Forgotten Names

Charles Dye · 29 Mar 1998, 18:11 · from urth-v0008.mbox · original

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From: raster at highfiber.com (Charles Dye)
Subject: re:  (urth) Forgotten Names
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 18:11:56
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

>From: m.driussi at genie.geis.com
>Subject: (urth) Forgotten Names

>Re: planets.  I now tend to think Abaddon is the word for "subspace"
>(which makes much more sense).  Don't forget "Serenus" aka Jupiter
>aka "Bethor."

You're right on Serenus -- I'd completely forgotten that one.  I'll
have to disagree on Abaddon, as Severian lists it among "worlds" and
"spheres of ... cindery hills where lava rivers flow"  But perhaps
the name of a planet was later applied to a plane, or vice versa.

>How about names for the quarters of Nessus?  My newest theory is that
>"Algedonic Quarter" is the Latinate officialese form given to a dead
>(but not yet forgotten) quarter, referring in this case to the
>torturers and the prostitutes to be found there.  The people
>of a living quarter refer to it by some landmark: their use of the
>term "Old Citadel" implies there is a "(newer) Citadel" (presumably
>the citadel of the archon of Nessus); Dorcas goes home to "Oldgate,"
>which is now a nameless ruin but had a living name when Dorcas was
>first there forty years earlier.

Given the definite article and the caps, I still assume that the
Algedonic Quarter is a specific name for a specific part of the city:
"the Echopraxia is in the Algedonic Quarter," not "the Echopraxia is
an algedonic quarter."  Moreover, I'm not even sure that the torturers'
tower is really within that Quarter.  The peltast on the bridge places
the Old Citadel at the edge of the Algedonic Quarter, but Roche implies
that the Citadel is outside the Quarter.  Do you have a derivation for
that word "algedonic?"

Topic veer:  "algedonic" sounds like it might have been a name for a
wing of the House Absolute, doesn't it?  We have the Hypogeum
Amaranthine and the Hypogeum Apotropaic.  Would Master Ultan's stacks
connect with a "Hypogeum Athenaeum?"  Never mind.

raster at highfiber.com

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