What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?

wthyde · 23 Jan 2004, 22:33 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2004.mbox

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From: wthyde at godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
Subject: Re: What is _Urth of the New Sun_ about?
Date: 23 Jan 2004 17:33:43 -0500
Message-ID: <yv7z1xpq47nc.fsf at godzilla.acpub.duke.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <bss663$593$1 at panix1.panix.com> <Xns946188F9C4513mss2mediaonenet at 130.133.1.4> <qemIb.1404$Is5.488 at bignews4.bellsouth.net> <bteo4e$30n$1 at news01.cit.cornell.edu> <buhgd7$oj3$1 at panix2.panix.com> <bujec7$jba$1 at news01.cit.cornell.edu>

"Ron Henry" <ronhenry at blahblahblah.clarityconnectcom> writes:
> > "Ron Henry" <ronhenry at blahblahblah.clarityconnectcom> said:
> >
> > > No, really, It's pretty clear from references in both the New Sun
> > > and Long Sun series that Severian and the people of the Whorl who
> > > come from the same Commonwealth as Severian, were South Americans.
> > > (One off the cuff reference I can think of is that they drink
> > > maté.)
> >
> > How likely is it, though, that the equation "they drink mate' in that
> > culture" == "that culture is located in South America" is going to
> > remain continuously true for tens of thousands of years?
> 
> Well, as I've written before, I don't think the time BotNS/BotLS take
> place is nearly as distant as most people suppose.

        Even a thousand years is too many for the mate reference.

 Most of what happens
> in the book is pretty recognizable and comprehensible to us, and
> suggests at most a couple thousand years have passed, at most.

        Having just read  the books I have to disagree.  The strata
        shown in "Sword of the Lictor" are not going to be laid
        down in less than hundreds of thousands of years.  As they
        have since been uplifted, more time must be added for that.

        Nor do I think the geography fits.  There is no river
        equivalent to Gyoll today, nor would there be even if
        sea level were to drop due to polar glaciation.

        It's either the very far future, or not our Earth.



> 
> Honestly, I think this is one of the subtle Wolfean trickeries at
> work -- it appears because of some tricks he is playing with sfnal
> tropes -- like the dying sun, which a close reading reveals was
> deliberately damaged, not fading from age,

        Actually that's pretty obvious.  And even at the time
        Wolfe wrote the book most of his audience would be
        aware that the sun grows brighter with age, not dimmer.

William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

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