Questions . . .

Pedro Pereira · 27 Nov 2007, 18:11 · from 2007-November.txt.gz

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From: domus_artemis at hotmail.com (Pedro Pereira)
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:11:28 +0200
Subject: (urth) Questions . . .
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	<4E82554550FE5149AD4B30A4FEA22492AF8DA3 at xchange.briercrest.ca>
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I'm not so sure that he "had it all planned out".
 
If you read Wolfe's interviews its perfectely clear that he did not plan out the whole Book from the start. It began as a short story that eventually grew out into 4 volumes. He must have changed details a ton of times, going back and forth untill the books got their final form. Even the theatrhical play in the House Absolute was added as filler when Wolfe realized that the 3rd book was significantly larger than the other two and he decided that he needed 4...
 
As for the the time travel in Urth of the New Sun I'm sure he had some ideas when he wrote the Book, but I doubt he had much of it in his head. Wolfe has said that he wrote Urth because his editor asked it and that he had no plans to write it at all.
 
My opinion is that the stuff in his books are certainly interconnected to the extreme, but I doubt everything has been planed from the very begining.> From: eortlund at briercrest.ca> To: urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:48:40 -0600> Subject: Re: (urth) Questions . . .> > 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. > > > > _______________________________________________> Urth Mailing List> To post, write urth at urth.net> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net> > -------------------------> Invite the next generation of students to consider Briercrest College and Seminary. Visit www.briercrest.ca/refer. > -------------------------> This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged proprietary material for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, or distribution or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, or authorized to receive the information from the recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and delete all copies of this message.> _______________________________________________> Urth Mailing List> To post, write urth at urth.net> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
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