started my second read of New Sun

Fred Kiesche · 05 May 2010, 16:06 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: godelescherbach at gmail.com (Fred Kiesche)
Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 12:06:59 -0400
Subject: (urth) started my second read of New Sun
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Doing a re-read as well, but have not gotten as far as you. Only reading a
chapter a night, and if it has been a bad day or the joints are aching too
much, I may not get through a whole chapter.

(1) I interpreted this to mean as you say, Sev is saying he is a follower.
It is a bit jarring at this point, as you don't have much backstory and it
seems like he makes it up on the spot.

(2) Not necessarily. Sev found Triskele during winter. Wounded, the cold
could have both slowed the bleeding and slowed the life processes. Cleaning
and warming Triskele might have saved the dog. And he got to put his
"surgical skills" (learned as a apprentice torturer) to some good use.

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Cliff Judge <transentient at gmail.com> wrote:

> Forgive me for, inevitably I am sure, rehashing things that were probably
> well-hashed on this list before the millenium. I've done my searching. A lot
> of these points feel familiar but I haven't found the threads that talk
> about them.
>
> 1) Sev introduces himself to Vodalus, and there is a sentence that would
> make sense if spoken by Vodalus ("I am a Vodalarii..." etc) but is in the
> same paragraph as Severian's utterance. Is Severian introducing himself to
> Vodalus as a follower of Vodalus?
>
> 2) Severian actually brings Triskele back to life the first time they meet,
> doesn't he?
>
> 3) Is the House Azure actually part of the House Absolute? Something about
> the way that the Thecla khaibit talks about being amused by clients who say
> they have been to the House Absolute, seems like she could mean "They
> believe they are lying, when in reality, they are in the House Absolute
> right here in this room." I am given to wonder if Severian's descriptions of
> the fake columns and the cheap cloth the Thecla khaibit wears are not
> factual, he is either just lying to us or he is seeing what he has to
> believe. Also, the khaibit claiming to be brought to the House Azure on a
> carriage, and Severian going "oh, really she must have walked here through
> the snow, the carriage is a lie to make her seem like more than she is"
> seems funny if you assume that she probably hasn't gone anywhere at all,
> that the House Azure is a storefront in Nessus and has a mirror to the
> Autarch's actual harem. The illusion lowers the reality, rather than raises
> it. I think there is a lot of that going on in this chapter - I think the
> clincher is when the khaibits says that she is just as truly Thecla as the
> Thecla Severian carries in his mind.
>
> 4) What might have actually been going on during the ceremony at the Feast
> of Holy Katharine? Did he actually behead the woman and then resurrect her?
> Masters Gurloes and Paleamon and the maid herself - who if I recall
> correctly may have been Severian's mother - must have been in on it
> basically...which would mean they all knew he was likely the bringer of the
> New Sun and had the whole thing planned out as a test. And the Autarch was
> probably involved. I found Sev's comment that he was tired after the
> ceremonial beheading to be interesting, I will need to watch carefully for
> him seeming like he has exerted himself when exercising his godly powers.
>
> 5) The theory that he killed her and resurrected her also makes some sense
> when, extremely hung over to the extent that it might not just be alchohol
> later - he has a visitation by a Malrubius eidolon, as well as Triskele.
>
> 6) Then there is that lingering scent of perfume he detects in his cabin.
> He says "the Thecla khaibits had been by to visit." But it seems that this
> might have been a convenient time for Thecla to have visited his bed. The
> very next day she was to be excruciated...but perhaps that was part of her
> excrutiations? Perhaps Thecla was involved in the whole "plot" to catalyze
> Severian's exegesis as the Conciliator?
>
> Anyway it's all very interesting on second read. I did not expect so much
> to jump out at me after having not picked the books up in 6 years.
>
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-- 
F.P. Kiesche III  "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always,
scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being
presented with Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.)
Blogging at The Lensman's Children (
http://theeternalgoldenbraid.blogspot.com/).
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