City On Green

David Stockhoff · 01 Jan 2011, 13:53 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:53:32 -0500
Subject: (urth) City On Green
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-w21DDBACF04881841521658CF050 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-w21DDBACF04881841521658CF050 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D1F31DC.3040006 at verizon.net>

Modeling Severian after Hercules certainly would have given Wolfe the 
ability to construct a seemingly loose, episodic narrative with a higher 
purpose. Such as we have here.

Other than the Augean Stables, has anyone compared Hercules' 
chores/feats/tasks/miracles one for one with Severian's?

On 1/1/2011 2:13 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
> 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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