Green is Urth Redux

Lee Berman · 11 Jan 2011, 13:45 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:45:38 -0500
Subject: (urth) Green is Urth Redux
Message-ID: <SNT123-W2C4302E23791821D21917CF0F0 at phx.gbl>

>Marc Aramini: and  a letter that pretty much said where I was interpretationally with 
>everything, from Horn in Silk to trees eating things and spitting out hybrids, but I said, 
>I just can't get a direct mechanism to make Blue Urth in those scenes, does he pass through 
>the same boundary the ship in Urth of the New Sun does to arrive in the past?  There WAS no 
>mechanismfor the transfer to Blue, but these images of time and "don't listen to my words" etc 
>and the hybridization to make a vegetable human cross were so Green Man resonant I knew this was 
>the future Urth thematically, I was sure Gene had hidden who what when where and why for this book 
>as his starting point.  On the back of his card to me, gene wrote "no,no,NO! Green is URTH!!!" I 
>knew I didn't have a mechanism for the transfer, I know Gene's rules.  He told me that, and I saw 
>Silk's mechanism for the transfer right there, he thought about Green before the evil.  Those 
>mechanisms don't just show up from metaphor. 

Okay, I think I understand your quandrary. You presented a very specific explanatory theory to
Gene Wolfe involving a physical sameness of planets and you felt he affirmed it but with the one 
correction about Green/Urth. So metaphorical sameness won't do. I have a couple questions. 

First, am I right to assume you have rendered the words on the back of the card as accurately 
as possible with "no,no,NO! Green is URTH!!!"? If so I question the meaning. If he was trying
to correct your assertion that Blue is Urth I think he would have written it as, "no, no, NO!
GREEN is Urth". By writing it as "Green is URTH!" perhaps he is emphasizing that Green is not
Lune? Not that this would negate your theory, but perhaps change some nuances.

Also, I'm unclear on what you mean in this passage: 

 >I knew I didn't have a mechanism for the transfer, I know Gene's rules.  He told me that, and I saw 
 >Silk's mechanism for the transfer right there, he thought about Green before the evil.

Was there more in the card? What and how did Gene tell you about his rules? There are many details of your
theory I don't understand yet, but I'm interested in the clarification of Wolfe's actual words before
I further collect my thoughts on it.

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