flying ship

Jeff Wilson · 04 Dec 2007, 04:57 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:57:44 -0600
Subject: (urth) flying ship
In-Reply-To: <9a33123d0712031404n283ba9e1u768139e1e5193a58 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <9a33123d0712031404n283ba9e1u768139e1e5193a58 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4754DE48.8060100 at io.com>

Tony Ellis wrote:
> hartshorn wrote:
> 
>> matthew at calmeilles.co.uk writes:
> 
>>> What are people thinking when it says "fountain" here?  An heraldic
> fountain is a bit odd.
> 
>> The reference is surely to the Vatic fountain in the House Absolute (in
>> which a ship appears when S casts in a coin) So I asssume it's that type of
>> fountain.
> 
> 
> The reference is surely to the White Fountain, that being the great
> achievement of Severian's life and everything. :-)
> 
> I don't know what it looks like but as with the flying ship I don't
> think it matters. It's what it symbolises that's significant.

However, a symbol has to be recognized and properly identified in order 
to convey the intended meaning. I suppose the symbolism could be 
intended solely for the reader and have no valid context in the 
fictional setting but I think most of his readers would agree Wolfe is a 
bit more careful than that.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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