Thecla's fourth book

Don Palumbo · 08 Aug 2003, 17:00 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: Don Palumbo <enpalumb at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Thecla's fourth book
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 10:00:56 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0308-3872 at digest.urth.net>
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Andrew,

That's really interesting, especially as the content of THE BOOK OF THE NEW=20
SUN is already inside The Book of the New Sun in that we get the text of=20
Dr. Talos' play, which is explicitly based on it, for about twenty pages at=20
the end of CLAW, so it would be especially neat if this book itself was=20
also inside the book.  The dozens of other tales within tales in BNS are=20
the best examples of numerous other instances of the nod to fractal=20
structure that Wolfe is giving, here, in basing BNS on Campbell's monomyth=20
(that Severian's companion through most of CLAW--which is the "Belly of the=20
Whale" episode in the monomyth--is named Jonas is another=20
big-but-not-so-subtle nod), which also has a remarkably thorough fractal=20
structure (but not a whole lot of people know it).

So, is there any evidence in the text of the tetralogy itself that this 4th=20
book in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN?

And where exactly can I find this essay in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING?

--Don Palumbo

At 04:21 PM 8/7/03 -0700, you wrote:
>Andrew Bollen wrote:
> >    I know there was some discussion of this, sometime,  but I can't find
> >it on a quick search. Sev fetches four books for Thecla -  Wonders, a bo=
ok
> >of devotions, something to do with heraldry, and another one.  Hope I've
> >got that right - anyway, I recall that three of the books were  described
> >in at least some detail, but one wasn't, which in Wolfe world usually
> >means we're supposed to ask questions about it.  Thoughts?
>
>The hidden book is (Canog's) THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. (See Wolfe's essay in
>PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING for more details.)
>
>=3Dmantis=3D
>
>
>
>--

--=20

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