ancient city

maa32 · 19 Mar 2002, 03:01 · from urth-v0203.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) ancient city
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 20:01:22 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0203-374 at digest.urth.net>
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to one of my comments about the vanished people on green,I was answered:
>
"? When Horn first met the Neighbors, and they formally turned over
possession of Blue to him as representative of all the people, the Neighbor
who called himself Horn said, in the course of asking permission to visit
Blue at will: "From this whorl we sprang." (OBW, 271)"
>
I am referring to the statement in In Green's Jungles that tells of how the=20
city of the Vanished People there was far older than anything on Blue.  Of=20
course those neighbors "sprang" up from Blue: they were produced just then=20
when Horn fell in the pit on Blue.  On the other hand, the terraformed tree=
s=20
did orginally spring up on Urth before being transplanted to Lune, I suppos=
e=20
... they just evolved further there.  (obviously, the older cities are=20
underwater on Blue so the narrator doesn't really know about them)

As far as Babbie looking completely like Horn in the astral travel: Silk=20
looked like a combination of Horn and Silk at certain points.  I argue that=
 a=20
huge portion of Horn transfrerred into Babbie at the end of On Blue's Water=
s,=20
but not QUITE all of him. Of course he looks like Babbie, too, but he is=20
humanoid (note that he is far more humanoid that Scylla in Oreb).

Also, if we want to talk a little bit more about time travel in these books=
,=20
there is a fascinating conversation between Seawrack and the narrator in On=20
Blue's Waters in which she says she can move events from one time in her=20
memory to another as she recounts her story; she then says the narrator can=
 do=20
that, too.  I was a bit baffled by that - could it be related to a=20
time-traversing principle?  After all, "certain mystes" aver that the real=20
world exists only in the human mind, and that our dreams are someone else's=20
reality.  (Severian as dream of Silk?)

Some good responses to my challenge ... but I'm just not buying the actual=20
presence of God and his angels as a valid explanation for a lot of those=20
things.  That's a bit too pat, isn't it?  It just doesn't seem like Gene to=20
blatantly put them into such a huge role unseen ... why would God manifest=20
himself to Silk again after his first enlightenment, which occured outside =
of=20
time and has since stayed with Silk? and how could that be logically=20
determined from the text? =20
Also, some simple shrimp release their gametes into the water and actually=20
form a allopolyploid viable life cycle for a short span, then become haploi=
d=20
again to mature. (let me look this up again and see if I can find a source =
for=20
you). Maybe the inhumu are like simple shrimp ... but they do, in fact make=
 a=20
point of gathering those vines as symbols of something ... and perhaps that=20
something is the hope of leaving behind their vegetative and animal pasts a=
nd=20
becoming true humans.

And as far as the secret goes, I still argue that its importance lies in it=
s=20
ability to incorporate mystical genetic material into offspring in one=20
generation: the parents are not the ones who receive the beneficial propert=
ies=20
of the blood, but their offspring do.  I still argue for a hybrid=20
understanding of the secret.

Nice point about Scylla - I guess Cillinia was already in the thrall of the=20
sea creature when she was downloaded.

Marc Aramini

--=20

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