Questions about Book of the New Sun The Usenet list — 6 messages, 6 voices, 09 Sep 2004 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/usenet/60 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. ============================================================================== j_mckitrick — 09 Sep 2004, 01:46 Hi all, I have been working my way through this book and loving it, but I'm starting to get confused. I just started Sword and Citadel. 1. I don't get the vision Severian had on the roof with the witches. 2. Why does he leave Thrax? 3. When is all of this stuff going to come together? 4. How are we to tell that he lies during his narrative? Why would he do so? Thanks. I am loving the book, but it's even tougher to follow than Hyperion. jonathon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MPorcius — 09 Sep 2004, 16:01 in reply to j_mckitrick My advice is to just go with the flow, lots of stuff will be made more clear later on, some other stuff won't. I found reading _Book of the New Sun_ to be a "project," like reading _In Search of Lost Time_, but like Proust, a project that rewarded my efforts. I have only read _Book of the New Sun_ once, but I suspect it is very profitable to reread it, again like Proust, several volumes of which I enjoyed more the second time around. And don't be afraid to consult the Oxford English Dictionary or google or something for those archaic words; I found this helpful at times. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fish! (mmm Thecla) — 09 Sep 2004, 23:26 in reply to MPorcius > My advice is to just go with the flow, lots of stuff will be made more clear > later on, some other stuff won't. I found reading _Book of the New Sun_ to be > a "project," like reading _In Search of Lost Time_, but like Proust, a project > that rewarded my efforts. I have only read _Book of the New Sun_ once, but I > suspect it is very profitable to reread it, again like Proust, several volumes > of which I enjoyed more the second time around. And don't be afraid to consult > the Oxford English Dictionary or google or something for those archaic words; I > found this helpful at times. Make sure you read Urth of the New Sun when you've finished with the BotNS series. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mike Ward — 11 Sep 2004, 14:48 in reply to Fish! (mmm Thecla) > > My advice is to just go with the flow, lots of stuff will be made > > more clear later on, some other stuff won't. I found reading _Book > > of the New Sun_ to be a "project," like reading _In Search of Lost > > Time_, but like Proust, a project that rewarded my efforts. I have > > only read _Book of the New Sun_ once, but I suspect it is very > > profitable to reread it, again like Proust, several volumes of which > > I enjoyed more the second time around. And don't be afraid to > > consult the Oxford English Dictionary or google or something for > > those archaic words; I found this helpful at times. > Make sure you read Urth of the New Sun when you've finished with the > BotNS series. Is it really neccessary. I didn't think it was nearly as good and found it unneccessary. And since I've read it I've almost forgot everything that happened in it even though I remember _The Book of the New Sun_ fine. Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GSV Three Minds in a Can — 17 Sep 2004, 18:40 in reply to Mike Ward > From what I've heard, it really explains a LOT of what happened. I'm > waiting for mine to arrive in the mail. Didn't you find you were left > with a lot of questions at the end of BOTNS? Yeah like "Why did I bother to read all the volumes" and "How come Wolfe's dictionary has got more words in than mine, I'm using the Shorter Oxford already, fer crisakes" and "What was this doing in the Science Fiction section"... 8>. -- GSV Three Minds in a Can Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ David Bilek — 17 Sep 2004, 19:05 in reply to GSV Three Minds in a Can > GSV Three Minds in a Can wrote: > > From what I've heard, it really explains a LOT of what happened. I'm > waiting for mine to arrive in the mail. Didn't you find you were left > with a lot of questions at the end of BOTNS? > > Yeah like > > "Why did I bother to read all the volumes" and Because it's perhaps the most seminal work of literary Science Fiction ever written. > "How come Wolfe's dictionary has got more words in than mine, I'm using > the Shorter Oxford already, fer crisakes" and He's a bright, literate guy. Use the full Oxford! > "What was this doing in the Science Fiction section"... It's set in the far future and involves things like spaceships, time travel, and lasers? -David ------------------------------------------------------------------------------