catamites and narrators

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 17 Sep 2002, 21:07 · from urth-v0209.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) catamites and narrators
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 14:07:26 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0209-1751 at digest.urth.net>
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Things are arriving at my machine in weird, random order.

> > Incidentally, if by incest and "a kind of adultery" you mean
> > his relationship with Dorcas, I really think those are Not
> > His Fault.
>=20
> I agree.=20

As do I, regarding incest. And so what? Consider Oedipus. Incest=20
appears to be so vile that even unknown, it pollutes the world.=20
Yet this is that world's savior ... go figure.

As for "a kind of adultery," what I basically meant was infidelity
in his going after Jolenta right after his reunion with Dorcas.

> It is certainly an original situation, and one that could only
> occur in SF.=20

True; and only because Dorcas is not (or does not appear to be)
a timewalker is Severian prevented from singing the old convention
favorite that ends "... I am my own grampaaaaw!"

> If "a kind of adultery" refers to Cyriaca, well, I=20
> can't get too exercised about that, either.=20

Good heavens, I'd forgotten that. Skip "a kind of."

> Nor rape if that refers to Jolenta, good grief! And
> fornication--since when do we start bleating about=20
> that? Yikes.

Since we are speaking of traditional Catholic sexual morality,
that's since when. Not late-twentieth/early-twenty-first-
century American secular humanist morality. In which case the
content of sin is not only intentional but formal; and my point=20
is not whether Severian is "guilty" (the issue of intention)=20
of any or all of these things: it is that he formally does=20
commit them, but somehow homosexuality seems to be left out of=20
the mix.

--Blattid

--=20

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