Father Inire

Roy C. Lackey · 25 May 2006, 19:39 · from 2006-May.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:39:03 -0500
Subject: (urth) Father Inire
Message-ID: <003201c68032$f03d30e0$4b3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

bsharp wrote:
>4. Rudesind-  He is old and bent. We don't know how tall he is because he
is
>usually on a ladder. He inhabits Father Inire's portion of the House
>Absolute and is familiar enough with the Secret House
>to trick Severian into falling into it and to move easily from The Citadel
>to the House Absolute.  He carries the letter of Father Inire to Severian.

I could object that Inire said in the letter that he would not reach the
Citadel for two more days, but you could counter by asking how the letter
reached the Citadel in  the first place.

>An even more serious objection might be noting that, leaving the Samru,
>Severian sees Dorcas with her dead husband and then later sees Rudesind in
>the Citadel.  Well, there are some very strange things about that Dorcas
>scene.

I've said so myself. See, iirc, "Dear Dorcas" in the older archive.

> Severian goes to shore because he sees a flower in a  little boat,
>newly built, at an ancient pier.  He finds her kneeling "the body of the
old
>man who had poled the skiff there lay on a bier before her, his back so
>straight, his face, in death, so  youthful, that I hardly knew him".
>
>Can we be sure it IS the old man from the skiff? Why would he look so much
>younger in death?

Severian thought people asleep looked younger than when awake -- Jonas being
an exception.

>Could Severian be once again mistaken about who a family
>member really is?  Again, I think Severian's family tree may need major
>revamping.

If the body was not that of the dead Boatman, whose body was it? Surely not
Inire, who remained with Severian all ten years of his autarchy. Severian
saw both the dead Boatman and Rudesind just days apart. How could he look on
them both and not see any resemblance, if there was one? Masks? And he
couldn't tell there were masks involved, even after ten years of being
around both Inire and the three Hierodules?

-Roy

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