Spring Wind

Andrew Mason · 29 Sep 2010, 13:26 · from 2010-September.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:26:11 +0100
Subject: (urth) Spring Wind
Message-ID: <AANLkTinf0ccONH5D8OPFc4+PdVbtEn0jcK8RH6GhzR=7 at mail.gmail.com>

James Wynn wrote:

>>> Me-
>>> No. This is an elaborate, rather occulted, _telling_ (not allegory) of
>>> the deeds of the SON of Typhon. How do the sons of Typhon relate to
>>> Severian? That's for the reader to figure out.
>> Andrew Mason-
>> Why is it wrong to call it an allegory? It is, I take it, a story in
>> which one thing stands for another thing - unless Typhon's son was
>> literally brought up by wolves.
>
> Just because the story says Frog was raised by "wolves" and Fish was
> raised by "shepherds" does not mean that those terms are not accurate
> even if --if you saw them-- you would not recognize the referred
> organizations as wolves or shepherds.

OK, I'm beginning to see how your theory fits together now. (Something
you said earlier suggests you see shepherds as torturers - is that
right?)  There is some definite evidence that 'wolves' are not human,
though - the Naked One says 'I have never had a son of Meschia to
teach' - though there are certainly ways of accommodating that without
making them literal wolves.

> King Arthur and Alexander the Great were historical figures that became
> myth. Conversely, CS Lewis --as a new Christian answering critics that
> Christianity was a rehash of earlier myths about dying/resurrected
> gods-- said "No. He is the myths made real."

I'd totally agree that 'myths made real' is a theme at work in BOTNS.
But that still leaves open various ways of reading the stories in
_Wonders of Urth and Sky_' they can either be accounts of the events
which made the myths real, or they can be myths themselves, waiting to
be made real.  (And there is the complicating factor that they reflect
not only ancient myths but also real events from the past.)

> Also, note that were it not for the names Juno, Rhea Silvia, Mowgli,
> etc. we would not readily associate this story with Romulus or Kipling.

Do you think so?. Lots of people seem to have got the Romulus
reference without decoding the names; and for Mowgli, while 'Frog' is
certainly a giveaway, I think there's enough other stuff - a
woodcutter, a tiger, the two outsiders who persuade the wolves to take
him - to make the link fairly clear. (Likewise people have found the
sources for 'The Student and his Son' without many clues in the names.
Jonas helps there, but clearly _he_ was able to get it from the story
alone.)
>

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