{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/870", "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": 870, "subject": "Severian = Conciliator hint in BOTNS", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-06-28T17:46:16+00:00", "last": "1998-06-30T16:05:19+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Rabin", "address": "danrabin at a.crl.com" }, "date": "1998-06-28T17:46:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Severian = Conciliator hint in BOTNS", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We have recently been discussing whether the identity of Severian, the New\nSun, and the Conciliator is deducible from _The Book of the New Sun_.\n\nI offer the following citations:\n\n_Citadel_, X, end of chapter:\n\nAs Ava prays, Severian remarks:\n\n``I, knowing no prayers, spoke without sound to someone who seemed at times\nwithin me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''\n\n_Citadel_, XIV, 8th and 9th paragraphs:\n\nSeverian prays (just before affixing the Claw to the altar of the Pelerines\nin the lazaret), and describes the experience thus:\n\n``... I remained conscious of my kneeling body, but only as a peripheral\nburden. My mind was among the starry wastes, far from Urth and indeed far\nfrom Urth's archipelago of island worlds, and it seemed to me that that to\nwhich I spoke was farther still--I had come, as it were, to the walls of\nthe universe, and now shouted through the walls to one who waited outside.\n\n `Shouted,' I said, but perhaps that is the wrong word\n[...]\nI asked only that I might lead myself; and as I did so, I seemed to see,\nwith a vision increasingly clear, through the chink in the universe to a\nnew universe bathed in golden light, where my listener knelt to hear me.\nWhat had seemed a crevice in the world had expanded until I could see a\nface and folded hands, and the opening, like a tunnel, running deep into a\nhuman head that for a time seemed larger than the head of Typhon carved\nupon the mountain. I was whispering into my own ear, and when I realized\nit I flew into it like a bee and stood up.''\n\nThe latter passage is a personal favorite. I tend to skip the hard parts\non first reading, and it seems like a typical Wolfean paradox on light\nreading, like the Botanical Gardens transcending space and time. The first\ntime I read it after reading _The Urth of the New Sun_, of course, it hit\nme like a bolt of lightning (and a breath of air from Yesod).\n\nThe bit about locating his consciousness in a remote location is clearly\nthe same as the portrayal in _Urth_. The second paragraph contains a sort\nof Enlightenment, granted in response to the humility of Severian's\npetition. And it's all hidden in this reflective moment before the plot\nresumes.\n\n -- Dan Rabin" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-06-30T09:30:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Severian = Conciliator hint in BOTNS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, 28 Jun 1998, Dan Rabin wrote:\nWe have recently been discussing whether the identity of Severian, the New\nSun, and the Conciliator is deducible from _The Book of the New Sun_." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "``I, knowing no prayers, spoke without sound to someone who seemed at times\nwithin me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think this bit says much about Severian's identity. It sounds to\nme like the way many people might describe their experience of prayer, but\nfew if any would mean by it that they are themselves Jesus. It seems to\nme more an expression of the paradox of God's immanence and transcendence." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "``... I remained conscious of my kneeling body, but only as a peripheral\nburden. My mind was among the starry wastes, far from Urth and indeed far\nfrom Urth's archipelago of island worlds, and it seemed to me that that to\nwhich I spoke was farther still--I had come, as it were, to the walls of\nthe universe, and now shouted through the walls to one who waited outside.\n\n `Shouted,' I said, but perhaps that is the wrong word\n[...]\nI asked only that I might lead myself; and as I did so, I seemed to see,\nwith a vision increasingly clear, through the chink in the universe to a\nnew universe bathed in golden light, where my listener knelt to hear me.\nWhat had seemed a crevice in the world had expanded until I could see a\nface and folded hands, and the opening, like a tunnel, running deep into a\nhuman head that for a time seemed larger than the head of Typhon carved\nupon the mountain. I was whispering into my own ear, and when I realized\nit I flew into it like a bee and stood up.''" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This part takes on lots of significance in retrospect having read Urth,\nbut again, I can think of several ways to interpret it other than\n\"Severian will leave the universe, become the New Sun, then go back in\ntime to become the Concilator.\" I think alga would have labeled that \"fan\nfiction\" back before Urth came out. \n\nSo far, the parallelism of the titles seems like the most concrete clue to\nSeverian's destiny. But even with that, I can see imagining that the\ntitle of CLAW refers to Severian following in the footsteps of the\nConciliator, doing deeds like his, rather than thinking Severian would\neventually go back and be the Conciliator. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-06-30T16:05:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: Re: (urth) Severian = Conciliator hint in BOTNS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Rostrum wrote: \nSo far, the parallelism of the titles seems like the most concrete clue to\nSeverian's destiny. But even with that, I can see imagining that the\ntitle of CLAW refers to Severian following in the footsteps of the\nConciliator, doing deeds like his, rather than thinking Severian would\neventually go back and be the Conciliator. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can clearly remember appreciating that Severian was both Conciliator\nand New Sun long before URTH was even published. For me, all the\nconclusive evidence was in the chapter entitled \"The Key to the\nUniverse\", which effectively says that in the future Severian \"already\nhas\" brought the New Sun, and that he will acquire the power to walk the\ncorridors of time.\n\nIt may have helped that I have never distinguished between New Sun and\nConciliator. For me they were always two different names for the same\nthing: the Conciliator was the New Sun in the past, the New Sun was the\nConciliator come again." } ] } ] }