Jonas

Jonas bother me on several levels. First, there is his name: obviously a straight take off of the Biblical one right down to the spelling, and there is a commonality of livelihood. But, I cannot see what Jonas' whale is. Could it be Urth, when he and his fellow sailors crashed? But that is not satisfactory. Second, Jonas, AFAIK, is, from Apprentice Sev's time frame, from the deep past, who has only now returned, many years later, thanks to time dilation. But, consider: the only ship we know of, and are given strong reasons to believe is in fact the only 'ship', is Tzadkiels in TUOTNS. All right you say, what of it? Well, first Sev doesn't see Jonas on Tzadkiel's ship, which is fairly suspicious- if such an unlikely thing as Gunny meeting her younger self could happen, how much more likely should it be that Sev meet Jonas again, when the connections betwixt them are so strong and old? It would work perfectly from a novelists perspective, since Jonas could easily be searching for Jolenta again, or seeking a return to the past. The problem here is that we know that Jonas couldn't have been on the Tzadkiel, since his ship disastrously crashed when there were no facilities to receive them, and the Tzadkiel never crashed. And it could not have been one of the minor tenders and in-system vessels, since those could never acheive the relativistic time warping effects that plunged Jonas far into his future. Thirdly, his accent and mannerisms. He certainly seems to speak as a sailor, with the mini-parables, and such. But Jonas was mechanical, but not like Sidero remember. Sidero was a hollow man, and Jonas was not. As well, Sev says that Jonas entire demeanour spoke to him of a 'time when they lived in fear, and sought to alleviate it through constant joking' (sorry for the paraphrase; can't even remember what book it is in.) The sailors on the Tzadkiel certainly don't live in constant fear. So, we have a dude whose is from the past, shouldn't have been able to get into the future, who mimics sailors, but is not one, and mysteriously disapears to who-knows-where - the mirrors of Inire coulda taken him clear to Briah or even more inscrutable times/places (remember too that in this relativistic framework, time is space is time. Mirrors which serve to catapult/shanghai one through space can also do thus through time), and never shows up again, despite being so important. As I said, Jonas bothers me. ~Maru

The biblical Jonah not necessarily a sailor, on his flight from Ninevah the LJV has him paying a fare, not joining a crew. In light of his established position and relations to other area personages, he probably has a relatively stationary profession like rabbi.

It's a big, big ship, and while it can travel through time, not all journeys through time have to be the same journey through time. Gunny and Burgondofara are likely to meet because Gunny remembers being the places Burgondofara is likely to go, they probaly have the same bunking preferences, etc. How many other "people" are likely on the ship that Severian doesn't meet? We only see one Sidero for instance.

Tzadkiel is not the only craft that traveles between Urth and Yesod; the saucer that visits Baldanders' keep is at least one other. There's also the portals that lead from the machine planet back into Briah, possibly Jonas and some other trial eidolons escaped through one. But even if it was Tzadkiel, Tzadkiel is plenty big to carry an orbit-to-ground craft, it may have some escape pods, etc. and Jonas could have been on the losing side of a jibber battle and forced to bail out in an something that depended on later technology to work.

The Jibbers and apports might, though.

It's not just relativistic travel, that wouldn't the mirror trick. There's at least cyclical time and higher dimensions involved, and the magic mirrors are only incidentally mirrored, otherwise there'd be apports, monsters, and hiergrammates in every tailor's shop.

Hethor mentions the name of his ship (can't remember what it was), and Jonas says that his ship was called "The Fortunate Cloud", as far as I recall. The idea that there is just one ship only comes up in UOTNS, and IMO it's a new idea Wolfe had for UOTNS, not part of the earlier volumes. Or maybe this just refers to the Yesod run - ie it's the only ship to cross between universes. Jonas is indeed not like Sidero, but remember that Sev also sees robots on the Ship who he thinks are more like Jonas would once have been.

It could be the human body that he took on. Or he could be named for St. Jonas. He was a 4th century monk who spent 85 years in a desert hermitage. That sounds a bit like our marooned Jonas. ~ Crush

James Wynn (Crush) <thewynns at earthlink.net> said

But of course there's a whale. On page 125 of Shadow and Claw Severian tells Agia the story of Domnina and Father Inire's mirrors, which he originally heard from Thecla. In the mirrors, Domnina sees the reflection of a Fish, which Inire tells her would eventually solidify and manifest itself. Later, Jonas disappears into the same mirrors. His actual encounter with the Fish is left to our imagination. And my impression (which I don't see confirmed in the text in a quick glance through it) was that this Fish doesn't swim through water but space. -- Stone Ox (Peter)