cliff + island of the sleeper

maa32 · 23 Dec 2002, 23:46 · from urth-v0212.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) cliff + island of the sleeper
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 16:46:09 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0212-2524 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0212/2524.txt.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

In Return to the Whorl, the narrator scales a huge cliff over the towers of=20
the inhumu while he is being attacked.  He comes to the top to see a black=20
domelike hut, and a man with a colorless cloak and a stiff legged gait (lik=
e a=20
bird) comes to him.  Then the scene ends.

I propose that this high cliff is the place where the island of the Sleeper=
 at=20
the end of Urth of the New Sun is located.  Severian's been hanging out the=
re=20
for a long time.  I re-read that section and noticed something peculiar abo=
ut=20
the imagery.  Severian's priest only eats a bite or two, while Severian gor=
ges=20
himself.  Could the priest already have a few chloroplasts in his blood? (A=
s I=20
believe Silk does - but he is not yet saturated enough to be green - but=20
remember how he sickens and wilts in the winter when there is limited=20
sunlight?)  The flood waters left this cliff as an island at the end of Urt=
h=20
of the New Sun, and Severian must have taken a liking to it. =20
On this island, Severian comments that he was an apprentice time-traveler, =
but=20
that the Green man was a Master.  Of course the vanished people must have=20
access to the corridors of time - where else could they go?

If Severian is on Green, then that probably isn't him on Blue (barring a=20
doubling that perhaps will be discussed here by another poster) touching th=
e=20
forehead of Horn in the pit.  If that isn't him, then I propose that a=20
neighbor is created in the pit when Horn bleeds in it (lying dead for three=20
days, note, as Christ does before his resurrection) and Horn is awakened in=
 a=20
transfigured state (doubled - one of him, and one vanished person named=20
"horn".)  Notice that the eucharist is invoked twice - once to indicate the=20
communion between man and the mechanical world, once to indicate the commun=
ion=20
between man and the natural world.

Then what about the "immortal" four armed inhumu coming onto the boat at=20
night?  Some have argued it is an aspect of the mother - I disagree.  I=20
thought it might have been Severian because of the claim that Horn makes ab=
out=20
it being someone who "thought" he was favored by the gods but then returned=
 to=20
the ocean for lack of better things to do.  Now I think it may be a neighbo=
r=20
created by the blood of the pirate woman that Horn shoots immediately befor=
e=20
that scene - her corpse falls in the water, and her blood is used to create=
 a=20
ready made vanished person.  Unless Severian has been doubled.  And it=20
wouldn't be the first time, would it?

Marc Aramini

--=20

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net