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Lee Berman · 30 Jul 2010, 19:54 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:54:58 -0400
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
Message-ID: <SNT123-W49B54ACCC3D2F3F7988D21CFAA0 at phx.gbl>

Yeah, alzabo, avern, abaia, arioch..so many alien "a's" on Urth.

>Jeff Wilson- No one's life is being artificially extended by the alzabo;
>the memory of the Autarch shares Severian, but the Autarch himself is dead. 
>The alzabo eaters who are said to do it because they want more life than 
>they have are projecting, as I wrote before. If Sevrian's life is 
>bettered in some way by the memories he has ingested, that is no more 
>condemnable than one's life being enriched by learning.  The 
>reprenhesible thing about it is that it may be done in violation of the 
>person's will, and that it involves eating part of a person. But babes 
>feed from their mother, and a pelican that wounds her breast to feed her 
>chicks is held up as a sign of loyalty and service, and Christians are 
>enjoined to eat and drink of the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ.

Wolfe himself, in an interview, calls the Vodalus feast a "satanic 
eucharist". But we are to take Severian's feast on the old Autarch's
brain as being divine? I dunno. Perhaps as a non-Catholic and non-
Christian I don't have the right background to form an educated 
opinion. But that seems like an awfully icky way to gain grace.

When Severian receives his new consciousness I seem to remember him
feeling a flood of relief as all the inhabitants of the old Autarch
find that they have not perished in his old body but have found new 
existence in Severian.  From this I get the sense that this process is
a form of artificially prolonged life and perhaps not one to be envied. 

Regarding the learning which is involved in the eating of the dead, from
Ultan, to Vodalus to the old Leech, I get the impression that the learning
is tainted in some way. Severian doesn't seem to put much of his newly
acquired wisdom to good use either, aside from learning the secret words 
needed to be autarch.

I'm not an expert on such things but my impression is that Wolfe finds not
only pagan mythology to be the competitor of early Christianity but gnosticism
also, with its reliance on arcane knowledge and secrets. I get the impression
that brain eating and the resultant learning and life/consciousness 
extending is a corrupt part of the world of Urth which will not be continued 
on Ushas.

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