More Robert and Marie musing

Tony Ellis · 18 Mar 1999, 14:50 · from urth-v0024.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) More Robert and Marie musing
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 14:50:28 +0000
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corncrake wrote:

> It's not even quite Deuteronomy.  The original biblical quotation is about
> Moses, who isn't mentioned by name in what they're reading --- I forget t=
he
> term used, it's some generic SF grand-sounding title.
>
(Just to pedantically set the record straight, Moses is only referred to
as he\him. The title you're remembering, "the Compassionating", referred
to God.)

I used to think that the differences were just a consequence of what
Severian wrote being translated back into English, but in fact there are
some big chunks from the original that are just plain missing. It reads
more like one of the stories from Wonders of Urth and Sky that has been
retold so many times almost all the original sense has gone.

> This brings up the question of language.  Severian can understand them, a=
nd
> doesn't speak English, French or Zulu; it seems the language used by the
> three is the local one, with the added touch that the bible comes out a b=
it
> weird.
>
Yes, I'm leaning more and more towards Explanation Two, that the people
in the hut are actually from Severian's time, but "chant-caught".
Perhaps Marie reads Deuteronomy the way she does because that's the way
her Urthian mind perceives the text, or perhaps she's reading verbatim,
and it's the book itself that is at fault.


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