Fish and Cave

David Stockhoff · 22 Dec 2010, 16:58 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:58:29 -0500
Subject: (urth) Fish and Cave
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W450CAF87F38D252500CA82CF1B0 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W450CAF87F38D252500CA82CF1B0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D122E35.6000703 at verizon.net>

Just briefly, I don't see that the Fish "symbol" is entirely ruled out. 
I'd say it's twisted into unrecognizability, for very good reasons:

some having to do with avoiding a Sunday school lesson, and some having 
to do with the fact that everything in Briah is a twisted shadow.of 
something in our universe.

On 12/22/2010 11:01 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> Marc Aramini: Fish and Frog must be very important, too, though I used it once to argue that
>> Pia was Sev's sister (her description of dark hair with pale features, high cheekbones and a
>> thin waist really mirrors Sevs, and he finds a girl who looks like Pia eviscerated in Baldander's
>> castle) and that one of them was sent down the river, but someone convinced me the river was headed
>> the wrong way or something.
>
> That is interesting. I don't see how Fish and Frog are involved in Pia's story but I'd like to. I'm
> interested in James' take on that also.
>
> For me, there isn't too much hesitation in thinking that every sexual partner of Severian's might be a
> family member. The stuff surrounding Pia is at least chin-scratching, including the Dorcas resemblance
> and the cloning. I tend to think such wrong-flowing river contrivances are not necessary to understand
> the general concept of "family connection" that Wolfe is going for. When you have giant asexual and
> sexually reproducing creatures in the mix, our human sense of kin labelling doesn't quite work.
>
> Anyway, the fish theme is strong here. Pia's people worship Oannes, the fish god. The town
> on the shore is named Murene which basically means "Eel". The Lake is Diuturna which is about the same
> word as Juturna. Baldanders seems to want to go "swimming with Undines" there. And of course we have
> Severian eating fish and labelling himself as an Oannes at the end of UotNS. Good fishing indeed!
>
> (shore and island people again as paired opposites, one "good" one "evil". Can we really think that Oannes
> and Abaia are different gods in the same lake?)
>
>


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