{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/766", "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": 766, "subject": "Meanwhile, back on Urth", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-12T04:03:00+00:00", "last": "1998-06-12T09:39:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-06-12T04:03:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Meanwhile, back on Urth", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Spectacled Bear,\n\nDid alga get huffy with you? Well then you are extra\nspecial--if not unique! \n\nRe: the sack of the Claw. Hmm, yes, \"leather\" is \"manskin\"; or\nrather, \"manskin\" is \"leather.\" And \"doeskin\" is \"leather,\" too.\nBut only by an obvious joke can \"manskin\" be \"doeskin.\"\n\n(\"The manskin was made from the skin of a guy named John Doe.\")\n\n\"Claw of the Conciliator. re: the sack it is carried in by Severian.\nThe text gives it as made of doeskin (III, chap. 1) and human skin\n(III, chap. 21, last page). This curious detail is seen in REALMS OF\nFANTASY (1983) by Malcolm Edwards and Robert P. Holdstock as a\nconcrete example of how Wolfe uses careful signals to cast doubt upon\nSeverian's memory\" (\"LEXICON URTHUS:Additions, Errata, &cetera\n(Volume I),\" p. 7).\n\n\"Who (or what) is the intelligence in the depths of the mine at\nSaltus?\" (item number four in list \"Mysteries of the Urth Cycle,\"\nLEXICON URTHUS, p. 175)\n\nMy own guesses (in more or less chronological order)\n\n1. Some obscure chthonic deity from Greco-Roman mythology, more to do\nwith \"riches\" (i.e., the \"Pluto\" of \"plutocracy\") than \"the dead.\"\n(This is more a category for further search rather than a specific\nanswer of a single individual.)\n\n2. Arioch. (Because he is named in the text but never placed in any\nlocation. Problem is that he is supposed to be in league with Erebus\nand Abaia . . . well, he might have been \"converted\" along the way .\n. . and Arioch of mythology doesn't seem to have a \"chthonic\"\nassociation . . . beyond some bat wings, hmmm . . . )\n\n3. Nazca. (If you've seen the map in LEXICON URTHUS you know that\nsome real estate has been added to the Pacific Rim. On our Earth\nthis region is part of the Nazca Plate. The situation on Urth might\nbe more drastic than the LU map suggests--the whole continent the\nCommonwealth is on might be a raised Nazca.\n\n(The text talks of the \"roots of the continent.\" With such\nterraforming feats as Verthandi, Skuld, and Lune, not to mention\nstellaforming stunts like the dying sun and the New Sun, I find\ncontinent lifting to be rather simple in comparison. In our\nnon-technical, 20th century terms, I imagined a sort of hydrolic jack\nat the roots of the continent, lifting it up against \"Nature\"; this\njack and its titanic servator, a throwback to Morningstar of JACK OF\nSHADOWS, no doubt, are both \"Nazca,\" a sort of Atlas of the\nCommonwealth's continent.)\n\n(Why raise continents? I dunno. But the text says that all the\ntopsoil runs off into the sea [hmm, maybe that's just \"Seven American\nNights\" I'm thinking of right there], all the metals are at the\nbottom of the oceans, and so on. So raising a new continent would be\nlike getting a fresh new world to start on, and any continents that sank\nas a result of raising the new one would become renewed by the dip in\nthe sea, just like Aphrodite.)\n\n4. One of the thinking engines in Cyriaca's story about the founding\nof the Library of Nessus.\n\nOr some combination of the above.\n\nAs with many mysteries of the text . . .\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-06-12T09:39:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Meanwhile, back on Urth", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:03 1998-06-12 GMT, m.driussi at genie.com wrote:\nSpectacled Bear,\n\nDid alga get huffy with you? Well then you are extra\nspecial--if not unique! " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, with Mr Wolfe for (as she thought) not explaining the\nmystery of who made the footsteps in the mine at Saltus." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Re: the sack of the Claw. Hmm, yes, \"leather\" is \"manskin\"; or\nrather, \"manskin\" is \"leather.\" And \"doeskin\" is \"leather,\" too.\nBut only by an obvious joke can \"manskin\" be \"doeskin.\"\n\n(\"The manskin was made from the skin of a guy named John Doe.\")\n\n\"Claw of the Conciliator. re: the sack it is carried in by Severian.\nThe text gives it as made of doeskin (III, chap. 1) and human skin\n(III, chap. 21, last page). This curious detail is seen in REALMS OF\nFANTASY (1983) by Malcolm Edwards and Robert P. Holdstock as a\nconcrete example of how Wolfe uses careful signals to cast doubt upon\nSeverian's memory\" (\"LEXICON URTHUS:Additions, Errata, &cetera\n(Volume I),\" p. 7)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... and on my memory too. Whorl readers may recall that \"bears\nare not universally intelligent\"! I shall have to look again." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Who (or what) is the intelligence in the depths of the mine at\nSaltus?\" (item number four in list \"Mysteries of the Urth Cycle,\"\nLEXICON URTHUS, p. 175)\n\nMy own guesses (in more or less chronological order)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... are very interesting. I haven't seen LEXICON URTHUS,\nor any of the chapbooks, and thanks for reminding me to\nlook into how to get hold of them.\n\nBut I think it's the war machines. I guessed at the end \nCitadel, XXII, where they appear, and was amazed by the\nmention of the footsteps in the mine in XXIII, which is\na very generous clue.\n\nPeter." } ] } ] }