Brook Madregot runs between

Jerry Friedman · 12 Aug 2010, 01:25 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:25:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Brook Madregot runs between
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	<691668.63804.qm at web50704.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
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From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>

>From: "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>

>> I find it very hard to see how Severian, in Yesod, could be at a time before 
>>the
>> people he knew were born, if Yesod is later in time than Briah.  As people 
>have
>> pointed out.

> I don;t think time is necessarily commensurable across universes.  That is, I 
>think the question of whether an
> event in Yesod preceeds or succeeds an event in Briah has no meaningful 
>answer.  (For the history of an
> individual passing between them it may have an answer, but the answer could be 
>different for other
>individuals.)

So for Severian's history, it makes sense for Apheta to tell him the people he 
knew are unborn?

>> Earth is very much like Urth.  Few of us would have thought Urth was a
>> subsequent universe rather than our future if Wolfe hadn't said so outside 
the
>> book.  Yesod seems like a totally different place, far more different that 
the
>> existence of Jesus could explain, from what I can see at Google Books and
>> Amazon.  But I can't prove anything from what I can see.

> I agree.

Thanks.

> I see no real reason to think of Urth as anything other than our future.

Wait a second.

> Note that in the _Book of the Long Sun_ Silk sees a vision of Jesus on Palm 
>Sunday, the name Allah also
> appears, as does a distorted version of the Adam and Eve story.  Not to mention 
>the Apollo landing images
> etc. Sure, those informationss *could* come from different universes, but I see 
>no strong reason to think so.

Not in the text, maybe, but Wolfe made at least one explicit statement in the 
interview with James Jordan.

And since people have been discussing the hut in the Botanic Gardens, that could 
provide evidence that Urth isn't our future.  In our time, "isangoma" and 
"tokoloshe" are words from southern Africa, where there are no jungles.  Margays 
and uakaris are found in South America.  Oreodonts lived in the grasslands and 
savannas of North and Central America until a few million years ago.  The 
passage about Mount Nebo is distinctly different from the Bible.  What reason 
could Wolfe have had for combining these disparate features except to tell us 
Robert and Marie didn't live in our world in the last century?

(By the way, how did Severian understand them?  And are "isangoma" and 
"tokoloshe" words in his language, or did he transcribe them phonetically?  Did 
he transcribe "Paris" phonetically, which means Robert and Marie were speaking 
English, or did Wolfe put Paris in because Robert was talking about a city where 
you study art?  Usually we should probably ignore Wolfe the translator, but here 
I'm tempted to think about him.)

Jerry Friedman

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