{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6321", "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": 6321, "subject": "Talos play as the Short Sun", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2012-11-27T01:54:10+00:00", "last": "2012-11-27T15:48:37+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Larry Miller", "address": "decanus1284 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-27T01:54:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Talos play as the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just reading the the Claw thread I took note of Lees comparison of the name\nJahi and Jahlee and wondered if there were any correspondences between the\nShort Sun story and Talos' play. Could Silk have returned to Urth after\nthe Whorls departure and somehow inspired the original Book with stories of\nhis past? Could the Inhuma Jahlee be the inspiration for Jahi in the play?\n Is there anyone in the play that could be Silk?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "David Stockhoff: Typhon was certainly THE Serpent, but was he A serpent?\nIs Severian something like the thorn of the field raised up to the\ndegree that Typhon/Satan is a raised-up serpent of the field? i.e., the\nbetter counterpart to him? Are the two of them hammer and anvil in\nshaping a more morally advanced humanity?\nI'm just spitballing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Spitballing may be what we are limited to in a story which jumbles Theseus\nwith the\nMonitor and Merrimac and Mowgli with Romulus and Remus and Squanto.\n\nAs I see it, mythological Typhon was a potentially world-destroying\nmandragon, partially\ncomposed of snakes. His wife was Echidna, a cave-dwelling snake woman\nwhose myth is in a\ndirect line to the Roman Cumaean Sybil who is known as one of the earliest\nharbingers of\nJesus Christ. This all gets jumbled into BotNS, tossing Alexander and\nothers into the mix\nas well.\n\nFWIW, in Long Sun, Quetzal the inhumi, tells Remora (fishy stowaway, also\nan inhumi?) this story:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"A-man and Wo-man like rabbits in a garden. The--what do you call\nthem?...The cobra persuaded Wo-man\nto eat fruit from his tree, miraculous fruit whose taste conferred\nwisdom...It is all in the Writings.\nOr nearly all. A god called Ah Lah barred Wo-man and her husband from the\ngarden...We seem to have lost\nsight of Ah Lah, by the way. I can't recall a single sacrifice to him. No\none ever asks why the cobra\nwanted Wo-man to eat his fruit...In order that she would climb this tree,\nPatera. The man likewise.\nTheir story's not over because they haven't climbed down.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So, in this Eden story we have a plant (tree) and serpent as featured\nplayers. Somehow related to the\nClaw of the Conciliator? This story certainly presages Green, a planet of\ntrees and parasitic reptilian\nbeings. What might Wolfe's cryptic note to Marc, \"GREEN is Urth\" mean in\nan Edenic context?\n\nDr. Talos' play also features the Eden story and the serpent appears to be\nrepresented by a fanged, busty,\nred-haired demoness named Jahi. Then in Short Sun we have an inhuma named\nJahlee. Somehow it all has\nto be related but perhaps we were never meant to connect it all in a\ncoherent, structured fashion.\nPerhaps, as David suggests, intuitive mythological spitballing is all\nWolfe intended us to grasp from\nthese connections.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-27T15:48:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Talos play as the Short Sun", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "larry miller: I took note of Lees comparison of the name\nJahi and Jahlee and wondered if there were any correspondences between the\nShort Sun story and Talos' play. Could Silk have returned to Urth after\nthe Whorls departure and somehow inspired the original Book with stories of\nhis past? Could the Inhuma Jahlee be the inspiration for Jahi in the play?\nIs there anyone in the play that could be Silk?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Silkhorn does astral travel to Urth with Jahlee, where she takes real\nhuman form and basically spends all her time copulating. Aside from making the\nconnection of busty redhead Jahlee to Jahi and Jolenta, I'm not sure if there are \nfurther connections to Dr. Talos' play established with the astral visits. I do \ntend to think the question of Severian's sister is answered though.\n\nIn the play, Meschia, Meschiane and Jahi are persian correspondants to Adam, Eve\nand Lilith. There are jealousy and vampiric and serpent references that swirl\naround the Biblical characters as well as the BotNS characters.\n\nBy bringing Jahlee to Urth, I think he does reinforce the Eden references already\nestablished for Green and the Inhumi. By associating Green and Blue to Urth and \nUshas via the connection to Dr. Talos' play, Wolfe is telling us something about \nthe Short Sun story and how it relates to human origins and forests and vampires\nand snakes and flooding. Then there is Wolfe's cryptic note to Marc that \"GREEN \nis Urth!\"\n\nPerhaps we are not meant to get a concrete, nuts and bolts understanding of what\nWolfe is trying to get at. He may be deliberately attempting to install \nan intuitive, \"right at the tip of my tongue\" understanding which defies being \nplaced within the constraint of clearly understood wording. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] } ] }