City On Green

Jeff Wilson · 01 Jan 2011, 12:54 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2011 06:54:51 -0600
Subject: (urth) City On Green
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W439BB61891E5D93C54D83FCF050 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W439BB61891E5D93C54D83FCF050 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D1F241B.808 at io.com>

On 1/1/2011 6:26 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> Jeff Wilson: Since Nessus moves upriver over time, it cannot be said for certain that
>> the roads and the port were part of the city when they were open in the same way they
>> are in Severian's time.
>
> I was aware of that movement but I think I can still say for certain Nessus was the center
> of things on Urth for all intents and purposes. Autarch Somebody closed the roads so it wasn't
> so long ago when that happened. Nessus seems to be the capital city of the capital planet of an
> interstellar empire in Typhon's time. Severian starts in Nessus and returns time and time again.
> If the story is a Labryrinth with twisting paths turning in upon themselves, Nessus is surely
> its center.

It's the beginning and the end; if it had a center, I'd say it would be 
the House Absolute, which is also where the capital is, judging by the 
extern ambassadors being received there. Nessus is the population 
center, but that's not the same thing.

Nessus is probably within a length of its original position at the time 
of Ymar, given that Inire establishes the Botanic Gardens that time or 
later and it is still barely within the patrolled area of the city by 
Sev's time.

> Perhaps Wolfe had no thoughts of the word nexus when he chose the name of this city with
> multi-book importance.  But I don't see the value in postulating that Nessus was not the
> center of civilization in Urth's visible past. We could say, "Maybe it was Yorkessus in
> Ascia. Or maybe Seoulessus in the Xanthic Lands", but what is the point of that? If you
> don't like the idea of the name Nessus being related the word nexus, why not just say that?

I said it was ironic, but irony suits me fine.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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