{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6107", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6107, "subject": "(no subject)", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2011-11-10T03:15:14+00:00", "last": "2011-11-10T03:54:45+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-11-10T03:15:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: My problem with all this is that Blue is colder than Urth is " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "colder than Green - that city under the water is a MacGuffin, we are meant " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "to look at it and try to find a way to map Urth onto it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n\nWell, I'm really not trying to knock you off your game nor knock you onto \n\nmine. But in explanation of my own view I'm tempted to write: \"No, no no!\n\nBlue is USHAS\". Not Urth. (sigh I never was good at resisting temptation.\n\n \n\nUshas is Urth reborn. It should be considered as a new planet, not a rehash\n\nor continuation of the old one. (no \"Urth/Ushas\" hedging allowed either).\n\nBlue is Ushas. (in my view)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't see Blue as Ushas. It's the coldest of the three (two) worlds. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's something else." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see this as a rather quirky argument, given your personal leanings, Marc.\n\nIs temperature really what we are meant to see as the important factor? I \n\ndon't think this is so. While Wolfe was inspired by The Dying Earth, I don't\n\nthink he meant to rewite it, with scientific concerns being the rock hard basis\n\nfor reality. I truly think WOlfe means to tie the geological/astronomical \n\nconcerns to spirituality in this book. Salvation, even if it involves a white\n\nfountain in a black hole, is tied to choosing the right path, the right allies\n\nthe right leader and following the plan of God/Increate.\n\n \n\nI'm sure WOlfe was aware in writing BotNS that Flood myths were probably born\n\nfrom the real world death throes of the last ice age. But I have trouble believing\n\nWolfe thinks that's ALL the Flood was. NOthing to do with God. Just a geologic \n\nevent with no Biblical or other religious significance.\n\n \n\nAnd if Gene Wolfe finds spiritual signifance to earth's Flood, I think he must feel\n\nthe same about Urth's flood and Blue's flood. MacGuffin? Nooooooooooo!\n\n \n\nIn my view, Severian's flooding of the Vincula presages the flooding of Urth. And\n\nthus, just as surely, SilkHorn's flooding of the sewer presages a flood, or at least \n\npoints to the need for one, on Green.\n\n \n\nIf we are thinking of humanity, yes, Urth is too cold. But isn't Green too hot? \n\nAren't Ushas and Blue just right? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1320897285.81964.YahooMailClassic@web161801.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-11-10T03:54:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "--- On Wed, 11/9/11, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In my view, Severian's flooding of the Vincula presages the\nflooding of Urth. And\n\nthus, just as surely, SilkHorn's flooding of the sewer\npresages a flood, or at least \n\npoints to the need for one, on Green.\n\n \n\nIf we are thinking of humanity, yes, Urth is too cold. But\nisn't Green too hot? \n\nAren't Ushas and Blue just right? ???\n????????\n?????? ???" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Blue is colder than urth. i think the flood is a retelling of the old myth \"how green it is after the rains!\"\n\nOk, here goes, and then I'm going to try my best to leave it alone because I feel really bad about it. Gene wanted to so confuse his readers that he made a blue and green system, baited and switched them, hid time travel, complicated things by putting rigoglio in, so that we would never, ever, ever get to the bottom of this particular mystery, only try and try to map Blue to Urth with no success becuase there just wasn't a time travel mechnism, there was no biotic substance in the water, and it's colder than Urth (no new sun with heat). I honestly honestly believe that, and the temperature is vitally important because the urth of the new sun will be hotter than the urth of the dying sun. \n\nI was looking for a time travel mechanism and it simply wasn't there, but I don't buy this as metaphor - it's either the future, or it's a completely different solar system. \n\nthe inhumi saying we are everywhere, the vine covered ruins at least being similar, the time disjointment that allow Chenille to be drunk on blue mourning her children being fed on by Jahlee, Silk's presence in an old tale, and the self-identification of a Neighbor as \"Horn\" point to an actual physical co-identity. But it's so obscured, muddled, and complicated by where the moon went if Blue isn't the moon, what Blue is, if it be Yesod or Verthandi or what, that Gene can't even be cornered in interviews when confronted with the question. I need to read New sun and pay attention to any word of Vethandi.\n\nI think there is a literal solution to this, and it's either: Green is literally Urth ... or the electrical pun and the two solar systems are completely unrelated. I don't want to bother Wolfe about this, he won't say more, but I'm kind of hoping that some day either notes or something will come to light which will put me out of my misery on this one - because it just didn't feel like a (mostly pointless in my mind) metaphorical correction.\n\nI am going to stop now on this one until I have reread the entire sequence." } ] } ] }