Mystery of Agia

Lee Berman · 21 Jan 2011, 03:16 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:16:37 -0500
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Agia
Message-ID: <SNT123-W127F1C5483E1446DF664BCCFF80 at phx.gbl>

>Jane Delawney: in Nessus the conventional view of decent dress conforms closely to that of most 
>western countries nowadays.

Agreed. In fact I'll go so far as to say the sexual morals in most of Gene wolfe's work mirror 
that of the society Gene WOlfe actually lives in. I don't say this to mean that Gene Wolfe lacks
the imagination to create a strange new alien society with funky sexual habits. I mean that he
does this deliberately because he really isn't interested in creating funky new planets and alien
races. His stories are purposefully meant to mirror our own society, address the issues we 
ourselves face. For me his stories are like experiments. Let's show earth but with this particular
set of changes- No Jesus. Sun is dying. Inside an asteroid. Pagan gods that talk to us. Pagan gods
inside a computer. Etc. Set the conditions, wind it up and see where it will go.

Oh, sort of wandered off there..what I really wanted to note is that there is one interesting exception
to the nudity taboo you mention, Jane. In Dr. Talos' play, Severian and Dorcas are naked on stage. I think
Jolenta is almost naked too (or fully? I forget). Anyway. Quite a persuasive fellow that Dr. Talos, eh? Or 
is this also a reflection of our own society and what we see in movies (and sometimes on stage).

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