Close Reading: Torturer Chapter I

Rex Lycanthrosaurus · 05 Sep 2006, 18:03 · from 2006-September.txt.gz

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From: lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm (Rex Lycanthrosaurus)
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:03:55 -0500
Subject: (urth) Close Reading: Torturer Chapter I
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-F38D710216103115EAE262D7300 at phx.gbl>
References: <BAY103-F38D710216103115EAE262D7300 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <1157479435.29824.270184413 at webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:00:34 -0400, "b sharp" <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
said:

> Thecla's corpse may have been preserved with ice in a cave, but being 
> summer, I think the dead woman in the pale gown was eaten rather quickly 
> (Thea and Hildegrin are both concerned about her freshness, ack!).  So I 
> think the time span between ghoul meals was about 6 months.
> 
> Is there counter-evidence for years passing that I am missing?

"...in the year I am recounting, the year of the fight by the graveside,
Drotte and Roche were elevated, leaving me captain of the apprentices."
(I, Chapter V)

Elevation takes place on the Feast of Holy Katharine, which is at least
one half year away. ("The day of our patroness falls in the fading of
winter.")

Severian is not elevated to journeyman for *at least another year,* and
given all the duties he must master as captain as apprentices, it may
actually be two or three.

Severian is elevated at least a year-and-a-half after the graveyard
encounter with Vodalus, and then, after he aids in Thecla's suicide, is
exiled after ten days in the stir, whence commence the main events of
Vol.1: his encounters with Agia, Hildegrin, Baldanders, Dorcas, the
manomachy, the execution of Agilus, etc. Plus there's the time it takes
him to walk to Saltus before he's finally kidnapped by Vodalus and where
in his journey to the rebel encampment he comments about how "the
familiarity of this place...recalls to me many summer days in our
Citadel." 

So at a very minimum two years have gone by, and it could be as many as
three or four.
-- 
  Rex Lycanthrosaurus
  lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm

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