Appearances of Inire

David Stockhoff · 28 Jun 2010, 21:52 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:52:41 -0400
Subject: (urth) Appearances of Inire
In-Reply-To: <61E50C31-27CD-484F-8480-645329555113 at liftingfaces.com>
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Message-ID: <4C2919A9.5040206 at verizon.net>

Surely sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.

It is at very least a theme. We certainly do need to note any time 
"monkey" is used to describe a character. It may be Typhonian, it may be 
a trickster. Typhon himself is a bit of a trickster. And Severian is 
certainly in a kind of bubble. But Palaemon? Isn't he almost blind?

Also, recall that exultants are very tall and long-limbed. I assume that 
Inire, who is after all not really human, would have a monkey 
face---that that is what is meant by that description. Limbs alone may 
not be enough. Is he red-haired?

Does anyone know whether exultants have simply retained our unnatural 
21st century height while everyone else shrank with the new ice age, or 
exultants were actually made taller by breeding or other means? There is 
a detailed discussion of exultant families and their dwindling---this 
suggests to me a dying race of world-rulers, not a created class of 
freaks. Are any units of measurement or comparisons used that could tell us?

Ryan Dunn wrote:
> On Jun 28, 2010, at 4:28 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
>
>> Why limit Inire to male characters? If he can be a fraking robot 
>> (Ossipago)
>> and monkey his way up Agia's family tree (which, according to some, makes
>> him related to Severian), and be both dead characters (Boatman, 
>> Maxellindis'
>> uncle) and living ones, a change of gender is no obstacle. And since
>> Severian only screws his relatives, by logical extension "All You 
>> Zombies"
>> is us and we are Inire, but we are not alone.
>
> I wouldn't count any of this theorizing as a conspiracy theory, if 
> that is what you're implying here.
>
> The idea of a boy in a bubble is very plausible, and could be the 
> context for this entire story. How many side-stories involving plays, 
> puppets or other theatrics are here in the text to serve as beacons?
>
> Father Inire clearly described as monkeylike...
>
> /"More fantastic still were the tales of his vizier, the famous Father 
> Inire, who looked like a monkey and was the oldest man in the world."
> (SotT)/
>
> An old, monkeylike man pointing Severian on his way...
>
> /"When I admitted I did not, he scrambled down from the ladder like an 
> aged monkey, seeming all arms and legs and wrinkled neck; his hands 
> were as long as my feet, the crooked fingers laced with blue veins."
> (SotT)/
>
> A painting of a painter who looks monkeylike, with red-hair...
>
> /"He was the worst of us all, that Fechin. A tall, wild boy with red 
> hair on his hands, on his arms. Like a monkey's arms, so that if you 
> saw them reaching around the corner to take something, you'd think, 
> except for the size, that it was a monkey taking it."
> (SotL)/
>
>
> Oh, and here's a red-bearded monkey spying on Severian, because why 
> not? We never see Inire with his socks off, after all...
>
> /"Birds unknown to me called overhead, and once a monkey who might, 
> save for his four hands, have been a wizened, red-bearded man in fur, 
> spied on me from a fork as high as a spire."
> (CotC)/
> /
> /
> Those are just a few I pulled. The crissing and crossing of things in 
> the book is impossible to ignore, however over the top it may seem. No?
>
> ...ryan
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