Digest urth.v028.n139

Alice Turner · 26 Jan 2000, 21:05 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <pei047 at attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n139
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 21:05:08
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0735 at digest.urth.net>
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> From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>

> >> Now this is the bit I didn't understand. How does he reappear?
> >> He would have to, really, in order to do all the stuff below.
> >> But I thought Wolfean time travel involved a kind of "short
> >> circuit", a folding back, with the combined traveller being
> >> the only one left. You go back in time, "absorb" your former
> >> self, and carry on from there. It never occurred to me that
> >> reappearing was allowed.=20
> >
> >I agree that this seems to be how Whitten explains it, but Kip's motive
> >for shooting Free was that "she must have known she would never get her
> >father back as long as I--Free--refused to go back" (from Chapter
> >59).  So she must have expected her father to reappear.
> >
> >But this would imply that if someone goes back in time, absorbs his form=
er
> >self, then dies, then the former self would reappear.  X lives? (where X
> >is the number of times you've re-doubled yourself?)
>=20
> (!) The whole theory is rather unsatisfactory, I've always thought.
> You only need this kind of time travel, where you can only be in
> one place at a time, if you believe in the soul. Duplication of
> souls is a theologically tricky area. Is it Malrubius who explains
> to Severian near the end of BotNS, about aquastors and writing?
> The bit where Severian comes to understand why the witches ran
> away and Hildegrin got caught in the metaphysical blast, or whatever.
>=20
> >Also, as I mentioned above, what happens when you go forward in time? =20

Um, I really don't want to read FLF again, but in referring to TBOTNS, ther=
e are several kinds of time paradoxes. There's Sev-Apu-Punchau, and then ag=
ain there's Gunnie-Burgundofara, which seem to be contradictory. There's th=
e hierodules going backward, there's the Brook Madregot and the "corridors =
of time." Angels, like Tzad, can time-travel easily, and can seem to have t=
wo bodies at once, or almost at once. There's Jonas (and Hethor), who might=
 be from the 21st century and may be able to get back there (or somewhere) =
via Inire's mirrors. There are the alternate futures suggested by Master As=
h and the green man. And it seems quite possible that the new trilogy is go=
ing to have some fancy time stuff, too, if Sev is to show up. So "Wolfean t=
ime travel" is an elastic concept. Also, wrt "absorbing" bodies, he has bee=
n playing with this idea a lot in TBOTLS and OBW.

> >So the younger Whitten, Kip's dad "deserts", not the older version we me=
et
> >in High Country.  But does Kip's dad go to 1803?  The older version in
> >High Country says of his still older, future self, "I think he must have
> >gone to some other time, although I have no idea what that time might
> >be.  To the Lewis and Clark expedition, I hope." (end of ch. 59).  So
> >where/when does Kip's dad go?
>=20
> I see what you mean. And I see why I didn't remember 1803, which
> presumably is the date of Lewis and Clark.

Yes, that's when the expedition grouped and made a winter camp. They set of=
f in 1804.

> So I'm still confused. Why is the big jet in the story at all?
> It serves to synchronize the separate story threads, but that
> hardly seems necessary. This is Wolfe, so there *must* be a
> reason for it.

If he is following WoOz, it simply echoes the balloon, I imagine. But since=
 I'm not rereading, I'm not much use on FLF.

Happy Birthday, dear Bear.=20

-alga



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