Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff

P W Stephenson · 03 Oct 1992, 16:35 · from sf-lovers.1992.mbox

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From: pws at castle.ed.ac.uk (P W Stephenson)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff
Date: 3 Oct 92 16:35:33 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v17-521-2 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V17 #521
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-17b

merritt at milton.u.washington.edu (Ethan Merritt) writes:
>Here's a question in return: at least one of the stories which Severian
>relates from his little brown book is recognizable - that of Theseus
>returning without changing his sails.  Can the other stories be matched up
>with tales we already know?

My head is seriously overloaded after reading this thread and I think I
need a lie down with a good book (it seems I'm going to have to dig out my
Fifth Head of Cerberus again), but I remember various of the stories rang
bells at the time. In particular, the one about anthropomorphic wolves
struck me as a mixture of the Romulus and Remus legend and the Jungle Book.
I can't remember why I recognised the latter.

Also, in a posting the last time this subject cropped up, I pointed out a
quotation (the only direct one I know about) from Marlowe's Faustus which I
believe he sees in the brown book: ``Hell hath no limits nor is
circumscribed...''  (I think it's that one, at least it's something
similar).

Also, I have a recollection of some story about a man sitting under a tree
which sounded extremely Buddhist.

In fact I think most of the stories carry a good helping of myths we know
about.  The story of the Armiger's daughter (I know it wasn't from the
brown book) certainly struck me as a classic piece of folklore, and I
should be glad to know if anyone recognised it.  That doesn't mean I can't
believe Wolfe invented it.

Of course, a lot of Severian's own experiences have mythological
counterparts: as in the second (chronologically, first for Severian)
meeting with Typhon where, like Christ, he is tempted by being shown all
the countries in the world (ish); as in the Tower of Master Ash which is
some counterpart of the tree Yggdrasil of the Norse myths.  It's almost as
if all the myths and actualities of the old Urth have mixed together and
produced the one-step-removed-from-reality feel of the novel sequence, just
as the surface of the planet is littered with the detritus of former
civilisations, and just as the very vocabulary is littered with resurrected
words... the way the themes all tie together never ceases to astound me.
No other writer I know has ever achieved the same effect.

``Almost nothing remains to be told...'' (Citadel, final chapter) - Pah!

Peter Stephenson     
Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
University of liverpool, U.K.
+44 51 794 3784
pws at s-a.amtp.liv.ac.uk
PWS at UKACRL.BITNET

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