Green is Urth Redux

Lee Berman · 12 Jan 2011, 13:04 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:04:43 -0500
Subject: (urth) Green is Urth Redux
Message-ID: <SNT123-W2518E8420D6FCC3EAA593ACFF10 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: But we could just as well posit that in Severian's "parallel" universe the moon is bigger.

Given Rudesind's words, this seems like the best interpretation of the text to me, with the fewest reader
additions.

>Jeff Wilson: If the moon were bigger in his cycle, the surface would be different in 
>the astronaut pictures, and there would be a native atmosphere to make the flag wave.

Not if the astronaut picture was from our/earth's cycle. Which I've always thought was the case, since the
alternate universe explanation popped up. I can't say what process bridged the universes to allow it but
I assume it was the same process which brought earth stories (and perhaps Jonas) to Urth.

>You could say most of the same things about the Whorl; are there no forests there?

But Whorl forests are internal, as is the atmosphere. They are maintained by a functioning power source.
>From the outside, the Whorl shines with a white reflected light.

Lune's forests are external and it shines with reflected green light. There is no mention of a functioning
power source to maintain the trees.

Hypothesis 1: Lune is Moon-sized and we can assume there is an unmentioned power source.

Hypothesis 2: Lune is Urth-sized and we can assume its forests are maintained by the same power source as
Urth's forests- the sun.

Seem to me we could at least agree that both are  possiblities. #1 is what we might expect in general for
an SF story.  #2 is what we might expect given that this is a Gene Wolfe story (and his previous 
invention of St. Croix and Ste. Anne and his future invention of Blue and Green).

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