{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/836", "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": 836, "subject": "Book and Urth; A & M; black hole", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-19T16:58:56+00:00", "last": "1998-06-19T17:13:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "adam louis stephanides", "address": "astephan at students.uiuc.edu" }, "date": "1998-06-19T16:58:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Book and Urth; A & M; black hole", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Spectacled Bear wrote:\n5) My final question is one that probably only Wolfe can answer, though\nthe answer may be in some interview. We know that _Urth of the New Sun_\nwas not part of Wolfe's original intention, but was written as a\ncompromise with his editor." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I hadn't heard that. What happened?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I gave the citation earlier, but I'll quote what Wolfe says about it,\nbecause it's brief: \"David [Hartwell] felt that I should add one more\nparagraph saying, Okay, Severian went to the universe next door and\nborrowed the white hole and fixed the sun and everybody lived happily ever\nafter. I, on the other hand ... felt that a paragraph wasn't going to be\nenough.\" (Castle of Days, pp. 416-417) He goes on to say that they\nreached the compromise I quoted earlier." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You took the words right out of my mouth! It seems to me that any\npuzzles in BotNS ought to have answers in BotNS, subject only to\nmodification by things we find out later in UotNS." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OTOH, _Urth_ is evidence of Wolfe's intentions in writing BotNS, just as\ninterviews with Wolfe are (although neither of these sources are\ninfallible). So if we allow the interviews as evidence, as we usually do\non this list, we should allow _Urth_ as evidence also, even if we're only\ninterested in BotNS.\n\nAnd it seems clear to me that many puzzles in BotNS don't have answers in\nBotNS. For that matter, many of them don't have answers even in BotNS\nplus _Urth_, as far as I can tell (e. g. who is the extraterrestrial mind\nwhom the Cumaean contacts? Who lives on the other five continents of\nUrth? Who lives on Lune?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Final Ignorant Question: what is Texas A & M, please?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A university. The A & M stands for \"agricultural and mechanical.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Rostrum wrote:\nGetting back to Adam's comments, I'm reminded of Borges, who was very\ninterested in the idea of how our reading of a text changes because of\nwhat else we've read. (See especially \"Pierre Menard, Author of the\nQuixote\" and \"Kafka and his Precursors\"). I think Wolfe very\ndeliberately and successfully created with Exodus a book that almost\nrewrites the earlier books in the Long Sun series and am fascinated by how\ndifferent a re-reading of them is after finishing Exodus.\n\nReading this list has convinced me that what Wolfe has done with Urth does\nin fact make BotNS more interesting than my original reading, and I'm way\noverdue in re-reading BotNS, but I'm also still interested in BotNS as it\nstands without Urth. I'd be interested in alternate interpretations of\nevents in BotNS that Urth rules out. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This raises an interesting philosophical (and very Borgesian) question:\ncan the meaning of BotNS by itself be different from the meaning of BotNS\nas part of the five-volume \"Fictions of the New Sun\" (Peter Wright's\nuseful term, IIRC) including _Urth_? The answer is yes if we go by the\nasumption that the author's intention determines the meaning and if Wolfe\nhad in fact changed his mind about certain things between BotNS and\n_Urth_. It could also be yes, I think, even if Wolfe hadn't changed his\nmind, if we don't regard the author's intention as determinative. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it certain, for instance, in the\nfirst four books that Severian himself will one day become the\nConciliator?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would say there is no hint in the first four books that Severian\nwas/will become the Conciliator. But I could be wrong." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Are there any reviews or discussions of BotNS I could get my\nhands on that predate Urth? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "All the book review of the original volumes will of course predate _Urth_,\nand I'd assume some can be located in _Book Review Digest_ or _Book Review\nIndex_, if you have access to those; there are also some in _Foundation_,\nif you can get hold of that. The problem with such reviews is that by\ntheir nature they will only be based on a superficial reading of the\nbook(s). I believe Clute's essay in which he puts forth his controverial\ntheory about Sev's mother was written before _Urth_; I don't remember in\nwhich of Clute's books this essay was included." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A fascinating, but at best difficult exercise! Some might argue it is\nimpossible, that having read Urth, there are some possibilities we just\nwon't be able to see in BotNS anymore. I can't imagine, for instance,\npretending anymore that the Urth is so old that the Sun is dying of\nnatural causes, even though I read the whole series without catching on\nabout the black hole. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, that particular fact was established in BotNS, although it\ncertainly was easy to miss. The clearest evidence is in Dr. Talos's play:\nthe Prophet's description of the \"cancer\" at the old sun's heart is quite\nclearly a black hole, though he doesn't use the term.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Grimes", "address": "grimes at waste.org" }, "date": "1998-06-19T17:13:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Book and Urth; A & M; black hole", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, adam louis stephanides wrote:\nIs it certain, for instance, in the\nfirst four books that Severian himself will one day become the\nConciliator?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would say there is no hint in the first four books that Severian\nwas/will become the Conciliator. But I could be wrong." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course I'm citation-less here, but I think that you are wrong. IIRC,\nthere are at least a few clues vaguely scattered throughout BotNS that\nSeverian maybe, just maybe is the Conciliator. The most obvious is the\nfact that the we discover that his powers don't come from the Claw of the\nConciliator but from himself. These powers (healing people) are the same\nas those attributed to the Conciliator. In addition, the Conciliator is\nalso referred to as the New Sun. We are certainly led to believe that\nSeverian will bring the New Sun, which is another link.\n\nI think there may be other clues but I couldn't say off hand.\n\nAnd of course, all this is much more \"obvious\" (as much as anything by\nWolfe is obvious) after reading UotNS because you're suddenly looking for\nclues (and possibly finding ones that aren't really there).\n\n\n-Dave" } ] } ] }