Father Inire

Lee Berman · 13 Oct 2011, 13:40 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:40:31 -0400
Subject: (urth) Father Inire
Message-ID: <SNT123-W46E5CBB4352F88E1D67161CFE00 at phx.gbl>

>larry miller: What jungle guide and old boatman are you referring too?  I an think
>of a few examples of both.  Isangoma, as well as the others in the
>jungle hut are from our time period.  Robert and Marie are
>missionaries in South America and they are teaching Isangoma the
>bible.

The Jungle Guide is the little guy in the mask, the shaman, who leads Vodalus' group
through the jungle after leaving the ziggurat ("isangoma" is an African word for shaman).
It may be he whom Severian catches a glimpse of going into the old Autarch's tent.

Robert and Marie are (roughly) from our time/place. So is a picture of an Apollo 
moon landing. For me a red flag goes up when stuff from our Earth appears on Urth,
especially when associated with little, old guys.

Generally, I think if we are looking for Father Inire (and many are not), a good start 
is finding little, bent old guys in places we might expect to see him (like the Citadel, 
House Absolute and Botanic Garden).

Like Isangoma, the old boatman is found in the Botanic Garden. He is poling around
looking for the body of his dead wife, Cas, whom we later discover is Dorcas. This bent,
old little guy says he was there when Father Inire planted the averns to keep out the 
manatees (undines) and I think he was.

If the old boatman is a version of Inire and he is also the husband of Dorcas, it leads 
to the strange conclusion of Inire being Severian's grandfather. It could help
explain why he is titled "Father" without him having any apparent religious function.

On the other hand, if we consider Severian to be a sort of analog of Greek and other
mythological heroes such as Heracles and Theseus, being the half-breed product of a
human-god mating isn't quite as strange to contemplate.

I don't think it is a coincidence that the old boatman mentions undines and Dorcas and
Severian then soon encounters both, and then he meets Hildegren (who might deserve his 
own discussion) who happens to mention the Cumaean.  I tend to think Severian is being
herded through this story at every turn by not-quite-human beings who know more than 
he does. However, Severian possessess a certain knowledge/ability these guys don't have
but would very much like to have.

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