Ymar

Andrew Mason · 26 May 2011, 19:48 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com (Andrew Mason)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 20:48:20 +0100
Subject: (urth) Ymar
Message-ID: <BANLkTin84uXqFFkL+Hf90OV7p3ghuKxSxA at mail.gmail.com>

James Wynn wrote:

> * Early Summer = June = Juno [ding!] (Although this betrays a naivety in
> thinking Juno was originally a season, each name is a reasonable
> translation of either of the others.)
>
> * Bird of the Woods = ?Rhea Silvia (same thing) [ding!]
>
> * Spring Wind = March Winds = March = Mars [buzzer sound]

I'm not sure why June is OK for Juno, but March is not OK for Mars.
(We're asking what a redactor of the myth might think. What
associations the name might have outside the story, what symbolic
value Wolfe might give it, is another question.)

Regarding the evidence of dates: every bit of it can be answered.
Severian may be wrong about the date of the Conciliator. Cyriaca may
be wrong about the book - she's certainly wrong about some things. (I
was wrong, in any case, to say she says the book was several chiliads
old; she says no one has looked at it for a chiliad, though that
implies it's considerably earlier than that.) A lot of early autarchs
may have had short reigns, which allowed the mountains to be carved
quickly. (It's the number of autarchs, rather than the time it takes
to carve a mountain, which is the problem.) Thus, Wolfe was able to
make Typhon just a chiliad earlier without direct contradiction - its
not as if he had made Typhon say 'I was born five thousand eight
hundred and forty-three years ago'. But a lot of people get the feel
of a much earlier Typhon - all the bits of evidence seem naturally to
point to it.  and are confused when, in _Short Sun_, the gap seems to
be much shorter.

There are, I think, two relevant interviews - one from the time of
BOTNS which just makes Ymar a chiliad earlier; the other a later one
which makes Typhon a chiliad earlier. The second seems to contradict
the most natural reading of BOTNS, and suggests that Wolfe has
adjusted his timeline at some point. I suggest that part of that
adjustment was to make Typhon and Ymar contemporaries, when they
hadn't been before.

>>
> The chronology based on the Rajan's spirit-travel is pretty dicey. The
> Rajan is a Time traveler, and if you consider pay attention to when Horn
> left home, and how long ago Hoof and Hide left, it is clear that the
> Rajan has been jumping around alot.

Is that relevant, though? The gap the characters are trying to
determine is between Rigoglio's departure (Typhon's time) and his
return (Severian's time) - both on Urth. What the Rajan's home time
is, on Blue, is another issue.

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