Thecla's fourth book

Roy C. Lackey · 30 Sep 2006, 06:16 · from 2006-September.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 01:16:32 -0500
Subject: (urth) Thecla's fourth book
Message-ID: <000c01c6e457$fd6e74c0$553ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

b sharp, a few weeks ago, wrote:
>>He [Talos] seems to understand Urth to Ushas better than anyone else. How
does he know about the woman on the Path of Air?<<

Talos's play bears only a superficial resemblance to the actual events
related in URTH concerning the end of Urth.

Logically, there is no way that Talos could have known about her. I think
this is one of those situations where the sequel to NEW SUN doesn't mesh
perfectly with the original tetralogy. We all know that when Wolfe wrote NEW
SUN he didn't plan on writing URTH. It seems to me that once the decision to
write Book 5 was made, Wolfe was forced to flesh out to some degree what was
present only skeletally in his mind. I think he found it necessary to make
some changes to his original concept.

One place where this is evident is the last line of CITADEL. Severian, just
before leaving Urth for Yesod, wrote that he was writing in what would be
"the last year of the old sun." That turned out not to be true. For whatever
reason, in URTH Wolfe made life go on on Urth for another forty years before
the coming of the New Sun and the flood.

Another change seems to concern the author of one of the four books Thecla
requested from the library, the book we are told the least about. That book
is never named in NEW SUN, but it is named in the last paragraph of the
essay "Books in _The Book of the New Sun_" in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING. It is
_The Book of the New Sun_. That essay concludes: "For the library of Master
Ultan is in _The Book of the New Sun_, and _The Book of the New Sun_ is in
his library. And you are the readers of that book."

Not really. That essay was written in 1984, after the publication of NEW SUN
but before URTH was written. Evidently Wolfe found reason to change his
mind. A paradox doesn't bother Wolfe, judging from the flippant definition
of the word he gave in OTTER, but maybe he had second thoughts about Thecla
(and Severian) reading and studying a book that had not yet been written,
Severian's own _The Book of the New Sun_. Ultan and his library are indeed
in Severian's book -- but so are the chapters dealing with Thecla sitting in
a cell studying that book, which also relates her torture and death and
Severian's complicity in same. The book also affords Severian a blueprint of
his near future. We have been "the readers of that book."

Whatever Wolfe's motive, in URTH he created a new character who is the
author of a second book with the same title as Severian's original book.
After being sent from Yesod to Typhon's era to establish the Conciliator
legend, Severian entertained some of his followers in his cell:

"Declan wished to know how Urth would fare when the
New Sun came; and I, understanding little more than he
did himself, drew upon Dr. Talos's play, never thinking
that in a time yet to come Dr. Talos's play would be drawn
from my words." (URTH, 266)

Canog, in the next cell, overheard this speech, took notes and eventually
wrote a little book he called _The Book of the New Sun_. That is the book of
that title that Thecla read in her cell. Neither Ultan nor his library were
mentioned in Severian's little sermon. They were not mentioned in Canog's
book. None of us have read that book and I don't expect we ever will.

Many centuries later, Talos read Canog's book and based his play on it. We
have a closed circle of causality in which none of the three men involved
were the original source, each citing one of the others as his source.
Severian's words were based on Talos's play; the play was based on Canog's
book and the book was based on Severian's words.

And the mysterious woman on the Path of Air was outside that loop. Severian
saw her only after returning from Typhon's era to his own on the last day of
Urth. She wasn't in either Severian's or Canog's _The Book of the New Sun_.

Wolfe could easily have avoided this situation by simply omitting the Path
of Air scene in URTH. After all, there is a lot of other nonsense in the
play that does not correspond to what actually happened just before the
arrival of the New Sun. I'm missing something here.

-Roy

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