{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6644",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6644,
    "subject": "Short Story 103: The Map",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2014-08-25T03:09:15+00:00",
    "last": "2014-08-25T03:09:15+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072zfefHw-_ygNEqHR3YZ=MKuTB_Dxky4jsuF+6DDV7mEvA@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2014-08-25T03:09:15+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth)  Short Story 103: The Map",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
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          "text": "“The Map” first appeared in 1984 in Light Years and Dark and is collected\nin *Endangered Species*.\n\nSUMMARY: Set after Severian has abolished the torturer’s guild (which was\nimplied at the end of *Citadel of the Autarch* but which became “reformed”\nthe guild by *Urth of the New Sun*), Eata makes his living as the captain\nof a small boat. In the wake of a beating by his lover Synteche and a man\nnamed Laetus in which they break into his chest and steal Eata's map (Eata\nwanted them to take it and left the key in his pants on the floor), he is\ncommissioned by a man who calls himself Simulatio to take him far South of\nthe Old Citadel of Nessus for an asimi a day to find a place where three\nroads meet. On the way to the brutal and primitive parts of the city,\nSimulatio keeps watch in the night and finds the body of Synteche in the\nriver, killed by Laetus. When Eata relieves him on watch, Simulatio hears\nEata sobbing in the night and smells perfume in the cabin of the ship.\n\nSimulatio takes a pike on shore and assures Eata that he will return by\nnones, after which Eata will leave. Searching down nebulous streets in\nsearch of a treasure indicated on a map he found in an ancient book, he\nfoolishly loses his pike and is eventually accosted by omophagists. They\nchase and overpower him, but just as he is about to be killed by his own\nfancy dagger, their greed for the bauble lead them to fight amongst\nthemselves, and Eata arrives to save him. They head back towards the Cygnet\nInn, and Eata advises Simulatio to burn his map or to lock it away with a\ngoldsmith and go home until he has recovered. Simulatio wants to continue\nlooking, but Eata refuses to return and casts his silver coin into the\nriver. As Eata casts off with Simulatio on the warf, he says, “You'll come\nback for me! ? Because I'll let you come with me! Because I'll give you a\nshare!” Eata does not look back, “but his hand shook as it gripped the\nteller.”\n\n\n COMMENTARY:\n\nRepeatedly in “The Map”, the things that men value and seek after\nobsessively cause strife and conflict. Even though Eata planned to let\nLaetus and Synteche leave together, he still fights them when they wake him\nfrom his slumber, getting a beating. Even though the omophagists had their\nprey cornered and defeated, the attraction of Simulatio’s shiny knife\ncauses them to fight among each other and lose their goal, giving Eata time\nto intervene. Moralistic themes in Wolfe can often be muted behind the\nambiguity, but the concept of “The Map” is powerful without requiring much\nambiguity — some obsessions can never come to fruition, and some hopes will\nnever be real. Beyond this theme, there are several other important aspects\nof “The Map” that bear discussing.\n\nSeverian finally gets an objective description (recapitulated on the boat\nat the culmination of *Urth of the New Sun*), and it reveals that to\nexternal perceptions he is a hard man. “Severian would have been angry,\ntoo, to be sure, and Severian had beaten [Eata] more than once. He spat out\nclotted blood. Beaten him worse than Laetus and Syntyche had last night. —\nNow Severian was the Autarch, Severian was the law, and murderers died\nunder the law’s hand.”\n\nThis harsh image of black and white justice belies much of the interplay\nbetween Palaemon and Severian at the conclusion of *The Citadel of the\nAutarch*, when Severian returns to the Guild with the plan of abolishing it\nas something unnecessary. It seems that he has instituted something which\neven his old “friends” fear. Nevertheless, Eata is no longer a torturer,\nthough murderers must die under the law.\n\nThe objective description of the Old Citadel is equally important.\nSimulatio notices it and comments how out of place it looks. Eata says,\n“They call it the Old Citadel — I don’t know much about it.”\n\nSimulatio remarks, “You can almost imagine them going up, can’t you” — Just\ntaking off with a silver shout and leaving this world behind. Eata denies\nhis ability to conceive of the Citadel taking off into the heavens — as\nsomeone who grew up in the halls, he knows that space flight has been\neclipsed by alternative, pragmatic uses. Simulatio says, “That’s what\nthey’re supposed to do, at the end of time. I read about it someplace.”\n\nEata immediately says that paper has killed many more men than steel —\nsomething that we can see come true before the end of the story. Beyond the\nconcept of ideologies promulgated through books and propaganda that inspire\nmen to kill others both for causes and to persecute those not like\nthemselves, we see two maps that hold the vague promise of treasure\npractically destroying the value of human life. When Simulatio (in the\nnarrative always referred to as “the stranger”) looks at the map, “Those\nspidery streets might — or might not — be the very streets that stretched\nbefore him. — The map presented an accumulation of detail, and yet it was\ndetail of a sort that did nothing to confirm or deny location. He committed\nas much of it to memory as he could, all the while wondering what feature\nor turning might prove of value, what name of street or structure could\nhave survived where there was no one left to recall it — For an instant it\nseemed to him that it was not the treasure that was lost, but he himself.”\nHe seeks “Life and mastery without limit.” Looking at the map, its\nlandmarks are so nebulous that almost any confluence of streets could match\nits contours. Thus are ideal dreams forced onto reality.\n\nThe description of dead Synteche is powerful in its imagery:\n\n“The corpse performed a slow pirouette, like the half turn of a thrown\nknife seen by an ephemerid, or the tumbling of a derelict through the abyss\nthat separates the worlds. — He tried to judge her as he had judged the\nwomen whose compliance he had secured for coins, to weigh her breasts with\nhis eyes and applaud or condemn the roundness of her belly; he discovered\nthat he could not do so, that in the way he sought to see her she was\nbeyond his sight, unreachable as the unborn, unreachable as his mother had\nbeen when he had once, as a boy, happened upon her bathing.”\n\nEven though his name is given in dialogue, in the narrative text\nSimulatio's name is never used, while at the start Eata refuses to\nacknowledge his own name but is instead referred to as Eata in the\nnarrative.\n\nMaxellindis, who is briefly mentioned as a casualty of Eata's obsession,\nwas the daughter of a boatman who appeared in *The Citadel of the Autarch*\nin Chapter 37: “Across the River Again”. Mention of her was also made in\nChapter 66: “The Runaway” of *Urth of the New Sun, *which causes extreme\ncontinuity problems. When he first sees her, Eata asks if she is in danger,\nand Severian remarks:\n\n“She’s not in as much danger as you are from her,” I said. He did not know\nwhat I meant, but I did. His Maxellindis was not Thecla; his story could\nnot be the same as my own. But I had seen the revolving corridors of Time\nbehind the gamin face with the laughing brown eyes. Love is a long labor\nfor torturers; and even if I were to dissolve the guild, Eata would become\na torturer, as all men are, bound by the contempt for wealth without which\na man is less than a man, inflicting pain by his nature, whether he willed\nit or not. I was sorry for him, and more sorry for Maxellindis the sailor\ngirl.\n\nIn his introduction to* Endangered Species*, Wolfe states he wrote “The\nMap” because “we have sought and not found, you and I.”\n\nCONTINUITY PROBLEMS AND URTH OF THE NEW SUN:\n\nWhile this story was published in 1984 and *Urth of the New Sun* was not\nreleased until 1987, there are some severe continuity problems that are\nactually created BECAUSE Severian probes Eata for his story so thoroughly.\nIf Eata simply appeared on the boat after the coming of the New Sun and\nSeverian did not inquire about the timeline of his life so particularly,\nthere would be no way to ascertain these inconsistencies. The first thing\nEata says is that Severian “never did [Eata] much harm when [Severian] was\nreal.” He also says, “There was that time you pounded me. Remember,\nSeverian?” The third person presentation of Severian in “The Map” is much\nmore unkind, and the abuse seems to have occurred more than once.\n\nThere is also a rather insane moment in *Urth of the New Sun *when Severian\nspeculates that Eata could have been the one to save Vodalus if things had\nbeen different, and Eata makes several of Jonas? Wellerisms, including:\n“That’s what boys are like, like the skipper said when he showed his\ndaughter.” However, the timeline and the events presented by Eata don't\nseem to allow sufficient time to have passed for the events of “The Map” to\never occur if Severian left to bring the New Sun after about ten years as\nAutarch (Eata says that “a man can spend half his life looking, and never\nfind a thing”, and that he has wasted his life and Maxellindis' seeking the\ntreasure of his map. Therefore, in “The Map”, Maxellindis is probably\nalready dead and he seems like a man much older than his late twenties).\n\nIn *Urth of the New Sun, *Eata says that he left the torturers instead of\nbeing elevated to journeyman, then worked with Maxellindis and her father\nuntil her father died after four or five years, then smuggled with\nMaxellindis until a cutter grappled their boat. This occurred about eight\nyears after the ascension of Severian, and then Eata was shipped as a slave\nby the law to the Xanthic Lands and did not return for over two years, at\nwhich point Severian was gone and Valeria was Autarchia. When, then, could\nhe have had his boat when Severian was Autarch and Maxellindis was already\ngone?\n\nWhy this difference in presentation? Maxellindis and Eata are an item in\nboth, and he loses her in both, but are these differences truly only small\ndetails that are either easy to misunderstand or slight oversights in the\nconstruction of *Urth of the New Sun*?\n\nOr are they evidence of an early iteration? Why does Eata speak in\nWellerisms at the end of Urth of the New Sun, and why does Severian think\nof both “The Tale of the Student and his Son” when he sees Eata and also\nconsider that in a different reality Eata saved Vodalus?\n\nA WATERY THREAT:\n\nEata says, “If you see a face in the water than stares at the light and\ndisappears, it’s a manatee. Don’t worry about it. But If you see anything\nthat swims like a man, call me.” In *Urth of the New Sun*, Eata posits that\nMaxellindis was pulled to her death by a nixie.\n\nLITERARY AND MYTHIC ALLUSIONS\n\nWhen Simulatio stands watch, he sees the green light of Lune come down, and\nthinks that the city on the east bank is merely asleep rather than dead.\n“Its towers were black, but their sightless windows, thus illuminated from\nbehind, appeared to betray a faint radiance, as though hecatonchires roved\nthe gloomy corridors and deserted rooms,t heir thousand fingers smeared\nwith noctoluscence to light their way.” Hecatonchires, or the hundred\nhanded, were the allies of Gaia against Uranus. Later, Zeus freed them and\nthey guard the Titans in their prison.\n\nNAMES:\n\nSimulatio has the most interesting name, as it is a rhetorical figure of\nspeech, a type of irony in which one feigns great emotion as pretence. It\ncan imply a fa?ade or pretext. (As far as we can tell, Eata is actually\nengaged in the opposite, dissumulatio, most of the time, acting as if\nthings which exist do not — denying knowledge of the Old Citadel, saying\nthat he can’t imagine the towers escaping into the heavens, and pretending\nthat he has overcome his obsession.) There not seem to be a Biblical or\nSaint reference in the name, unusual for a “normal” citizen of Urth. Is\nSimulatio an assumed name? He remembers his father's estate in a dream.\n\nSynteche means “fortunate” or “with fate” and is a New Testament name (in\nthe world of Urth, normal citizens are named after saints or Biblical\nfigures, but those from different epochs or origins have more mythic or\nfictional names). Synteche is famous for a quarrel with Euodia mentioned in\nPaul’s letter to the Philiipians, Chapter 4. Paul calls upon an unnamed\nperson to intervene directly in their argument. Here, we have a third party\nintervening in the dissatisfaction Synteche feels for Eata (Even though\nEata is based on his own saint, there is a close resemblance between the\nnames Euodia and Eata). In addition, though Euodia is a female name, there\nhas been some gender confusion and some sources translated the name as that\nof a male (Euodias)? even going so far as to claim that Euodia was the\ngaoler of Phillipi — something that would definitely resonate with Eata’s\nold profession as torturer, with all the prisoners in the oubliette and the\nindividual cells.\n\nLaetus means “happy”, and is the name of a saint (also known as St. Lie)\nwho served as a guide to Leonard of Noblac (Leonard is the patron saint of\nprisoners — supplications to him are meant to break the bonds of their\nchains — which may or may not be relevant, as Laetus has taken broken the\nlock on Eata’s chest and forever taken the physical representation of his\nobsession away from him, though in a very negative and violent way).\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTION:\n\nIs there any significance to Simulatio's memories of his father's estate?\nWhy is he always called “the stranger” in the third person point of view\nnarrative? Does he have an identity in *Book of the New Sun*?\n\nWhy does Eata speak in Wellerisms in *Urth of the New Sun*, when there is\nno evidence of those speech patterns in “The Map?”\n\nIs there a way to reconcile the timelines for Eata and Maxellindis given in\n“The Map” and *Urth of the New Sun?*\n\nCONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS:\n\n“The Map” and “The Cat” are the only two \"realistic\" stories directly\nrelated to *The Book of the New Sun* (besides its series of sequels, “The\nNight Chough”, and the miscellaneous Brown Book tales like “Empires of\nFoliage and Flower” which are more like allegories.)"
        }
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}