The irrigation of Lune

Michael Straight · 04 Mar 2002, 13:02 · from urth-v0203.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: The irrigation of Lune
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 08:02:34 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <urth-v0203-276 at digest.urth.net>
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On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> >> The bit in SOTL where Typhon and Severian are speaking.   "My astronom=
ers
> >> had told me that this sun's activity would decay slowly . .   They were
> >> wrong . . . "   clearly implies that the astronomers and Typhon knew w=
hat
> >> was going on at the sun's core and therefore had a part in it.

I read this to mean that Typhon's astronomers hadn't even detected the
black hole's effects, that they were telling him about the sun's normal
life-cycle as a star, until it was too late.

> Who is responsible for the black hole in the sun is an important plot poi=
nt,
> it seems to me, because it bears directly on the ultimate goal of the Urth
> Cycle; the pretext for, and the coming of, the New Sun. If Man, in his
> presumptive arrogance, caused the wounding of the sun, that is one thing.=
 If
> agents of the Increate caused it, as retribution, that is something else
> entirely. I have always adhered to the latter view, and I think the weight
> of evidence from the fifth volume of the series supports that view.

You've left out the third option, which I think is the correct one, that
the wounding of the sun was caused by extraterrestrial enemies of Man,
Abaia and Erebus, who swim between the stars (and whose sister, I believe,
is the Mother on Blue).

-Rostrum


--=20

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