Hut in the Jungle

Jerry Friedman · 18 Mar 2009, 23:23 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:23:09 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
In-Reply-To: <W10492624133851237411625@webmail6>
Message-ID: <44901.31443.qm at web50711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

--- On Wed, 3/18/09, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
> >>> I understand that it serves to show us that
> one can time travel,
> >>>without knowing it, by merely walking through
> certain spaces that
> >>> are somehow set up for this. This makes that
> very clear. Robert
> >>> mentions Paris, and we see a propeller plane,
> it's a window into
> >>> Urth's past as Earth.
> >
> >>Are we sure it's the past?
> 
> 
> I am.
> it seems abundantly clear, and even GW's translator
> note says as much.
> I dismiss outright the suggestion that GW may not = Gene
> Wolfe.

I should remind you of this quotation from James Jordan's
interview with that same person, whoever he is (or maybe I
shouldn't, because I'd like to forget it):

"JJ: This universe that you set in Briah, or part of it--is that our universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints have set up in the world to come as part of the cities that they made?

"GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are repeating rather than something that we are."

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html

How "the era's few extant buildings" fits into that I can't
imagine.  But if Severian's universe is like ours with small
differences, it would explain the odd dislocations--"Isangoma"
and "tokoloshe" from South Africa but "uakari" and "margay"
from South America and "hesperorn" (Cretaceous) and
"oreodont" (Oligocene and Miocene) from North America, and the
slightly off translation from the Bible.  On the other hand,
Agia's claim that the people in the hut are enchanted people
of her time would also explain it if the enchantment didn't
create a perfect imitation.

Jerry Friedman

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