The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

Jeff Wilson · 05 Jul 2010, 18:48 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:48:36 -0500
Subject: (urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned
	by	Rudesind
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimwQFMeQ4QDEfEILxLYshCSePLsR3AkQbbp1gMB at mail.gmail.com>
References: <SNT123-W186492E2214C7539E99F09CFCA0 at phx.gbl>	<1a4c459d00e6bfae603d8d424a281478.squirrel at brunians.org>	<AANLkTikWDg_uCKgdT-_tCOkhsPUxytED0Oe7IC2RRFeT at mail.gmail.com>	<64a5f0ccd7ad8135cc880d55f01d35d7.squirrel at brunians.org>	<4C2CC5FB.4090304 at gmail.com>	<65fa45fb235122f7a2217875a2e6addb.squirrel at brunians.org>	<A9A0AEF3-B283-4660-98BA-9E3700100817 at liftingfaces.com>	<4C2D4AA7.90707 at verizon.net>	<b911e4d19bf4a5c6e18f6b7978a18f34.squirrel at brunians.org>	<80e082d548cd62953cc58ba97ddefc59.squirrel at brunians.org>	<4C2D5339.7040508 at verizon.net>
	<4C2D6FF2.4000805 at io.com>	<4C2DEFD0.7010805 at verizon.net>
	<4C2DFD00.3050609 at gmail.com>	<4C2E0B7B.7000605 at io.com>	<01BB0BF4-8BD7-4C77-AA5E-AE5FFF6CC376 at liftingfaces.com>	<4C2F74A2.5030603 at verizon.net>	<36FDC05E-F757-4387-91C3-3CFDAC74B52D at liftingfaces.com>	<4C30E3AA.2000906 at gmail.com>	<D9C89CCE-AA5C-40B7-9603-B3E7A8123CAD at liftingfaces.com>
	<AANLkTimwQFMeQ4QDEfEILxLYshCSePLsR3AkQbbp1gMB at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C322904.6090202 at io.com>

On 7/5/2010 12:43 AM, Eugene Zaretskiy wrote:
> Saying that it proves Inire is guiding
> Severian seems ridiculous to me (and perhaps only me) since Rudesind's
> directions could have been obtained from anyone, and if Inire wanted
> to guide Severian in meaningful ways, there were many other, better
> opportunities to have done so. Why search for masks for the sake of
> masks?

There is a very strong mask motif in the BOTNS, so of course we look for 
a theme of multiple or at least dual identities that would be built or 
established with that motif. It's not the only theme that a mask motif 
could support, but others like a protective shell theme don't seem to 
apply - a couple of the earliest images in the book are the collapsed 
curtain wall and Eata slipping past the guards at the gate, if anything 
the BOTNS is about transgressing barriers....which disguises help you do 
as well.

And on his first appearance, Rudesind delivers directions that are *not* 
available from anyone, in fact the armigers deliberately misguide him 
and Rudesind literally sets him on the correct path. This is not the 
only path, as Rudesind admits the other way might let him make it to 
Ultan's study after more hours of walking. However, the directions given 
in his second appearance in the more dangerous proximity of the House 
Absolute are much more crucial.

Or is Rudesind's second appearance rather Inire's first appearance? I 
wasn't kidding about Rudesind being Father Inire's body double; it would 
be very handy to have an alter ego who *can* be in the same room with 
you at the same time, and the irony of a senile old man calling 
thousand-year-old Inire old and senile and fumblind with a cover story 
being commuted into a self-deprecating acknowledgment of his reputation 
and an admission that he's a complete deception is very Wolfean - and 
parallels Severian's disembly with Thais, Pega, and Odilo on the raft in 
URTH.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net