a monument to human ego, a "message" to the universe about human 
greatness, AND a kind of human cultural zoo.

On 4/22/2011 7:36 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> convinced by the above points.  The Commonwealth did not exist when 
> the Whorl was launched, and the Whorl contains elements from numerous 
> cultures (e.g. an Indian culture which provided the forebears of 
> Gaon).  The religion of the Whorl is allegedly a parody of the state 
> religion of Typhon's time, which would have been worldwide - and 
> anyway the Catholic religion is hardly confined to South America .  
> The ballgame is not specifically the aforementioned game, in which 
> catching the ball in one's hand is illegal, though it has elements of it.
>
> On the other hand, the coloration of the people fits, and Mamelta had 
> a pet parrot named Chiquita.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
> Virus Database (VPS): 110422-1, 04/22/2011
> Tested on: 4/22/2011 7:37:25 PM

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---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 11:57:01 +0000

From: "David Stockhoff" <dstockhoff at verizon.net>

> greatness, AND a kind of human cultural zoo.

There are some resemblances, but some distinct differences too.

The Whorl is a momument to one man's ego; Babel was a monument to human ego.

Typhon separated the Whorl into cities so the inhabitants could not conspire 
against him (or hs analogue Pas).  This resembles God's splitting of the 
human race into multiple linguistic cultures as a response to Babel.

Although the asteroid is probably ellipsoidal, internally I guess it could 
be considered a tower of sorts, if we consider it as centred on the axis of 
the Long Sun.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:49:15 +0000

I hope you don't think the differences rule out the correspondence in 
general.

Yes, I'd say the "long" part of Long Sun can be taken figuratively as 
well as literally.

On 4/23/2011 7:57 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Typhon separated the Whorl into cities so the inhabitants could not 
> conspire against him (or hs analogue Pas).  This resembles God's 
> splitting of the human race into multiple linguistic cultures as a 
> response to Babel.
>
> Although the asteroid is probably ellipsoidal, internally I guess it 
> could be considered a tower of sorts, if we consider it as centred on 
> the axis of the Long Sun.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
> Tested on: 4/23/2011 7:58:14 AM

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---

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:51:05 +0000

>Soloviev: One more thing: duco Rigoglio mentions the same"Loganstone" 
>(some cosmic vessel) as Hethor in the "Book of the New Sun".
 
Hethor mentions the Quasar, IIRC (an appropriate name for a ship which will
seek the "white fountain"). Not familiar with a connection of loganstone to
Hethor.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 18:31:39 +0000

A paragraph says:
"Siyuf looked back to Maytera Marble. 'You wish to tell me of the 
Charter of your city before this man have interrupt you. I find this of 
interest.' "

In "Epiphany of the Long Sun", this typo is repeated.
There is another typo in the book that does the same thing but I don't 
need to look it up. It is surely there.
Consequently, it is quite reasonable to assume that the Roche/Drotte 
mix-up could also be a typo. Perhaps once a book has been copyrighted, 
it is deemed to expensive for Tor to update it. Perhaps Wolfe has a 
personal philosophy about these things. "Once published, the tree lays 
where it falls."

Unfortunately, these means that we cannot hope that later editions will 
ever help us by separating Wolfe's errors from his intentions.

J.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 18:31:42 +0000

On 4/19/2011 6:49 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> bios and chems by covering the limb, not replacing it.

Why would anyone make prosthetic hands for a woman that look old? On the 
other hand, whatever one believes about Rose's hands, the fact that they 
are *old-looking* requires its own speculative theory. She first started 
wearing them when she was in her forties.

In Nightside, Silk speculates how much of Rose is hers anymore.

I'm already involved in compiling evidence that Hy is Fava so I might 
not do anything to defend it, but this is what I believe.

1) Rose's hands are from a chem.
http://www.urth.org/whorlmap/molybdenum.htm
2) They are old because they belonged to Maytera Betel before they were 
Rose's.
3)  They absorbed her personality so readily because that is what 
chem-technology is designed to do. That's why Marble can remember Urth's 
short sun.

> "realistically veined", because they could be "grafted"

That's an interesting take, but who would have done the grafting?

---

From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 21:50:21 +0000

James Wynn wrote:
. Perhaps once a book has been copyrighted,
> personal philosophy about these things. "Once published, the tree lays

_Epiphany_ certainly diverges from earlier editions at one point: the
memorable line 'At that moment I burst into the room' is changed to
the dull 'At that moment Horn burst into the room'..

> wearing them when she was in her forties.

Can you remember where that is established? If she was actually old
when she got them, they can have been made to look old just to blend
naturally with the rest of her. If, on the other hand, they were made
for a chem, why would they be made to look old? The sense I get is
that Marble looked young for as long as she had a human appearance at
all.

That they are, in any case, mechanical and not flesh seems to be
established by the fact that, when one is severed, the talus workshop
is thought to be the place to go to have it reattached. .I don't think
the talus manufacturers would be able to work with flesh. Isn't there
even a bit about how it's not just a matter of welding, there are
wires that have to be reattached, or something like that?

> 3) ?They absorbed her personality so readily because that is what

I don't follow this - why in any case would Marble not remember the
short sun? Wasn't she created under it?

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 22:47:32 +0000

> Andrew Mason:

Okay. That's really bizarre. They 'fixed' that but they didn't fix the 
Marble/Mint mix-up.

> that Marble looked young for as long as she had a human appearance at

It is in "Calde of the Long Sun" during Rose's funeral when 
Echidna-in-Marble takes Musk and burns him in the flames:

    "This fine and living man," she pronounced slowly, "is presented to
    me, to Divine Echidna." Her hands, *the bony blue-veined hands of a
    elderly bio*, glowed crimson in the flames. "Mother of the Gods.
    Incomparable Echidna, Queen of the _Whorl_. Fair Echidna! Smile upon
    us. Send us beasts for the chase. Great Echidna! Put forth thy green
    grass for our kine..."

Whatever you choose to believe about Marble's/Rose's hands, explaining 
them requires that you leave specific textual references. Female chems 
always look like young girls. That is established (although I'd have to 
look it up).  Rose got the hands when she was in her 40s. Blood 
remembers when she had the first one installed and recognized it.

Roy has proffered that perhaps they were mocked to look old so they 
would "age with her". But of course that presumes that she would get old 
enough for the body to match the hands. Others have suggested it was 
done to keep Rose humble.

I say that the hands first belonged to Betel and were mocked to look old 
so it would not be apparent that they _were_ prosthesis. The 
embarrassment was due to the origin of those hands. And where they came 
from was what Marble was reminding Betel of -- shaming her-- when she 
repeatedly asked for shriving by Betel over lying about having posed for 
that picture in the cenoby.  She was implying "Remember Betel? I took 
Molybdenum's identity just as you took her hands."

> wires that have to be reattached, or something like that?

Yes. They are definitely not flesh.

> short sun? Wasn't she created under it?

Does she recount a single memory regarding her life under Urth's sun as 
does Rigoglo?
I contend her memories are from those of a bio. Additionally, there is 
this from Nightside.

    "Maytera Marble could remember the short sun, a disk of orange fire;
    and it seemed to her that the chief virtue of that old sun had been
    that no list, no menu, ever appeared unbidden beneath its rays."

Either:

1) This makes no sense because until relatively recently no list or menu 
appeared to Marble "unbidden" under the Long Sun either.

2) The reason no such list or menu appeared to her under Urth's sun was 
because she was a bio.

J.
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:19:44 +0000

First, I want to address the recently debated issue of how long it had been
since the _Whorl_ left Urth, because it may have some slight relevance to
what follows. The date on the letter Quetzal had sent to all the manteions,
in which he endorsed Silk as calde, was "30th Nemesis 332" (CALDE, p-173).
Silkhorn, shortly after the Battle of Blanko, put the number of years at
about 355 (IGJ, 323). Estimates of how much time had passed on Urth since
Rigoglio had lived there ranged between 2,500 and 1,000 years (IGJ, 325).

> Does she recount a single memory regarding her life under Urth's sun as

She remembered when she first woke, naked, in what seems to be a factory or
storage room containing other fem chems, and trying to boot up (EXODUS,
119-20). She was given clothes suitable for a maid (125).

She remembered standing in a sun-drenched field in a line of servants as
they and chem soldiers waited for the transport ship that would take them up
to the _Whorl_:
----------------
    Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched field, the
straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the soldiers'
precise column. She had seen it descend from the sky, at first a fleck of
black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot; had said, "It looks so
dirty." A soldier had overheard her and called, "Why don't you dust it?"
    Everyone had laughed, and she had laughed, too, though she had been
humiliated to tears, had tears been possible for her. Angry and defiant, she
had met his eyes and sensed the longing there. And longed.
    How tall he had been! How big and strong! So much steel! (CALDE, 285)
-----------------

> appeared to Marble "unbidden" under the Long Sun either.

Apparently Marble's body had been on the fritz for quite some time. She
stopped voluntarily calling up the list of defective parts a long time
before, probably because there was nothing she could do about getting new
parts or getting her old ones repaired:

"She could bring up a list of her nonfunctioning and defective parts
whenever she chose. She had not chosen to do so for close to a century; but
from time to time, most often when the cenoby lay on the night side of the
long sun, that list came up of itself." (NIGHTSIDE, 30)

> 2) The reason no such list or menu appeared to her under Urth's sun was

We both know that Marble was a chem, not a bio. No list of defective parts
appeared to her on Urth because she had none; she was fresh from the
factory. (Hammerstone said that chems had been stockpiled for ten years
before being transported up to the _Whorl_.) Her name, when she was the
"maid-of-all-work" at the cenoby on Sun Street, had been Magnesia. Even the
housemaid Molybdenum, Hammerstone's lost sweetheart, had been manufactured
on Urth, so I don't see how you could conclude that either chem maid had
ever been a bio on Urth. And fat Betel died some 45-50 years before the
opening of NIGHTSIDE, nearly three centuries after the _Whorl_ left Urth.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:56:23 +0000

Thanks, Roy.

Just a clarification and a couple of interpretations that I don't agree about.

>> J Wynn:
> Roy:
> We both know that Marble was a chem, not a bio.

Yes. What I assert is that the chems personalities come from scans a people
using the same technology that made the gods. Their memories were wiped
(to the extent they could be), skills added, and the personalities
tinkered to make them better suited to their jobs.
That's why the Ayunamiento was so easily able to retro-fit bodies
for themselves from chems. If Lemur had known more about chems, he might not
have been surprised that his body could die without him even realizing.
It also explains why Rose's parts so readily absorbed her personality and memories.

> Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> to the_Whorl_:
>      "Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched field,
The above is surely a description of a scene on the Whorl.

> the straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the soldiers'
> black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot; [...](CALDE, 285)

What is "coming down" here is the line of servants and soldiers.
Because they are on the Whorl, she can see the very long line descend
from the skylands.

> storage room containing other fem chems, and trying to boot up
> (EXODUS, 119-20). She was given clothes suitable for a maid (125).

It's from the beginning of chapter 7 for those not using a hardcover version or Epiphany:

    "I've been trying to remember where I came from," Maytera Marble ventured.
    "I don't think it was like this at all [the talus yard] ." [...]
    I couldn't remember a thing [about it previously], I'm sure. Not till
    poor Maytera Rose bequeathed me my new parts. I'm sure I must have told
    you about them.[...] They're much better than my old ones,
    but after I'd put them in, it was hard for me to keep straight which memories
    were Marble's and which were mine. [...]
    Anyway, I recollect a big room with green walls. There were pallets, or
    perhaps metal tables, little ones about as high as a bed. [...]
    I was lying on one, and I didn't have any clothes on. [...]
    I was trying to boot, and I remember that the girl next to me sat up and
    said she was naked, which she certainly was. When she did, somebody brought
    her a dress."

Then later:

    "The clothes that were given to me when I woke? I didn't get to them,
    but you're right. After a while I sat up too, and another girl gave me
    my first clothes. Were you going to ask me what kind of clothes they were?"

    Swallow nodded. "That's right, I was."

    "A little black dress, very simple, with rather a short skirt.
    Underclothes." Maytera Marble paused to smile. "I was about to say I'd
    prefer not to describe them, but they were so plain that there's hardly
    anything to describe. Black shoes with low heels, but I don't think there
    were any stockings. A pretty little lace apron and a matching cap.
    It's easy for me to describe those clothes, because people from Ermine's
    came to Patera's palace just before we left, and there were young women
    dressed exactly as I was then, except that they had stockings."

    "Did they come to clean?" Swallow asked. "Sweep and dust?"

    "Dear Chenille and I have done that already. To wash the dishes they'll need
    tonight and set the table, and wash walls we haven't gotten to.
    At least I hope they'll wash those walls and the downstairs windows.
    I asked them to."

    Swallow nodded again. "You see, Calde, each of us is born to do certain
    things. Maytera was born to sweep and dust, and wash walls and floors,
    and she's still doing it. Did you have to urge her to?"

    Silk shook his head.

    "I would have been surprised if you'd said you did..."

The text doesn't really give a clue as to whether this is on Urth or the Whorl.
However, if it was on Urth, it doesn't seem she had a job on Urth prior to
working on the Whorl. She says this is "where she came from". She didn't come
from the "so-and-so plantation". Her first job was working on the Whorl.

Aside from information about chem psychology, Swallow's analysis reflects
on Silk as well since his personality was tinkered to make him a leader.

J.

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:57:26 +0000

> Because they are on the Whorl, she can see the very long line descend

This doesn't seem possible. What would such a large airship be doing 
inside the Whorl? And surely it is a ship that appeared tiny at first.

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:34:45 +0000

James Wynn
> Because they are on the Whorl, she can see the very long line descend

Not a chance. Even a miles-long line of chems walking on the inner surface
of the _Whorl_  toward a particular sun-drenched field would not, could not
blot out the light from the long sun. Marble and the other chems were
standing in a field waiting for a spaceship to come down. It was the
spaceship that first appeared as a fleck of black. It appeared larger and
larger as it neared the chems, until its giant shadow covered them: "When
had it been, that sun-drenched field? The jokes and the laughter, and the
overhanging, overawing shadow that had made them fall silent?" (CALDE, 282)

> It's from the beginning of chapter 7 for those not using a hardcover
version or Epiphany:

[snip of long quote from talus factory scene]

> working on the Whorl.

No, she didn't have a job on Urth. Neither did Hammerstone or the other chem
soldiers. They were being stockpiled, like he said, before being put aboard
the _Whorl_.

>She says this is "where she came from". She didn't come

I agree. Her first job was on the _Whorl_ as the maid-of-all-work at the Sun
Street cenoby. Eventually the staff there and at the manteion dwindled to
just four; young Pike, Betel, Rose and herself, Magnesia. Maggie was pressed
into service as a teacher. When people complained that the kids were being
taught by a mere chem maid, she was made a sibyl and traded in her maid's
dress with its shortish skirt for a long sibyl's habit (see wedding scene,
chapter 11, p-231-32, EXODUS), but she continued to do the work of a maid.
With her new clothes came her new name, Marble. No reprogramming was needed
for her to become a sibyl.

> on Silk as well since his personality was tinkered to make him a leader.

Well, his genes were tinkered with.

Anyway, I want to get back to the old-looking prosthetic hands, which is why
I got involved. You are right that Rose got the first when she was in her
forties, and young Blood saw it. It is not clear whether Betel was still
alive or not at that point. Rose was forty when she gave birth, and Blood
was nine when she lost track of his foster mother. This latter fact suggests
to me that she lost track of the foster mother at or about the same time
that she became Senior Sibyl, which she became upon the death of Betel. As
Senior Sibyl, and with the manteion staff so short of personnel that a chem
maid had been pressed into service as a sibyl, she may no longer have had
the luxury of enough time to indulge herself with her seasonal visits with
her child.

I don't subscribe to your theory that chems, in general, got their
personalities from scans of real people, though something like that may have
happened with Potto, Lemur and other members of the Ayuntamiento. The ship
had been stocked with many hundreds of thousands of chem soldiers and an
untold number of civilian chems. The soldiers had been programmed to be
loyal to Pas and their respective cities, in that order, and not even Incus'
tinkering with Hammerstone's loyalties could alter that. Chem servants were
likewise programmed for their particular jobs. Their personalities seem to
have been the product of personal experiences, meaning those experiences
acquired after being booted for the first time. Sidero was not a chem, but
he is an example of what I mean. He and his kind started out as glorified
spacesuits but eventually evolved into AIs in their own right. Hammerstone
was not at all religious and I believe Marble became religious only  from
living and working in a manteion, the more so after she became a sibyl.

Be that as it may, you have mentioned four entities in conjunction with
those hands; Rose, Marble, Betel and Molybdenum. The two chem maids were
manufactured on Urth. Both Betel and Rose were born more that two-hundred
years after the _Whorl_ left Urth. Therefore, I do not believe that any of
the four had any personal connection to those hands that originated from any
given bio on Urth. As Marble said and you pointed out, chems never look old,
which is one of the reasons artists liked to use them as models, as was the
case with the cenoby painting.

You have asserted that Betel somehow acquired Molybdenum's hands and had
them altered to look old. Whether that is true or not, trying to connect the
hands to a bio on Urth is a needless complication.

-Roy

---

From: Mo Holkar <lists at ukg.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:14:15 +0000

>Because they are on the Whorl, she can see the very long line descend

No, I don't think that can be right -- the "it" that descends from 
the sky is the "enormous darkness", the subject of the previous 
sentence (ie. a ship above them, which first appeared high up as a 
fleck of black but is now enormous), not the line.

A line of which she was herself an element couldn't appear to her 
like a fleck. Also, if talking of a line of chems of which she and 
the soldier are elements, they wouldn't say "it" was dirty.

best,

Mo

# ~ # ~ #

WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:07:04 +0000

"Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched field, the 
straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the soldiers' 
precise column. She had seen it descend from the sky, at first a fleck 
of black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot; [...](CALDE, 285)

>> J Wynn: What is "coming down" here is the line of servants and soldiers.
> blot out the light from the long sun.

> Mo Holkar:
> No, I don't think that can be right -- the "it" that descends from the 
> sky is the "enormous darkness", the subject of the previous sentence 
> (ie. a ship above them, which first appeared high up as a fleck of 
> black but is now enormous), not the line.  A line of which she was 
> herself an element couldn't appear to her like a fleck. Also, if 
> talking of a line of chems of which she and the soldier are elements, 
> they wouldn't say "it" was dirty. 

I really think you ar e both misreading this. It's "enormous darkness 
OVERHEAD blotting the sundrenched fields". If the darkness is overhead, 
then it can't blot the sun-drenched fields which --on Urth-- are below. 
I think you guys are thinking of "blot out" which is a different 
picture. If it is the shadow of a transport "blotting the fields" then 
it can't be overhead. What we are to envision is the blackness of the 
Nightside against the "sun-drenched fields" of the Dayside.

It is not the line of chems that is dirty, nor a transport. It is the 
Whorl itself which has only recently been completed. Marble is a maid 
chem and so sees everything in terms of whether it needs cleaning or not.

> Mo Holkar:
> No, I don't think that can be right -- the "it" that descends from the 
> sky is the "enormous darkness", the subject of the previous sentence 
> (ie. a ship above them, which first appeared high up as a fleck of 
> black but is now enormous), not the line.  A line of which she was 
> herself an element couldn't appear to her like a fleck. Also, if 
> talking of a line of chems of which she and the soldier are elements, 
> they wouldn't say "it" was dirty.

> Roy:
> Marble and the other chems were

Once again, this is the Nightside that is overawing. There are no cities 
that are lit up on the Nightside yet. This is a view of the dawning of 
creation when there are no "stars" in the Nightside skylands. That is 
what is significant about this memory.

J.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:49:47 +0000

> the straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the 
> soldiers' precise column. She had seen it descend from the sky, at 
> first a fleck of black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot; 
> [...](CALDE, 285)
>
>
> Mo Holkar:
> the "it" that descends from the sky is the "enormous darkness", the 
> subject of the previous sentence (ie. a ship above them, which first 
> appeared high up as a fleck of black but is now enormous), not the 
> line. A line of which she was herself an element couldn't appear to 
> her like a fleck. Also, if talking of a line of chems of which she and 

One other thing...the "enormous darkness" is not the subject of this 
sentence. In fact it is not a sentence at all, but a sentence fragment. 
The enormous darkness carries no more weight than the "straggling line 
of servants" and "the soldier's precise column".

But at the least the line and the column are closer to the pronoun "it" 
than the the darkness. The lines are "descending" from the skylands 
until it disappears into a little dot. Possibly that dot was the opening 
from which they entired the cargo area. Perhaps not.

J.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:56:33 +0000

>> appeared high up as a fleck of black but is now enormous), not the line. 
>> A line of which she was herself an element couldn't appear to her like a 
>> fleck. Also, if talking of a line of chems of which she and the soldier 
>> are elements, they wouldn't say "it" was dirty.
>
> The enormous darkness carries no more weight than the "straggling line of 
> servants" and "the soldier's precise column".
>
> than the the darkness. The lines are "descending" from the skylands until 
> it disappears into a little dot. Possibly that dot was the opening from 
> which they entired the cargo area. Perhaps not.

I agree with Roy and Mo.  They are on Urth watching a transport descend from 
the Whorl to pick them up.

The sentence in the paragraph about the darkness may be imperfectly formed, 
but I think it is natural to read the transport ship as a growing black 
presence in the sky, and when it comes relatively close to the ground its 
darkness also darkens (blots) the field in which Marble and her cohorts are 
waiting.  (Note that they are standing, not walking - so why does the dark 
fleck grow?  It most be in motion relative to the ground on which they 
stand.)

Further evidence comes from the circumstances in which Marble recalls this 
event.  She is standing on the roof as the "vast dark bulk" of Saba's 
airship passes overhead.  Just like the lander that came for her on Urth. 
That's why she remembers it at that moment.

I don't know why the transport looks dirty, though.  Maybe simply because it 
is so dark, and seems dirty to the inexperienced chem maid.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:53:28 +0000

>Gerry Quinn: I agree with Roy and Mo.  They are on Urth watching a transport descend from 

Agree. Factory on Urth. Parts can be stored on the Whorl but not manufactured, hence their 
scarcity.
 
>is so dark, and seems dirty to the inexperienced chem maid.

I think something like that. She has been programmed to clean up black specks without the
experience to distinguish the ceiling from the sky. Like the old saying, when you are a 
hammer, everything looks like a nail.

---

From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:26:49 +0000

I also agree. I think also that when you look up from the field against
the sun the transport, as usually an object against the Sun seems much
darker. What seems to me strange - sun-drenched field, if the Sun was
already red. Maybe it wasn't. Did it became red so quick?

Sergei
finally that GW does not pay too much attention to technical details.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:43:45 +0000

> already red. Maybe it wasn't. Did it became red so quick?

Typhon says the sun began to dim during his reign and that the 
luminosity dropped by 7 parts in 1000 while he was on Urth. That and a 
lack of other changes discussed suggests that in his time it was still 
99.3% of its original brightness. It seems to have continued to dim and 
may have grown a bit larger and redder over the centuries, but there are 
still many pictures to compare it with and only its redness is remarked 
upon, so any change in angular size is probably not large.

The old man in the cabin IIIRC tells of a truly bright day when the sun 
was as bright as people say it was in the old days, which suggests that 
the sun has good days and bad either from Urthly weather or solar 
activity or both.

If course, if the moon is truly closer in, it would also appear bigger, 
so it is possible that the sun is larger by a like amount, and the rule 
of thum that the sun and moon are about the same visual width would 
still hold, and any solar eclipses would retain a similar character. If 
I were more awake I could speculate about lunar eclipses.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:58:33 +0000

On 6/2/2011 8:07 AM, James Wynn wrote:
> OVERHEAD blotting the sundrenched fields". If the darkness is 
> overhead, then it can't blot the sun-drenched fields which --on Urth-- 
> are below. I think you guys are thinking of "blot out" which is a 
> different picture. If it is the shadow of a transport "blotting the 
> fields" then it can't be overhead. What we are to envision is the 
> blackness of the Nightside against the "sun-drenched fields" of the 
> Dayside. 

Your reading is not illogical, in fact it's brilliant, but I think it's 
counterintuitive. And I read "blot" differently:

   1. Mark or stain (something)
          * - the writing was messy and /blotted/

   2. Obscure a view
          * - a dust shield /blotting/ out the sun

I think your sense is #2, the obvious one, but I see it as #1. The 
darkness above, since it creates a shadow, "stains" the sun-drenched 
field below it. It does not blot it out.

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From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:38:24 +0000

David Stockhoff wrote (03-06-2011 01:58):
>> then it can't blot the sun-drenched fields which --on Urth-- are below. I
>> think you guys are thinking of "blot out" which is a different picture. If
>> it is the shadow of a transport "blotting the fields" then it can't be
>> overhead. What we are to envision is the blackness of the Nightside
>> against the "sun-drenched fields" of the Dayside.
>
> Your reading is not illogical,

With all respect to JW, I find it contorted to the point of hurting.

> in fact it's brilliant, but I think it's
> I think your sense is #2, the obvious one, but I see it as #1. The darkness
> above, since it creates a shadow, "stains" the sun-drenched field below it.

Precisely.

> It does not blot it out.