More on Frog and Fish & Ymar

James Wynn · 30 May 2011, 19:32 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 14:32:36 -0500
Subject: (urth) More on Frog and Fish & Ymar
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTikY_HhuaUvGcyZ92fka3R57vdw2vg at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BANLkTikY_HhuaUvGcyZ92fka3R57vdw2vg at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4DE3F0D4.8050701 at gmail.com>

> Andrew Mason:
> 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.)

Because the "redactors" are not sloppy. That's the beauty of what Wolfe 
has done here. It is possible to imagine an intelligent scholar 
translating Juno as "Early Summer" and Rhea Silvia as "woodland bird" or 
Bird of the Woods. The name for the bird was chosen from the name of the 
goddess.
"March Winds" is possibly a fine stand-in for Zephyr. But the word March 
is a direct translation of 'Mars'. Mars is not associated with the 
_winds_ that arise during that time period. The object is different for 
each one. Do you see that one of these things is not like the others?

> 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.)

Why should we assume that only autarchs carved their forms into 
mountains? I don't believe it is said so. Isn't that something any 
authority would do if he had the means?

> 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.

At the time, I had the feeling that Ymar's history was quite distant as 
well.  I found the date of 1000 years since Ymar to be quite jarring.

>> James Wynn:
>> But we know more about Severian than anyone else in the book, yet beyond
>> very broad outlines (in some cases), he doesn't seem to map or be
>> mappable. The whole bit about the Butcher and the wolves...and just
>> can't see how to force him into it. And there are elements that don't
>> really seem to work at all. Even after Urth of the New Sun, the
>> end-story doesn't look like Severian at all. That flood would be hard to
>> miss.
> But I don't think the myth has to be applicable in every detail. The
> myths which are applied to Jesus don't fit him in every detail;
> _Frankenstein_  doesn't fit Baldanders in every detail (though, come to
> think of it, his backward influence may explain why so many people
> confuse the creator with the monster).

This not the same as either of those. Those are merely references (one 
of them uniquely declared as a reference). This is more -- or at least 
quite different. Wolfe didn't have anyone retell the story of 
Frankenstein badly. Because that would be stupid. By the same token, I 
just don't believe Wolfe would tell this story as you say he is. This is 
like Severian finding the Lunar Landing portrait with Rudisen. He 
doesn't recognize the character (at least not at the time), but _we_ are 
expected to divine *some* of its meaning from details in the story. This 
is a story told in intricate detail in the characters are merely 
thrice-removed in narration. The story must be able to fit in every 
detail or explain why it doesn't. For example, I recognize that Typhon's 
mother's name was not "June " or "Juno" or anything like it. The same is 
true for "Bird of the Woods". Those name were applied to those 
characters BECAUSE the compilers didn't have their actual names and 
believed, wrongly, that the story Romulus was an alternated telling of 
the same story--because the stories ARE so similar.

> The story follows the myths so
> closely (counting_The Jungle Book_  as a myth, as it will be by then),
>   that I don't think it can apply in detail to any future person,
> unless his life bore an incredibly close resemblance to the myths.

I keep using people who equate Jesus with Dionysus or Mithras. 
Additionally, the other dying gods who St. Justin argued against 
equating with Jesus in the 2nd century. Wolfe's opinion is not like 
Justin's. It's closer to CS Lewis'. Wolfe believes that the myths come 
to us from an eternal pattern and, presumably, he believes Jesus is the 
fulfillment of that pattern. That we are hard-wired to detect that 
eternal pattern because it is "real".  Lee mentions Alexander. Alexander 
and King Arthur were real people whose deeds were seen as fitting that 
pattern as well, and therefore Alexander became a character of myth, and 
Arthur of legend.

By the same token, the high-points of the story birth of Frog was, based 
on evidence, close enough to the story of Romulus that an intellectually 
honest scholar could conclude they were the same. It's the same 
situation as the Frankenstein analogy (which might or might not be 
genuine; I mean, how much could Dr. Talos be expected to know about 
temporal ESP, after all).

> 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.

Is it necessary that the period at which Rigoglio dies be the same as 
the one where they meet Severian? Aren't those separate trips?

J.
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