Malrubius' ghost

Chris · 18 Jul 2003, 18:57 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Malrubius' ghost
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 18:57:38 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3694 at digest.urth.net>
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I agree, in light of the points brought up by several people today, that=20
Malrubius' ghost literally being Silk in astral form is too problematic to=20
hold on to in that form. Mantis is correct in his guess as to why I thought=20
of the idea in the first place. In addition, it was always disconcerting to=20
me that the explanation of Malrubius as the ghost was that he was chosen ou=
t=20
of Severian's memory as a figure of wisdom and possibly a=20
pseudo-father-figure, whereas the "real" Malrubius in earlier segments is=20
never described with quite enough affection to really justify his having=20
this kind of importance to Sev. (My god, what an awful sentence). Master=20
Palaemon seems a more sympathetic character, and accounts of Malrubius=20
suffer a bit by comparison. So, this always struck a false chord with me bu=
t=20
at the time I was reading BotNS I was unable to resolve it. These alternate=20
explanations appeal to me because they explain what I perceive as an awkwar=
d=20
point of the text.

On the other hand, I don't know whether this explanation fits with the=20
statement of Wolfe's that Marc originally brought up re: Silk's astral=20
travel and the mystery of Malrubius' ghost. I wish I had the context of tha=
t=20
quote, actually.

Civet

Mantis wrote:
>Civet wrote:
> >But looking at it from the flip side, do you think it might be possible
> >that, when Severian refers to the ghost of Malrubius, he's actually usin=
g=20
>a
> >sort of euphemism?
>
>I can go along with this, because I think you are saying that Severian saw
>a ghost-like Silk (as shown in BOTSS) and later in TBOTNS saw a ghost which
>he reported as being that of Malrubius, while still later this ghost was
>made somewhat ambiguous as a machine projection based upon his own thoughts
>(basically giving the ghost the form of a wise person Severian had met in
>real life, in order to deliver just-in-time wisdom).
>
>Your point being that Severian's "alteration" is merely saying that the
>ghost was "Malrubius" rather than the who-knows-where-he's-from Silk.  An
>editorial decision on Severian's part to avoid cluttering the manuscript
>with a character who would require a whole book (or four or seven) to
>himself.

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