City On Green

Lee Berman · 01 Jan 2011, 07:13 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 02:13:03 -0500
Subject: (urth) City On Green
Message-ID: <SNT123-w21DDBACF04881841521658CF050 at phx.gbl>

Adam got the Hercules-Nessus story right. I'll drone on that I think Severian's story
parallels that of Hercules more than any other legendary hero. I think the fouled waters
of Gyoll are associated with the poison somewhere in the text.

I don't think it is a contradiction for Nessus to have closed roads and have gotten its 
name (at least auctorially) from an association with the word "nexus". If it has closed roads 
it means they once were open. If it has a closed spaceport it means there was once an open space 
port. I think the city had the name Nessus long before the roads were closed and perhaps before
the space port was closed. "All roads lead to nexus/Nessus"? Why is Urth closed off...is someone
trying to keep something in or keep something out?

The end of CotA was meant to be the end of the series. I would think the ending would be important.  
Part of the ending has Severian flying around the Citadel and being unable to find the 
top of Valeria's tower. Where is it? What sort of beings can construct towers that have roots on 
Urth and tops lost in time/space?

>Wikipedia: Shirt Of Nessus: In Greek mythology, it is the shirt (chiton) daubed with the tainted blood 
>of the centaur Nessus that Deianeira, Hercules' wife, na?vely gave Hercules, burning him, and driving 
>him to throw himself onto a funeral pyre.

>Metaphorically, it represents "a source of misfortune from which there is no escape; a fatal present; 
>anything that wounds the susceptibilities"[2] or a "destructive or expiatory force or influence"[3]

in UotNS it is the pain from his destruction of Nessus that sends grief-stricken Severian lunging and 
hurtling to the distant past to assuage his misery in the primitive life of Apu Punchau.

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