sev's 2nd book

maa32 · 11 Jul 2003, 05:59 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) sev's 2nd book
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 22:59:00 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3652 at digest.urth.net>
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Severian goes to some length during writing Book of the New Sun to address =
his=20
readers personally, which means that he expects to have some.  Yet at the=20
opening of  Urth of the New Sun, he claims no one will ever read his new=20
narrative. So he has some new information at the time of his scribbling.  H=
ow=20
far after his arrival on the little island with the sleeping gods (always a=20
sad description in my mind) did he begin writing Urth of the New Sun?  Is h=
e=20
immortal? In any case, casting the second copy out into space implies that =
he=20
has some slight presentiment that Urth is screwed and that the first copy i=
s=20
insufficient - he takes a shot in the dark or a lottery chance that it will=20
wind up somewhere to be read, whereas the one in the library might have=20
already been given up as lost even before his trial.  That's a lot of copyi=
ng,=20
eh?

Yeah, it's hard to read the document as "solely" political, but certainly h=
e=20
had some personal motivation in writing the whole thing twice.

BTW, I think Wolfe will be at Readercon this year (this month, eh?).  I don=
't=20
know anything about it, and I won't be there, but he mentioned something of=20
the sort.

Marc Aramini

--=20

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