Talos play as the Short Sun

Lee Berman · 27 Nov 2012, 15:48 · from 2012-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:48:37 -0500
Subject: (urth) Talos play as the Short Sun
Message-ID: <SNT123-W257A647902BA5FFFD14FF6CF5E0 at phx.gbl>

>larry miller: I took note of Lees comparison of the name
>Jahi and Jahlee and wondered if there were any correspondences between the
>Short Sun story and Talos' play.  Could Silk have returned to Urth after
>the Whorls departure and somehow inspired the original Book with stories of
>his past?  Could the Inhuma Jahlee be the inspiration for Jahi in the play?
> Is there anyone in the play that could be Silk?

Well, Silkhorn does astral travel to Urth with Jahlee, where she takes real
human form and basically spends all her time copulating. Aside from making the
connection of busty redhead Jahlee to Jahi and Jolenta, I'm not sure if there are 
further connections to Dr. Talos' play established with the astral visits. I do 
tend to think the question of Severian's sister is answered though.

In the play, Meschia, Meschiane and Jahi are persian correspondants to Adam, Eve
and Lilith. There are jealousy and vampiric and serpent references that swirl
around the Biblical characters as well as the BotNS characters.

By bringing Jahlee to Urth, I think he does reinforce the Eden references already
established for Green and the Inhumi.  By associating Green and Blue to Urth and 
Ushas via the connection to Dr. Talos' play, Wolfe is telling us something about 
the Short Sun story and how it relates to human origins and forests and vampires
and snakes and flooding. Then there is Wolfe's cryptic note to Marc that "GREEN 
is Urth!"

Perhaps we are not meant to get a concrete, nuts and bolts understanding of what
Wolfe is  trying to get at. He may be deliberately attempting to install 
an intuitive, "right at the tip of my tongue" understanding which defies being 
placed within the constraint of clearly understood wording.

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