Urth is Green Redux

Lee Berman · 11 Jan 2011, 16:58 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:58:12 -0500
Subject: (urth) Urth is Green Redux
Message-ID: <SNT123-W2765DDFD3A939CDC869A0ACF0F0 at phx.gbl>

>Marc Aramini: The problem is its easy to write off all Wolfe's little subtleties as coincidence, 
>but once the connection is made it is difficult to expunge the association entirely.

Don't worry, you don't need to sell me on this idea. I think there are neglible coincidences in
Wolfe's work. The mystery to me is how a thoughtful reader could dismiss connection after connection 
as coincidence in a carefully constructed fiction. 

Plus, I am open to the idea of a shared identify of planets. For me, nothing is more central to
understanding the whole of BotNS than Eschatology and Genesis. One of the many principles we learn
is that the Author would rather disguise his players to play the various roles rather than bring in 
new actors. If true for characters, why not planets?

In contrast to the elitist types who argue all popular SF is beneath Gene Wolfe, I find it quite in
fitting with his style to make the ruins on Green to serve a Statue of Liberty/Planet of the Apes
function. In my view, Gene Wolfe knows and borrows great stories from everywhere; his gift is in
his unique vision, rewriting and disguising of them.

Thus I am willing to give the working hypothesis of Urth physically = Green a lot of consideration. 
It did seem like the best objection to this hypothesis was the question- Where is Lune? Assuming it is the
same size as our Moon, it is a few sizes too small to hold an atmosphere and thus water and life.
Did it grow in size to become Blue? Or did it disappear to be replaced by a twin planet? (Moon seems a few 
sizes too big to have become The Whorl, plus Lune is still orbiting in Severian's time).

It seems like this question would need to be answered (unless it has been already and I missed it?) This
is part of the reason I asked about the capitalization in the Gene Wolfe note. "Urth is GREEN!" is slightly
but significantly different than "URTH is Green!". As previously noted, I think it could relate to Lune.

The objections to the rules of astral regarding mental travel maps vs. physical travel maps are interesting. 
They could relate to metaphorical connections between the planets. But working with real physical sameness as
a hypothesis I feel like the most important key is the explanation for Lune.

Just out of curiosity with regards to The River Battle,  do you have some ideas on who "the captain" might 
represent? (and do the whole of the Osterlings have List-allusion or is it just the captain?)

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