Corundum of the Claw

David Stockhoff · 22 Jun 2010, 22:19 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:19:58 -0400
Subject: (urth) Corundum of the Claw
In-Reply-To: <b33fe4d2bcdec9a0027f07456dc226fa.squirrel at email.fatcow.com>
References: <b33fe4d2bcdec9a0027f07456dc226fa.squirrel at email.fatcow.com>
Message-ID: <4C21370E.4080200 at verizon.net>

That's a great quote. Very suggestive. One wonders if Wolfe felt 
anything like this during his conversion to Catholicism.

Son of Witz wrote:
> One of the unanswered questions about The Claw of the Conciliator is "How
> did the thorn become encapsulated in corundum?"
>
> Nothing I've found in the books gives us a clue to a plot based answer,
> but I think I've come to understand the symbolism and why it is there.
>
> The corundum represents the accumulated body of Myth and Legend that has
> grown around this artifact of the Conciliator.  It's reality is only dimly
> apprehended through this crystal, as even the Pelerines thought that this
> was "only a flaw at the heart of the jewel", and our man of science,
> Baldanders thought the claw was "Nothing. a fragment of corundum."  All
> either really see is the myth, not the reality.  Baldanders is closer to
> the truth perhaps, because his act destroys the crystal enclosure and
> exposes the naked thorn, just as he know Severian will be the New Sun, and
> not just it's herald.  The moment Severian holds the thorn is the moment
> that he is truly on his path to becoming the New Sun.  Severian doesn't
> know it yet. Of course, but he has broken all of his false allegiances at
> this point.
>
> after the Crystal is broken, Severian understands it's ( now missing )
> light as "the only light we had."  He finds the shards, and gives them to
> the see, literally burying the myth.  After the myth is disposed of, he
> finds the real Claw, the thorn, and he waxes philosophical:
>
> "Whenever I looked at it, it seemed to erase thought. Not as wine and
> certain drugs do, by rendering the mind unfit for it, but by replacing it
> with a higher state for which I know no name. Again and again I felt
> myself enter this state, rising always higher until I feared I should
> never return to the mode of consciousness I call normality; and again and
> again I tore myself from it. Each time I emerged, I felt I had gained some
> inexpressible insight into immense realities. At last, after a long series
> of these bold advances and fearful retreats, I came to understand that I
> should never reach any real knowledge of the tiny thing I held, and with
> that thought (for it was a thought) came a third state, one of happy
> obedience to I knew not what, an obedience without reflection because
> there was no longer anything to reflect upon, and without the least
> tincture of rebellion."
>
> There, at the end you have it. He has a happy obedience without the least
> tincture of rebellion. He has been put through his tests, and now he is
> taking up the mantle.
>
>
> Somewhere it dawned on me that what Wolfe does, at least as far as I've
> read is to write the memoirs of exceptional, legendary characters who
> don't know that they are exceptional.  Having only read the Suns, the
> Soldiers and the Wizard Knight, this seems to hold up.
>
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