Silkhorn's memory; Sev's book

Roy C. Lackey · 10 Jul 2003, 06:38 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Silkhorn's memory; Sev's book
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 01:38:06 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3622 at digest.urth.net>
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Recent discussion has asserted that Horn or Silk--or Silkhorn--had a perfect
memory, like Severian's. No such claim is made in either the LS or SS books.

BTW, on my first reading of the SS series and every time since, I was struck
by the sharp contrast between Horn's son's account of Sev's actions during
their journey to Urth and the account Sev gave of the same time period in
NS, the short time he had Triskele. By Sev's account, he did not have the
liberty to be guiding visitors around or to interact with prisoners (such as
opening cells and fetching Merryn) that is recounted in SS.

Also, the manuscript Sev wrote (the one he was finishing writing in the last
chapter of CITADEL, on the eve of his journey to the stars) was to be sent
to Master Ultan for archiving. It was never intended for publication in the
Commonwealth, therefore was not intended to sway the populace during his
reign or the subsequent regency. He even had to reproduce the manuscript by
hand, from memory, aboard Tzadkiel's ship. It was this second copy that
Wolfe gave us. No other copies existed, afaik.

-Roy

--=20

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