Lupiverse(s) was Re: The Wizard

Gerry Quinn · 12 Mar 2012, 20:50 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:50:12 -0000
Subject: (urth) Lupiverse(s) was Re:  The Wizard
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From: Marc Aramini 

> There are comments like the few extant builings surviving so many centuries 
> of futurity in the afterwords that at least indicate the fictional GW did not know
>  if was from the past, if indeed the manuscript WAS supposed to be from the past, 
> and let us know the frame translator thinks he is dealing with something from the
>  future.  I always felt that previous iteration was something of a retcon due to 
> the nature of the deluge in light of the Covenant, but I am not above saying that
>  maybe Gene planned it as a possible previous iteration all along.

We shouldn?t mix up the different meanings of ?past? and ?future?.  We know from ?The Key to the Universe? that every iteration is fairly similar to the next, and we may assume that they contain buildings that are similar.

When Wolfe speaks of a building that has ?survived so many centuries of futurity? he is speaking ironically of a building that has lasted from now until this iteration?s equivalent of Severian?s time.  (Perhaps the Witches Tower is one such ? if I recall correctly it is steel-framed, a technique that is obsolete in Severian?s time.  No matter ? he may not have had any particular building in mind.)  

He?s not saying anything about iterations in this passage, just indicating that Severian?s time is very far in the future in terms of calendar time.  The picture in the library may be of an Apollo astronaut, or it may be from the equivalent of the Apollo program carried out by the dawn men of Severian?s iteration.

No building in the ordinary sense could survive through the end of one iteration and into the next.  Earth and all its iterations will each be destroyed in the cosmic implosion at the end of their iteration.

- Gerry Quinn

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