Subject: more on time

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 23:08:49 +0000

Michael Andre-Druissi states

>But this isn't time travel: it is instantaneous travel across hundreds of
        light years of space. It is "real time" on Urth, just as it is on 
Blue.

        The Claw bends time in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, and Severian travels
        through time in URTH OF THE NEW SUN, yes. But Silkhorn's trip to Urth 
is
        not a form of time travel (except in the completely different sense 
that
        time has been negated from the time/space matrix, and the party 
astrally
        crosses vast space in zero time).

What I am saying is that it IS time travel and that Urth IS Blue (or rather, 
that Ushas is Blue) and that the new sun has melted the polar ice caps and 
caused the sea to be less salty, that the orbit of Lune (called "Green" by 
Hoof) has been altered, and that the vanished people are the remnants of a 
vegetable/human civilization.  (Hoof goes at great length to say that the 
differences in the ocean are its color from the sun and stars, its saltiness, 
and the closeness of "green".  All of these changes can be accounted for by 
the coming of the New Sun - I just can't figure out why that particular time 
is the one that draws Silk.  In addition, he says that the narrator's voice 
sounds as if it was spoken long ago in a place far away.  I don't think they 
travel anywhere - in addition, Juganu says that Inhumu are everywhere (and 
Jahlee casts suspicions on Merryn), whereas the narrator previously said that 
only three whorls needed to be considered when thinking of the inhumu.) The 
anchor that allows the travel to that particular point is unclear to me if 
Urth and Blue are one location (but I think it might be the Malrubius/Silk 
connection - would a cloned embryo have an affinity for the soul of another 
cloned embryo? Or perhaps it is close to the last time that Cillinia can be 
lain to rest by a human being, since humans can't normally survive underwater 
- I can't figure it out, but there are a lot of clues in that chapter that 
point to Urth being blue that I think would be imprudent to ignore).  There 
are too many weird bits of contiguity between the Blue of the new Short Sun 
whorl (like that big wall underwater that Seawrack talks about) for the 
possibility that the two planets are not the same to be dismissed out of hand.
 I fully understand that it SEEMS that they are two different planets in the 
same continuum and that the only reason Silk can go there is because Rigoglio 
wants to be home, but I think there is more going on with that.  Also, as I've 
said before, the narrator says the only return to the past is through dreams, 
talks of reaching through the past to grab a man with two heads in a dream, he 
talks about his astral travel as a dream, and the greater Scylla might be the 
same as the mother - in fact, Silk asks the greater Scylla about Seawrack, 
then seems to find Seawrack without consulting the Mother when he returns to 
Blue.
Hoof also talks about constructing a sea anchor at some length in chapter 17 
of Return to the Whorl.  An anchor keeps you in one place. My theory here 
touches on the idea that Blue and Urth do not exist at the same time, and the 
vast distance that separates the red sun whorl from Blue is one of time 
INSTEAD of space (except for the space that the planets have traveled through 
the universe in that great expanse of time).
Marc Aramini

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 23:57:36 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "maa32" <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
> the universe in that great expanse of time).

Do you know, I almost believe this.

It would be a parallel with Severian's time-warping experiences on The
Ship -

Wolfe obviously understands enough relativity to know that FTL travel and
time travel are the same thing.     The Ship, leaving this space-time
continuum for a higher one, returns to this one at an earlier time.

Moreover there is a long tradition in Catholic theology, going back to
Boethius, of God being "outside time"   (just another example of the fact
that the roots of modern physics are partly set in medaeval theology)

As Severian moves toward he nature of God he gains some of this ability, to
walk the corridors of time.

But if Blue is Ushas in very fact, why is the biology so different?

    Andy R

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 00:41:08 +0000

Marc Aramini,

Okay, so you must also think, therefore, that the Whorl made a big circular
trip, since it clearly left Urth and you think it has returned to Urth.
(Sorry I'm being so slow.)

We discussed such things on the list, years ago.  When the archives are
straightened out it will be easy to see.

I take back what I said before: it really would demolish your theory were
you to accept the premise that the star of Blue/Green is not Sol.

=mantis=

Sirius Fiction
booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
http://www.siriusfiction.com/

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kcleary at jb.man.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 12:57:41 +0000

Ahh, this takes me back. I'm afraid I too still nurse the
sickly Blue/Green=Urth/Lune hypothesis. Poor thing, but there's life in it
yet. 

If this idea is to have legs again, can anyone address the lack of support
in the text for lower gravity on Green, besides alarmingly tall trees?

Kieran C.

On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, maa32 wrote:

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