Sea monsters

Jerry Friedman · 29 May 2011, 04:34 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 21:34:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Sea monsters
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>From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
>On a minor note here, does anyone else find these big beasties a bit 
>Lovecraftian, Cthulhu-esque?

Definitely, including the fact that they rule Ascia, reminiscent of the way 
Cthulhu et al. are worshiped by various humans and humanoids.  I mentioned that 
a couple of times recently.

> I feel Wolfe is engaging with that kind of cosmic 
>horror in the background of the whole BotNS
...

I don't see that, though.  If you believe in God as Wolfe and Severian do, you 
don't have to worry much about cosmic horror, just about alien monsters and 
things like that.  Though there might be some of Pascal's and Lovecraft's horror 
of the gulfs of space--the Empirical Bogey, I think C. S. Lewis called it--in 
the scene where Severian sleeps under the stars in the mountains (SotL, Chapter 
XIII).

Jerry Friedman

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