Index · 3 messages · 2 voices · 07 Aug – 08 Aug 2003

Thecla's fourth book

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Michael Andre-Driussi07 Aug 2003, 23:21original as archived

↰ answers Andrew Bollen · by quotation

2 quoted lines

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 book 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.) =mantis=

Don Palumbo08 Aug 2003, 17:00original as archived

↳ follows Michael Andre-Driussi · by subject

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

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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 book 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.) =mantis= --

Michael Andre-Driussi08 Aug 2003, 15:03original as archived

↳ follows Don Palumbo · by subject

4 quoted lines

Don Palumbo wrote: So, is there any evidence in the text of the tetralogy itself that this 4th book in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN? And where exactly can I find this essay in PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING?

I will answer the last part: PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING is a book published by NESFA Press in 1984. The first essay in this book is "Books in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN." That is the essay I referred to. =mantis=

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