various miscellany

Lisa Schaffer-Doggett · 06 Mar 2003, 06:28 · from urth-v0303.mbox · original

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From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Subject: (urth) various miscellany
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 22:28:07 -0800
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Hi everyone, Don here.  I'm back from a long hiatus and I thought I'd=20
throw out a few odds and ends in no particular order of importance. =20
First in my head, first from my fingers.  Does Typhon recognize=20
Severian when they meet  in Sword of the Lictor?  I think it's a pretty=20
sure yes:
	' "The Conciliator," I said . . .
	"Yes, that was one of his names.  Do you know where he is now?"
	"He has been dead for many chiliads."
	"And yet he remains, I think?"'
In the context of the paragraph (and on a second reading of the books)=20
Typhon is obviously toying with Sev. and feeling him out to see if he=20
really doesn't realize that they've met before. IMO of course.

Second.  "Green is Urth."  Is it a joke?  Well, maybe it is, but=20
sometimes the best way to hide the truth is in a joke.  Here's another=20
joke if Green is Urth:  Wolfe has gone from a moon made out of green=20
cheese to a blue moon.  Don't underestimate the power of the pun.  But=20
more significantly, if Blue is Lune then it makes perfect sense why the=20
Mother is there.  The moon is the provenance of the Goddess.  And=20
another thing that I must address:  Green is not "Hell".  Blue is. =20
Look beyond the superficialities of climate.  Every place on Blue,=20
without exception, that the narrator visits is beset with some=20
combination of lawlessness, slavery, warfare, corruption, dishonesty,=20
or violence.  Every one.  Now let's go to Green, and Sinew's village. =20
The visitors (Silkhorn and Jahlee and whoever else) are welcomed,=20
cautiously but courteously, and not imprisoned.  They find a thriving=20
and fairly harmonious society, where Sinew's second in command is a=20
Trivigaunti!  It's not perfect but it's certainly not hell.  In fact,=20
it's probably a Green man's paradise.

Third.  I've (finally!) finished reading The White Goddess.  I have=20
never found myself obsessed with a particular author before, but Graves=20
is insanely incredible.  Even if everything in that book is=20
historically incorrect it is still a work of absolute genius and even=20
more remarkable in it's creativity.  But man, it's a slow read.  Still=20
I urge anyone interested in going down Wolfe's rabbit hole to read it. =20
When Wolfe isn't using its ideas to his own end, he's often reacting=20
and replying to them.

Third and a half.  While reading The White Goddess, I came across this=20
passage and I started thinking about the mechanics of the New Sun.  By=20
that I mean Severian is himself, the man, but he is also the literal=20
New Sun, the white fountain.  How does this happen, other than Tzadkiel=20
snapping his fingers and saying it's so.  Well, I've found an=20
interesting possibility, as far fetched and unlikely as it may seem,=20
even to me.   It's on pp. 480-81 of TWG:
"A New Zealand atomic scientist assured me the other day that=20
Christianity had received it's heaviest blow in 1945:  a fundamental=20
tenet of the Church, namely that Jesus's material body was=20
immaterialized  at the Ascension had, he said, been spectacularly=20
disproved at Hiroshima and Nagasaki - anyone with the least scientific=20
perception must realize that any such break-down of matter would have=20
caused an explosion large enough to wreck the entire Middle East."
Could it cause a release of energy large enough to create a white=20
fountain?  Any takers for the pros or the cons?

Thanks for your time.
Don Doggett

--=20

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