Baldanders, Acies Castle & the Citadel

Chris · 29 Jul 2003, 05:24 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Baldanders, Acies Castle & the Citadel
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 05:24:41 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3801 at digest.urth.net>
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Baldanders was the Typhon That Could Have Been, this I think is explicitly=20
intended.

All in all, the allegorical element is so strong with Baldanders, Talos, an=
d=20
Jolenta that my first inclination was to treat Severian as I would a "real"=20
historical author: that is, to say that he invented them to make a point.

All in all I think we pay too little attention to the fact that Severian is=
,=20
among other things, an author. And despite his disavowals he knows all abou=
t=20
literary devices and how to use them properly. And consider this: if Wolfe=20
inventing Borges in a novel is inventive, consider how much more so it is t=
o=20
have Severian (a character invented by Wolfe) invent Borges, or Delaney (wh=
o=20
I have not read and can add nothing to the discussion of his influence).

So I think it bears some examination. Is the story of Baldanders an allegor=
y=20
of Wolfe's, or of Severian's? It would be easy to say that it made no=20
difference, but I suspect that it does.

Civet

>I think this kind of progression was probably explicit in GW's thinking=20
>about Urth. Baldanders could have become the new Typhon, with better luck.
>
>
>--

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