The Two Katharines

António Pedro Marques · 16 Aug 2010, 14:21 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gUGVkcm8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:21:42 +0100
Subject: (urth) The Two Katharines
In-Reply-To: <4C68A088.30100 at io.com>
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Jeff Wilson wrote (16-08-2010 03:20):
> On 8/15/2010 7:35 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
>>> but the Holy Katharine maid retains her maid-like appearance for at
>>> least 15-20 years. This kind of youth for a human being is unknown in
>>> the Book.
>>
>> Isn't she just a dummy?
>
> In SHADOW XI, Severian details how he has helped haul out and stow away
> the props each year, and is familiar with their true nature: the snakes
> and flowers on the wheel are paper, the blade of execution is wood and
> tinsel. But he does not know who she is or where she comes from, so she's
> not just another prop.
>
> She could be a salvaged animatronic or full robot in partial disrepair
> (she seems to have minimal mobilty and vocabulary).

I can even picture Hammerstone telling people to do some similar trick on
him, just for the kicks.

> But she also seems to resemble Severian's mother.

In that she's not blonde... we know so little of Severian's mother. Heck, my
current next-desk coworker resembles 3 or 4 other girls I've seen somewhere.

My impression regarding Wolfe's 'puzzles' is the following: everything may 
well have significance, but if some line on inquiry doesn't yield broadly 
convincing results in a relatively short time, then it's probably a dead-end.

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