{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/771",
    "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": 771,
    "subject": "Perelandra and Sevegetarianism",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-12T15:33:03+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-12T15:33:03+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0037@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-12T15:33:03+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Perelandra and Sevegetarianism",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>\nAll this underground stuff is quite evocative of Tolkien, and the\nunderground parts of _Perelandra_, with its sense of inaccessible\ndepths briefly glimpsed. The air striders reminded me a little of\nthe spinning wheels in _Perelandra_ too."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've been thinking of some other Perelandra parallels too.\nSpecifically, I've noticed that in URTH, when Severian returns from\nYesod he seems reluctant to eat meat.  At one of the inns he is\ndescribed as pushing the meat around rather than eating it (no\ncitation, sorry) and he seems to mention preferring to eat fruit\nseveral times.  I believe there's also the post-Typon sequence in the\nmountains when he's hanging out with the smilodon, munching on fruit.\nThis isn't ironclad, but I can't help but see a parallel to Ransom's\nreturn from Perelandra, after which he eschews all but the most basic\nof human food.  And of course by THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH Ransom is being\nattended by dancing bears and mice that clean up the crumbs from his\nfood, which is itself a parallel to Severian's seeming ability to\ngentle animals (the Smilodon, but also the bull at the end of CLAW)\nwhich I suppose is just part and parcel of his growing righteousness.\n\nI'm inclined to think that in both cases perhaps there's some element\nof the \"fairy cake\" concept, after eating the food of Yesod or\nPerelandra, human food seems tasteless.\n\nAnd let us not forget that Master Ash seemed to be a non meat-eater,\nwhich Severian noted.  Interesting that neither Master Ash nor the\nGreen Man eat meat (obviously for quite different reasons).\n\nRe: manskin, doeskin, etc.\n\nI was sort of obsessed by this for a while myself, particularly wrt\nthe Claw's sack.  And a few months ago, here on the list, I brought up\nthe inconsistencies in Severian's descriptions of the old Autarch's\nrobes.  Usually they are referred to as yellow, but in citadel they\nare saffron (check the archives for the specifics).  We discussed the\nsignificance of saffron robes in general but this discrepancy was\nstill never really explained to my satisfaction.  At one point I was\nconvinced that the inconsistencies were due to parallel universes that\nhappened to share some of the same reality space, but now that I have\na better understanding of the \"sliver Severians\" concept I'm less sure\nabout that.\n\nDan"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}