The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

Ryan Dunn · 07 Jul 2010, 21:53 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: ryan at liftingfaces.com (Ryan Dunn)
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 17:53:49 -0400
Subject: (urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by
	Rudesind
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On Jul 7, 2010, at 5:42 PM, James Wynn wrote:

> I remember when the grandmother theory was posed. There was no more textual evidence for it than this Hairy Inire theory. The only reason it's not sitting on the "Half-baked Theory" pile today is because Wolfe uncharacteristically confirmed it to a questioner.

Half baked? And it required a Wolfe confirmation to accept Grandma Dorcas? Man, that one seemed pretty obvious from my first reading. And the confirmation actually instills hope that digging like that for answers is in fact what Wolfe intended with the text.

Whenever he goes to the trouble of describing something mundane, take close note of it, because it means something. Whenever Severian is confused by something, study it carefully, because Wolfe is saying "LOOK AT ME!" He's saying... remember, this is an untrustworthy narrator, so don't take him at his word. Look beyond what he sees, reinterpret it using your own archetypes, use logic where Severian fails. And so forth.

Hethor's rant needs to be studied carefully, otherwise Wolfe (Severian) would not have bothered to share it with us. And when you study it, what do you find? I tried to start that discourse a month ago, and it was quite fruitful. But then there were the preconceived notions that it was trivial to study it.

Same with Inire. His physical absence in conjunction with his omnipresence means "LOOK FOR SIGNS" to me, because that is in keeping with the literary style of Grandma Dorcas. In fact, it's PRECISELY the type of thing Wolfe is asking of us.

Whether that rabbit hole leads you to Albuquerque or Anchorage is secondary to the idea of looking for the signs, puzzling it together. Gene wanted to layer a series of books that could be studied for generations. That means there are puzzles, clues, and interwoven symbolism abound.

Inire is probably, along with Tzdakiel and Typhon, one of the main characters we should be looking into. Don't you think?

...ryan

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