Brook Madregot runs between

Gerry Quinn · 12 Aug 2010, 11:25 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:25:46 +0100
Subject: (urth) Brook Madregot runs between
References: <SNT123-W126C3D66EC364580D81527CF960 at phx.gbl><691668.63804.qm at web50704.mail.re2.yahoo.com><E640A9287E194BA98B0621EE989FEACA@jill>
	<610040.11755.qm at web50703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <FA5C5AA5BC74494EBF26B58EF083EFBE@jill>


From: "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
> From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>

>> 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?

Maybe she was being imprecise.  They are not born as far as Yesod is 
concerne, if time is indeterminate across universes.  Or maybe in Yesod they 
think of themselves as being at the same time as the beginning of Briah.  I 
don't know.

>> 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.

Fair enough.  But I think he indicated that this was intended as a 
*possible* reading: "And decided that I would show that this might be a past 
cycle.  He also says: "I was toying with those ideas, I think, rather than 
trying to make sense of them."

I don't know: for me the reading of Urth as our future works well; and in 
any case I certainly don't feel like going *into depth* figuring out the 
consequences of something the author did not intend to be fully worked out, 
such as the entropic relationships between Yesod and Briah, or what not!

> 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?

Could be.

> (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.)

Good question.  But translation, like FTL travel issues, is one of those 
things that SF writers are allowed ignore if they want...

- Gerry Quinn

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