do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

James Wynn · 24 May 2011, 16:18 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 11:18:09 -0500
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <A6EA089BDF394608A56239876CADE572@jill>
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	<A6EA089BDF394608A56239876CADE572@jill>
Message-ID: <4DDBDA41.2020009 at gmail.com>

> Gerry Quinn:
> The 'mountaintop beyond the shores of Urth' for example, perhaps 
> incorporates ideas of Mt. Olympus (from the original story), a space 
> station of some kind (or perhaps a territory on Lune), and Wolfe's 
> notion, expressed in an appendix, that the technology/culture of 
> sailing ships and spaceships have somehow become merged. 

As I read this story, its the other way around. The translators have 
erred in reading reference such as "Mt Olympus" or such in the myths as 
metaphorical language referring to other planets. They were 
"rationalizing the myths" just an many mythographers have always done 
going back to the Greeks. Some saw the gods as great kings of the past. 
Graves saw them as religio-political allegory. These mythographers saw 
references to other-worldly mountains and streams as references to other 
plants and solar systems--a concept that had become mundane to them.

> If the not quite central character of Mars incorporated elements of 
> Typhon, it would not be terribly surprising. I don't think there's 
> much reason to support it, but of course it could happen.

Again, I think it is the other way around. Someone looked at the deeds 
of the Mars character in the story of Romulus and said "Ohhh...this is 
_actually_ talking about Typhon and this is his son whose name we call 
"Rana" now.

>  The thing is, we can tell which way the incorporation goes, because 
> the character of Mars was part of the main original story, and really 
> there's not much to distinguish Spring Wind's nature from the 
> traditional nature of Mars.

Except that his name, "Spring Wind", makes no sense as a designation for 
Mars. And a garbled retelling the Romulus tale is kind of lame and 
unimaginative. And, well, there's really nothing Wolfean about that 
reading. I contend, Wolfe just _would not do_ what you are saying he 
did. Even a Freshman writer wouldn't do something as lame as that.

>   Another reason to doubt the influence of Typhon on the story is the 
> absence of any two-headed iconography, though of course that's easily 
> explained by saying Wolfe didn't think of that until he started on 
> Long Sun. If Spring Wind did have an allusion involving two heads, we 
> would of course be very comfortable with the notion of a Typhon 
> connection. 

I can't imagine why we would expect this. Typhon's head was grafted on 
to Piaton only months before his death. The presence of two-headed 
iconography on the Long Sun only shows that the scans were performed and 
the ship was launched within that narrow time period.

> The biggest problem with it, I think, is that while Wolfe had already, 
> at the time the tale of Frog reached its final draft, written the 
> Citadel of the Autarch, he had not yet started on Urth of the New Sun, 
> and did not intend to do so.  In BotNS, (unless you include Frog!) 
> there is no indication that Ymar was the first Autarch, or was 
> contemporaneous with Typhon.  Nor does his contemporeity with Typhon 
> seem to inform us of anything; indeed I personally think it hurts the 
> story in some ways.

It would only be 'lame' for Severian not to meet him IF Wolfe felt he 
had already informed us that Ymar was contemporaneous with Typhon. It 
seems to me that this logic is circular:
"Wolfe had not considered the intricate details of how the Commonwealth 
was founded so therefore glimpses in the text that suggest he had are 
'fanastical theories'."
Rather, it seems to me, the point of the stories are to show that he 
_had_ considered these things even though he chose not to explain them 
in Severian's conversations. And we have other examples of this that we 
know of.

1) Wolfe must have considered who the Conciliator was and what he did 
that a religion was formed about him. Yet, the text never explicitly 
identifies Severian as the Conciliator and even UotNS does not detail 
his teachings. Additionally, even though Typhon must have recognized 
that Severian was a dead-ringer for the Conciliator and might have 
guessed that he was a Time-travelling younger self, he never says so either.

2) Wolfe must have considered Severian's future to the extent that he 
would become Apu Punchau, but never intended to explain how.

3) Wolfe knew that the New Sun would flood the Urth, but only expressed 
it in the vaguest sense.

4) Dr. Talos's play was once seen as an elaborate mythical 
creation/amalgam by Wolfe, but is now understood to be a generally 
factual rendition of true events.

J.

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