Questions . . .

Eric Ortlund · 27 Nov 2007, 17:48 · from 2007-November.txt.gz

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From: eortlund at briercrest.ca (Eric Ortlund)
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:48:40 -0600
Subject: (urth) Questions . . .
In-Reply-To: <20071127122737.22F46DA826 at mailserver8.hushmail.com>
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Message-ID: <4E82554550FE5149AD4B30A4FEA22492AF8DA3 at xchange.briercrest.ca>

Wow, nice answer.  I had never thought of it that way.  

Wolfe must plan these books out unto the nth degree.  As I remember, the
issue of humans sailing out into space and getting lost in time isn't
explicitly discussed until Gunnie talks about it in Urth of the NS -
which Wolfe wrote years later.  But he had it all planned out. 

-----Original Message-----
From: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net]
On Behalf Of thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 6:28 AM
To: The Urth Mailing List
Subject: Re: (urth) Questions . . . [mx][spf]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:42:17 +1100 Eric Ortlund <eortlund at briercrest.ca>
wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>
>Forgive me again if I'm repeating old questions, but perhaps some of 
>you can help with the following . . .
>
>1) What is the larger significance of the story Sev reads to Jonas

>about
>the man fleshed from dreams?  I get that it's a re-working of the 
>Theseus and Minotaur story, but is it anything more than an 
>entertaining interlude?  Is it some kind of commentary on the 
>surrounding narrative - or Jonas' story?  Severian finishes the story 
>with a dismissive comment about it being an idle tale, but I'm 
>suspicious something more is going on here.

I think this fable might be partly a conflation of the Theseus myth with
a story which is in fact Jonas' own. 

Something like this: The enclave of magicians is a research institute;
the magical son is a robot; the story is perhaps a dim remembrance of a
time when Abaia or his ilk began to oppress or threaten Urth, and
humanity launched missions into space against them, crewed by robots.
Jonas' voyage was one of those missions. 

The rather abrupt return-to-Athens-ending is perhaps a hint that, in
fact, none of these missions ever returned, or not for aeons - the
"Fortunate Cloud" was lost in the Coal Sack or whatever, and the story
of the "victory" is really just a piece of wish fulfilment.

I imagine it would have been quite poignant for Jonas, hearing his story
conflated with a (to him) ancient myth - his past lost in deep time etc
etc. 

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