source of charge in Jolenta rape

Chris · 21 Apr 2003, 22:28 · from urth-v0304.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: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) source of charge in Jolenta rape
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 22:28:53 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3275 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0304/3275.txt.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I agree that it's Severian himself who makes the charge, though I think he=20
makes it against himself fairly immediately.

I also think what's been said about Jolenta is a bit unfair. It's a bit=20
muddled to explain why I come to this conclusion, but bear in mind that=20
everyone involved in Talos' play is rather overtly representing something=20
else. Jolenta is "beauty", if you like, and Talos is clearly the=20
"writer/poet" - what Talos does with Jolenta, and what he makes of her, is=20
somewhat telling. This may not seem important, but it helps to explain a=20
passage that is otherwise confusing (and which I cannot reproduce or look=20
up), in which Severian basically says that she can't help the way she is,=20
and implies that *everyone* is taking advantage of/raping her - with the=20
possible exception of Talos.

This may or may not be in the same league, thematically, with the others. I=
n=20
any event, I was very sadly sympathetic to Jolenta considering how=20
one-dimensional (by nature) a character she was.

I believe, however, that at some point Severian lets slip a statement, no=20
longer than a sentence or two, that implies that (despite the fact that the=
y=20
were lovers at some point) he had forced Thecla. I'm not confident of that=20
as an assertion, but there was definitely violence involved; Severian=20
through most of those books is very evasive w.r.t. Thecla, and one is often=20
forced to re-evaluate things he's said earlier in light of things he says=20
later.

Chris

>Marc Aramini wrote:
> >I must speak about the Jolenta "rape" - becuase I don't think it really=20
>is
> >one.
>
>Before things spin any further away and out . . .
>
>. . . the source of the charge of the possibility of Jolenta's rape . . .
>
>. . . is none other than Severian himself, in URTH (iirc).
>
>
>Thus it is not something whipped up by fan or critic.
>
>Severian himself, writing his tale, alludes to it as possibly being rape.
>He uses that word.
>
>Once again, in pursuit of accuracy.
>
>=3Dmantis=3D
>
>P.S. The Y series auctions have begun on eBay.
>
>=3Dm=3D
>
>
>Sirius Fiction
>booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley
>http://www.siriusfiction.com/
>
>eBay Auctions
>http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=3Dmr.si=
rius
>
>
>
>--

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. =20
http://join.msn.com/?page=3Dfeatures/featuredemail

--=20

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