"been teaching literature for over 35 years"

David Stockhoff · 11 Sep 2013, 12:59 · from 2013-September.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 08:59:44 -0400
Subject: (urth) "been teaching literature for over 35 years"
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On 9/9/2013 9:42 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> I've made a ton of science - biological claims about Wolfe ... But his interest as a symbolist always seems to me to keep the science at that level - it's representation rather than the hard application, like the giant nucleic acid building in House of Ancestors having some atavistic sympathetic vibration with the real person's genetic material it "matches".  Accretion disks and schwarzschild radii seem ever so slightly "harder" than Wolfe's usual symbolic , tropish employment of science.
>
> When he obsesses about something, it is usually closer to industrial engineering and the kinds of materials used - if I had to guess I would say theoretical physics are treated a little differently than the "let's build this based on these building properties" descriptions that crop up (like talus manufacturing - this is where science becomes less metaphorical for Wolfe)
>

That's very well put.

There seems to be a consensus here, if I may presume to summarize it:

(1) The Black Worm, whatever its nature, was put there to dim the sun.
         We are told that it "ate" of the sun. Since the White Fountain 
correlates with the then-current theory of matter fountains, the Worm 
must have worked by progressively removing solar matter. The Worm also 
fits old mythical ideas about portents of decline and harbingers of 
doom, so it works well on a symbolic level. As an actual black hole, it 
presents problems.

(2) It DID dim the sun and cool Urth.
         Did the Yesodis decide to shut down the experiment early? Was 
the intent to slowly freeze Urth to death? Was there a faction among 
them that wanted to give Urth one last chance? Their choice (Severian's 
choice too) was either to shut it down entirely or do another run with 
new subjects, but a few people escaped.

(3) It MAY also have somehow cooled Urth's mantle enough that volcanism 
stopped.
         Known volcanoes are apparently dead (Erebus), and there is an 
atmosphere of stasis and decay. On the other hand, Urth may already have 
been really old. But earthquakes were known in Typhon's time, when the 
Worm appeared. Symbolic decay works better to explain this than physical 
cooling. The Worm could not have removed matter from Urth's mantle, so 
any direct effect on Urth would have to take a different path anyway.

(4) The White Fountain restored the sun's power.
        Again, this would have been by adding or restoring matter to the 
sun. (Recall Silk's signs of addition and subtraction.)

(5) It also shocked Urth into catastrophic tidal floods---and possibly 
tectonic cataclysm as well.
         I conclude the tectonics question is a red herring. If Urth is 
mere chiliads older, no one would notice the continents no longer moving 
(only the gradual subsidence of obvious activity). But if Urth is 
millions of years older . . . no one would remember any kind of activity 
at all, and STILL no one would notice the continents no longer moving. 
So any effects on continental movements would have been lost on 
virtually 100% of Urth's inhabitants. (Jonas might have been in a 
position to notice such effects, but I don't think he mentions it.)

         So what's the point? (I think this supports both Urth as 20,000 
years in our "future" and an unnatural/supernatural/nonphysical 
explanation for any tectonic quiescence.) The quote from Dr Talus' play 
may be pure malarkey, or just a dramatic touch meant to get us to pay 
attention. Severian does not mention new volcanoes, new earthquakes, or 
new continents in UNS. If the continents do move again, it will be well 
out of the scope of his narrative.

         Had Wolfe really meant us to think the Worm stopped plate 
motion---and that it was important---he would surely have inserted such 
motion into UNS to show that it had reversed. So my guess is either it 
wasn't important or it didn't "really" happen.

Anyway, this has been an interesting discussion!

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