Sev's parents

Jim Henley · 11 Nov 1999, 22:37 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Jim Henley" <jlhenley at erols.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) Sev's parents
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 22:37:59
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0455 at digest.urth.net>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On
> Behalf Of Roy C. Lackey
>
>
> Also, he met Ouen twice and on the second occasion, in CITADEL,
> figured out
> that Ouen was his father. If he didn't get to know Ouen any better after
> that, it was his own fault.

So it was his own fault. The question is whether Severian lies, not whether
he has character flaws.

This is another case where someone seems to confuse the specific case (Sev
lies) with the general (Sev is a Bad Guy). Evidence of the latter does not
constitute evidence of the former. When people point this out it is
suggested that they are somehow unwilling to see Sev as having flaws.

> Jim Henley also wrote:
> >>Is there anything to demonstrate that Sev knows the complete
> truth about
> the mausoleum before the events of URTH? This is a genuine rather than
> rhetorical question.<<
>
> Chapter XXXVIII of CITADEL: "I know too in whose mausoleum I tarried as a
> child, that little building of stone with its rose, its fountain, and its
> flying ship all graven. I have disturbed my own tomb, and now I
> go to lie in it."

Thank you. It's established. It doesn't make Sev a liar though, just shows
that for a novice writer he has an instinctive sense of pacing. I mean,
that would be a good book, wouldn't it? Chapter Two: "So there was this
tomb I used to play in as a boy. It was my tomb, and I was some kind of
time traveller. Not that I knew that right at that moment. See, time isn't
like a river, it's like an ocean with ripples. That's what these space guys
told me years later. Their names were . . . "

Note that over the course of the work as a whole, you get the complete
truth about the tomb as Sev understands it.

Best,

Jim
 *****************************************
"All God's children got a little bit of soul
 but not that much . . . "
              -- Graham Parker, "Obsessed with Aretha"

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