The Two Katharines

Lee Berman · 17 Aug 2010, 19:30 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:30:34 -0400
Subject: (urth) The Two Katharines
Message-ID: <SNT123-W91CEC2916D1E8FA73168FCF9C0 at phx.gbl>

Thanks for the thoughtful response Jeff. I'll try to make my rejoinder brief.

>Jeff Wilson- Minimal hypothesis

My argument is that in this book, time travel is not a maximized hypothesis
It is as valid as proposing light as an explanation for illumination or
gravity for why things fall.

>It also avoids making the masters lying bastards like that shameless Ben Kenobi.

Hah! Glad somebody agrees. "Luke, Darth Vader killed your father". "well, from a 
certain point of view..." George Lucas is the real liar though, pretending the whole
series was in his head when he made the first movie. Unfortunately I do not find any
of the masters of BotNS to be any more truthful, Tzadkiel included.

>A loggia is similar to a breezeway, and it's not much of a stretch for a 
>path of wind to become a path of air, especially if it is surrounded by 
>baffled and baffling architecture that prevents a direct wind, but still 
>lets people get some air. As for the blip, could you be more specific?

Well the Path of Air is, ostensibly, in the House Absolute, making it completely
underground. Not a good place for a breezeway, yet is is a bit breezy. Convoluted
architecture could be invoked, I suppose. But my theory guesses that The Path of
Air is not entirely within the House Absolute. The other side opens to a quite
breezy place. More on that later.

By blip I just mean that you suggest the woman on the Path of Air is not any
relation to Severian's mother she just looks like her. Thus she has no importance
to the story as a blip of false recognition in Severian's mind. I don't see why 
Canog or whoever would exaggerate this into something which becomes the Contessa 
Carina in Dr. Talos' play. My theory considers her important.

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