the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

Lee Berman · 20 Jan 2011, 16:42 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:42:20 -0500
Subject: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
Message-ID: <SNT123-W36BA6E4BC6DD5F40C66E1ACFF90 at phx.gbl>

>Marc Aramini: I DON'T THINK SILK IS A CLONE OF TYPHON. I think he is the son meant to succeed 
>him, but alas, his mother's confusion of sex and maternal love seems to be a problem.

This makes both human psychological sense and Wolfean sense. If a woman finds herself revived
and unaged after many years and encounters an adult son or other descendent who resembles the
father of her kids, it makes sense that there might be some sexual/maternal confusion.

It makes Wolfean sense because we've already been exposed to a similar situation with Severian
and Dorcas. This IS the way Gene Wolfe thinks.

>Gerry Quinn: Marc, your main planks if I 
>recall correctly, are the following:
>1. The reported fact that Typhon wanted a male heir.
>2. Two dreams of Silk in which certain women are blended together
>3. The vision of Pas shown to Silk by Kypris

> Add five paragraphs of Gerry explaining to Marc why he doesn't understand his own planks correctly.

Gerry, please stop correcting Marc. Your interpretations of the evidence he presents are and will
always be YOUR interpretations. You keep insisting that other people's intuitive intepretations 
must conform to your rules of concrete evidence. That doesn't work. Words, especially fictional
words will always mean different things to different people. Sometimes the differences are 
negligible, sometimes they are great. But no two people will ever be able to understand a work of 
fiction in exactly the same way. So nobody else will ever come up with a theory about Wolfe that 
works perfectly for you. That is the reality of things and I think it is time to accept it.

(note to Witz: I am addressing Gerry here because Marc requested three times in his last post that the
discussion be dropped. He is not trying to understand Marc's theory other than finding the best
way to discredit it. He is like a prosecuting attorney badgering a witness in hopes of getting
an admission of wrongness or a retraction. I don't think he is doing it with malicious intent. That's
just the way Gerry is.

It matters to me because I think Marc has great ideas and perceptions that I could never come up with myself.
I think he has stopped contributing in the past because of relentless criticism of his ideas and I would
not like to see that happen again. I know I can't control other people's actions but I am making the best
attempt I can to make Urth Archives a hospitable and welcoming place for creative thinkers like Marc. 
That is my goal.)

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