One Ship: reply

James Jordan · 16 Aug 2003, 14:53 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) One Ship: reply
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 09:53:49 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0308-3917 at digest.urth.net>
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At 04:03 AM 8/16/2003, Don replied to:

>On Saturday, August 16, 2003, at 01:36 AM, Ashley Crill wrote:
>
>>Anyway, I didn't intend the 'One Ship' idea to be particularly=20
>>convincing. Its one of those fond oddball ideas that would be almost=20
>>impossible to prove correct or incorrect. I also didn't take the=20
>>Captain's statement about one ship as literal, though I didn't make that=20
>>clear in my original message. The Captain seems to be speaking in some=20
>>sort of poetical sense concerning the ideal of  'shiphood'. The strongest=20
>>suggestion of this whole theory seems to be the fact that Gunnie has no=20
>>idea what Cargo the Ship carries. She indicates that the Crew doesn't=20
>>have access to the cargo holds at all, yet such holds must be=20
>>unimaginably huge.
>
>One point in favor. :)
>
>>-I agree with the the symbolic idea of the Ship as the Church. Its very=20
>>plain. I might point out, however, that the Whorl carries the same=20
>>symbology, only its 'heavenly destination' is Blue/Green rather than Yeso=
d.
>
>This is correct but it's a corrupt symbolism.

         I think this might even be "two points in favor of parallelism."=20
Sure Tzadkiel's ship is the only one of its kind, though archetypally=20
related to all other ships. And what can the Cargo be but "souls being=20
carried to heaven" in some SF sense, within the construct of the epic.
         Satan is God's ape, said Luther, and doubtless many before and=20
after him. Typhon is the Pancreator's ape. His ship also carries souls to=20
his future hell, where he will somehow rule (as Pas, or as a revived=20
Typhon, depending on where you think the Whorl is going).
         Tzadkiel's Ship is the archetype. Whorl is one of countless=20
ectypes, and in this case a wicked ectype, a slave ship.

>>-The Chrasmologic Writings contain French and Latin because, A: Its a=20
>>religious writing. B: It was written and the Whorl was launched far=20
>>before Severian's time. Also, Latin is extant in Severian's day, along=20
>>with Greek and Spanish.
>
>It certainly exists in the Library.

         Are these languages extant? Don't forget Wolfe's ur-note at the=20
very beginning of the whole cycle, that he has translated Severian's=20
manuscript in ways that 20th century readers can identify with. The=20
appearance of Latin, French, Spanish, Arabic, etc. need mean no more than=20
that Wolfe has assigned these languages to correspond to various languages=20
of the far "future" (in whatever sense Urth is "future" to us). I'm not=20
sure we can make anything out of the appearance of these languages in these=20
books. All three of these epics are books that Wolfe has graciously=20
translated for us.

Nutria


--=20

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