Tzadkiel/Melek Taus

Finally got around to tracking something down which had been nagging me. When I first came to the conclusion that Tzadkiel was a liar and a no-good, it put me vaguly in mind of a satanic peacock-angel that I'd read of (in a Patrick O'Brien novel?) in connection with some middle-Eastern sect. Tzadkiel's eye-wings always struck me as peacock-ish. Anyway, here he is, the Peacock Angel of the Yazidis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melek_Taus The Peacock Angel of the Yazidis. He has much the same story as Satan/Iblis ("the liar"), except for the Yazidis, it's a good thing that he didn't accept the favored status of Man. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Wolfe had this bird and the Yazidi's in mind. No, I don't think that BOTNS is intended as a Yazidi gospel :)

Ooh, this is excellent stuff. Thank you for this. Someone like me (but smarter) should take this insight and run with it into a full-on application of Melek Taus to other Wolfean demons. If Wolfe used the figure once, did he use it again? If not, why not?

This is the way I see it: In the BOTNS, Wolfe shows how a young man, by no means inherently evil, is induced to do the will of (call it) Lucifer, working on the young man's inclination to obey and disinclination to think clearly when afflicted by religiosity, with these propensities assisted by a cloud of meretricious gnostic-ish mumbo-jumbo which takes the place of "true religion". The Lucifer figure is particularly evil in that he causes the young man himself to be responsible for the mumbo-jumbo, unwittingly. Wolfe takes the reader on the same kind of journey as Sev. He sets up the form of the story to make it look like a tale about enlightenment and the progression of a soul from lowest to highest, and what BOTNS/UOTNS shows is how powerful such forms are. By the the end of UOTNS there is overwhelming evidence to make the enlightenment reading completely untenable on any "objective" grounds, but nevertheless for most readers it persists. "Tzadkiel" remains somehow the agent of some greater good, Sev has somehow earned his role of minor god to the remnants of destroyed Urth humanity, a grand (unknown) plan progresses to a sanctified (but unkown) end. On this view, BOTNS/UOTNS is a kind of demonstration of how people can become "yazidis" (to the extent that the term can be used to denote those who beleive bad is good - no offence to actual Yazidis!). Anyway, if Wolfe was thinking along those lines & did make use of aspects of the Melek Taus figure, I guess that use was pretty specific to the concerns of BOTNS/UOTNS. The closest figure I can think of in other works is The Lowest God from W-K, but even though he may well be a de-winged angel, he fits a different "error" (ie "lowest = highest", rather than "wrong highest").

From: Mr Thalassocrat

I remain 'loyal to the ship' on this one. One can certainly question whether the negation of a black hole that was deliberately put into the sun counts as a net benefit - but can we really defend the moribund future of Master Ash compared to the new life of Ushas, though indeed this new life must be born in cataclysm? It would, I think, be unfair to rely too much on the author's statements on his intention, but it seems to me that they support the conventional interpretation. Severian is 'a Christian figure' - compare to Silk, who is 'a good man in a bad religion'. But here is an obvious question which should have an answer within the text: if your theory is correct, where in BotNS/UotNS is the counterpart of The Outsider? And what Urthly presences/powers stand against the New Sun? Vodalus? Who, Mr. Thallassocrat, is standing for what you say is Good? - Gerry Quinn

But on my side of the argument I have Ash's words about the majority of the population having been evacuated before the ice death, in his future. Whatever the benefits of Ushas, why did almost everybody have to die in Sev's time line? And probably more to the point: why didn't Sev at least try to make this happen - knowing as he did that it was possible?

I can't recall everything that Wolfe has said about this, but didn't he actually say that Sev is a member of the mystical body of Christ? (Or was that something that he said to somebody, in addition to the Sev-as-Christian comment?) Anyway, I can't understand Sev being a Christian, which presumably requires one to believe in Christ? As to being part of the mystical body of Christ, I am totally unqualified to judge what that actually means. But perhaps this sentence from the Mystici Corporis Christi is relevant: "For the Church, the Bride of Christ, is one; and yet so vast is the love of the divine Spouse that it embraces in His Bride the whole human race without exception." ( http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi_en.html Ch96)

That is indeed the big question. My answer is that LS/SS is a redemption of the God-less world of BOTNS/UOTNS - in which neither side is "Good". I believe Sev's life after meeting SilkHorn will be very different than his career in BOTNS/UOTNS - as I've set out in posts here over the years. I don't think anybody else has found this position very convincing, but I'm sticking with it :)

Sorry, that may be unclear. ".. why didn't Sev at least try to make an evacuation happen ...".

I was checking on this and found that Melek Taus is specifically associated with Azezel the fallen peacock angel. Similar name but distinct from the non-fallen Tzadkiel. It looks like the Yazidis find him as redeemed from his fall and worthy of worship. But this redemption is not recognized by Judeo-Christianty (he is the demon from the Denzel Washington movie- Fallen. Worth seeing) Anyway, I think Peter Wright joins in your conclusion that there are no good guys in BotNS, certainly not among the powerful. However I think he interprets from the perspective of an atheist/socialist so this is not surprising. I don't know your own religious/political persuasions but I am pretty sure Gene Wolfe is not an atheist/socialist. That's if Gene Wolfe's intentions are important here. They need not be. I do not think Gene Wolfe's opinion of angels is more valid than Peter Wright's or yours from a human perspective. But as author of the worlds we are discussing, Wolfe's opinions may take on some exalted status, being those of The Creator, I suppose. The "real" Tzadkiel is of the angelic order Hashmallim. But I suspect wolfe has combined his description with another angelic order, the Cherubim. They have wings spangled with eyes and one of their duties is to defend the entrance to the Garden Of Eden. When Severian first sees Tzadkiel in the mirror-book, it happens because he has requested to go to The Garden. Re-reading that section I notice that Severian recognizes that the winged being he sees in the book is as big as an island. I feel confirmed in my guess that the giant being Severian sees on the throne and captain's chair is a small piece of a much larger being.

I think the BotNS analog to The Outsider is The Increate. I am not the best religious philosophy scholar but I think those who deeply consider the question end up coming to the conclusion that, while we humans are supposed to choose "good", God is infintely above such conflict. In fact God/The Outsider/Increate uses both good and evil; pitting them against each other to accomplish His unknowable divine goals. As we read Long Sun we see The Outsider get promoted in Silk's mind from minor deity to top dog. However the "truth" is that The Outsider is far more than top dog, the boss of all gods. In fact he has created Pas and Scylla and Echidna and The Whorl and Blue and Green and Urth and uses them to accomplish His goals. Right?

That is one conclusion some people have drawn. Another is that "good" is a meaningless concept except insofar as it is identified with God's will. I.e., the reason murder is wrong is that God disapproves of it, and if God approves of murder in a particular case it becomes good. A third is that God is infinitely good--so good that He has the power to cultivate good from the seeds of evil. The first concept, the one you proffered, seems to me to be favored by those who prefer a deanthropomorphised concept of God. The second seems to me to be preferred by those who privilege God's authority, His status as sovereign of existence. The third is perhaps preferred by those who take it that God's *legitimacy *as sovereign must depend on moral authority rather than sheer power or status as creator. I will only note here that, as readers of texts which are themselves created, I think it is true that experientially we prefer the third alternative to the first. When Mr. Goodkind instructs me that his hero is morally justified in all his actions, I do not take Mr. Goodkind's views to be definitive of the question, even within his fictive universe. It may be that this is due solely to the metafictive nature of in-fiction morality, but maybe there's something else there too.

Nothing good has ever come from taking Goodkind seriously. LH

He's a real-life demiurge. That's worth something.

-----Original Message-----

It's in TREASONS HARBOUR. But it may be worth noting Malek Taus was Lovecraft's private epistolary title for his friend E Hoffman Price. Wolfe might possibly have picked up on this, being an HPL reader and fan, but even if not it may amuse. Cordially hartshorn

This is worth pursuing but I think there are a number of problems with it. If Tzadkiel is honest, his intent is to renew the planet and give Humanity a new chance. If there is an afterlife then drowning almost everyone isn't such a catastrophe as it might seem. The fact is that the world is in dire need of moral cleansing, not only terraforming, and I don't see how you achieve the former without some global disaster that at once decimates the population and changes the natural environment. The new world will have a chance to be good. If Tzadkiel is a liar, then I don't see what does he gain by destroying the world. Sure, he could do it out of sheer evilness, but I don't find it convincing that he would take all that trouble just to have a 5 minute massacre sport. We tend to associate evil with selfishness, and to annihilate your potential servants makes little sense selfishly. And if the intent is to take pleasure in killing them, then a global drowning is possibly one of the least interesting methods - quick and clean. If otoh he wishes to wipe out Humanity for whatever reason, giving a renewed planet to a reduced population seems to run counter to the objective. Moreover, if Tzadkiel could send the new sun to destroy the world, why not just do it without all the hocus pocus? And if he didn't have that power all by himself, then whoever did have the power is calling the shots, not Tzakdiel. You mention Severian could have asked for the population to be evacuated. Well, could the building of the Whorl have been done not out of fear that the sun would die out, but that the flood could be irreparably deleterious? And where would you take all those wicked people, and how would you reform them? If it were easy, what would a new Earth be needed for? In the dying earth future, my impression is that the population had been steadily declining for ages. Does Severian not asking for an evacuation imply that he is evil as well? I suppose your idea is that he is so embroiled in Tzadkiel's way of presenting things that such a question doesn't even cross his mind.

2010/7/9 Ant?nio Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com

This actually makes some sense of the family tree and incest preoccupations of the text, and of the monkey preoccupation--we know from the man-apes that there are degraded, semi-ape humans (as well as humans who have probably interbred with aliens of some kind, and humans who do really screwy things to their biology, like Baldanders.) In short, the purification of Urth by massive slaughter makes perfect sense--Tzadkiel is wiping the bad crap out of a petri dish he's decided to keep using.

This seems to fit, doesn't it? Severian is part of a cult-like order that trained him to obey authority, in particular when that authority instructs him to torture or kill.

Why does everybody have to die in this time line? .

John Watkins wrote (09-07-2010 16:18):

It makes a lot of sense. But why couldn't he cherry pick his humans and take them to a different planet where they would have everything they needed at their disposal? (Instead of a renewed but blank Earth) Or is the breeding of hieros an end that justifies the means?

One for which I have no answer, one way or the other. Put another way: as a necessary theological axiom, the Increate gets a free pass when it comes to evil. But lesser beings don't. Unless they can derive their actions from the very Increate. Which brings us to the start without the $20.

That much is true, but I've always looked at Wolfe's characters as growing out of their original constraints.

From: Mr Thalassocrat On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 5:54 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote: I remain 'loyal to the ship' on this one. One can certainly question whether the negation of a black hole that was deliberately put into the sun counts as a net benefit - but can we really defend the moribund future of Master Ash compared to the new life of Ushas, though indeed this new life must be born in cataclysm? But on my side of the argument I have Ash's words about the majority of the population having been evacuated before the ice death, in his future. Whatever the benefits of Ushas, why did almost everybody have to die in Sev's time line? And probably more to the point: why didn't Sev at least try to make this happen - knowing as he did that it was possible? Do we know how many died, and what arrrangements were made by the various authorities on Urth to evacuate people to higher ground? Sev wasn't on Urth at the time - he only arrived back simultaneously with the flood; maybe indeed there was some reason this was necessary. Making preparations for the Commonwealth would have been down to Valeria, Inire et al. - Gerry Quinn

Sure, but that is not the point I am getting at. The question I'm asking relates to the Urthly representatives of good. Surely there should be someone - apart from a few witch doctors maybe - standing up for the prevention of the White Fountain, if that's what the Increate wants?

Yes. And we assume that some at least of what's going on is in accordance with those goals. - Gerry Quinn

Aren't we forgetting someone else near and dear to Wolfe's heart that once used a devastating flood to bring renewal to a world dying, choked with sin? Why are we viewing the flood as "bad" or as a punishment? Floods, even non-divine ones, are capable of destruction, sure, but they also renew and refresh and carry things to new places. I always viewed the flood as something necessary to the creation of Ushas (esp. given the use of the term Ushas in a play called "Eschatology and Genesis" and what is said about it there) because it swept away the things that had poisoned Urth, like Erebus/Abaia (demons, or in the BOTNS parlance, maybe some sort of hybrid of creatures with hieros). At least, that's what I got from the demons' (in E&G) talk about attempting to "poison the seed" via Jahi (the serpent? I think Jahi means "serpent of fire" in Japanese, but my Japanese is rusty). Anyway, the way I understood it was that Erebus/Abaia/the other vaguely Lovecraftian baddies of the BOTNS were the results, like other cacogens, of genetic experiments/AI/whatever, but that they went "wrong" whereas the Hierogrammates went "right." Naturally, the ones that went right would want to cull the bad lines, and to do that, you've got to wipe them out. What better way than a gravitationally-induced flood that both destroys the old and corrupt and makes way for the new (as well as renewing the dying sun)? Or it could be the Benadryll from last night still weighs heavily on my mind. LH

Knowing that the flooding of Urth is "bad" would require knowledge of what happened to all those people who were transported to other planets in Master Ash's timeline. Also, what the standard of living became on Urth before the remnant of Urth's population was transported? (Presumably the population became quite attenuated, otherwise people would reproduce faster than they could be transported). Also, what happened in Ushas afterwards. There isn't really enough information in the story to discover whether the flood was "bad". A lot of people died, yes. A lot of people died in the 1944 invasion of Normandy and the subsequent months. u+169b

Good point. For all we know, their passage off the planet was paid by inhumi.

Gerry Quinn wrote (09-07-2010 19:46):

I'm not sure that's what you're getting at, but I've asked some days ago, if Tzadkiel is evil, where are the good people opposing the new sun, since the ones that seem to oppose it don't compare favourably with the ones serving it. That to me is the chief problem with the Tzadkiel-is-evil idea.

I must have missed that, but yes, that is what I am getting at. It seems like a structural necessity in the text. - Gerry Quinn

Possibly filled by the Green Man?

I think the name Jahi in E & G is a reference to the Persian/Zorastrian goddess/demon of that name. She is known for lasciviousness and as a "polluting whore" and the source of the menstrual curse on women. She is cognate to the Judeo-Kabbalistic personage named Lilith whose mating with Adam was also thought to be corrupting and the source of many demons, lamia/snake women, the origin of vampires etc. etc. I think this allusion supports the rest of your post rather well (more than the Japanese, I mean). Not to mention the character Jahlee in Short Sun......

From: John Watkins On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote: I must have missed that, but yes, that is what I am getting at. It seems like a structural necessity in the text. Possibly filled by the Green Man? I'm pretty sure the Green Man is in favour of the New Sun too. - Gerry Quinn

________________ Uh, I don't think so. Most of the people Sev found on Ushas after he returned there from the stone town were the decendants of the sailors on the Ship who had lost the fight with Sev and the eidolons right after the sham Trial. ----------------- I said, "Not knowing fire or anything else," and as I spoke I recalled what the young officer had reported: that Hierodules had landed a man and woman on the grounds of the House Absolute. Remembering that, it was simple enough to guess who my priest's forebears had been--the sailors routed by my memories had paid for their defeat with their pasts, just as I would have lost the future of my descendants had my own past been defeated. (URTH, 369) ---------------- -Roy

As I recall from earlier discussions on this list, that's far from clear. In his initial appearance he seems to be indifferent to the Sun myth. Later he appears in a confusing scene with Tzadkiel.

A.P.M.:> Sure, but that is not the point I am getting at. The question I'm asking

I think what the Increate wants is not just for the White Fountain to save the sun, but for Severian to go through a series of massive trials and tribulations to bring the White Fountain. They are necessary. (and they ARE necessary in a meta-fictive way. The Increate of this universe is, in fact Gene Wolfe. And it would be one crappy universe/story if all we got was "Black Hole in sun. Plugged with White Fountain. The End." Wolfe HAD to give Severian trials and tribulations). Anyway, I think all of Ascia and the war can be seen as efforts by great powers (Abaia, Erebus etc.) to stop the coming of the New Sun. Clearly the coming of the White Fountain is tied to the Autarchy. And if Ascia won and took over the Commonwealth there would be no Autarch. Only The Group of Seventeen. As analogues to ancient pagan monsters, those megatherians have a lot to lose from a purifying Judeo-Christian flood. They'd be reduced to being just some old mythological stories.

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote: Uh, I don't think so. Most of the people Sev found on Ushas after he returned there from the stone town were the decendants of the sailors on the Ship who had lost the fight with Sev and the eidolons right after the sham Trial. ----------------- I said, "Not knowing fire or anything else," and as I spoke I recalled what the young officer had reported: that Hierodules had landed a man and woman on the grounds of the House Absolute. Remembering that, it was simple enough to guess who my priest's forebears had been--the sailors routed by my memories had paid for their defeat with their pasts, just as I would have lost the future of my descendants had my own past been defeated. (URTH, 369) I conceed that I misremembered the passage and forgot that the Ushas people were descended from the sailors. That said, it isn't clear to me that this is inconsistent with my hypothesis--Severian knows about "a man and woman," not a general decamping of the humans on the Ship. Maybe the humans from the Ship were screened genetically? (I recognize that this sounds like speculation, but we do know that the Hierogrammates are running a breeding program. I'm trying to square their actions with that.) ---------------- -Roy

From: John Watkins On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote: From: John Watkins On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote: I must have missed that, but yes, that is what I am getting at. It seems like a structural necessity in the text. Possibly filled by the Green Man? I'm pretty sure the Green Man is in favour of the New Sun too. As I recall from earlier discussions on this list, that's far from clear. In his initial appearance he seems to be indifferent to the Sun myth. Later he appears in a confusing scene with Tzadkiel. He's from the future. He lives by photosynthesis. If he thinks the coming of the New Sun was a bad idea, he's got some major existential hangups to deal with. - Gerry Quinn

It's hard to know. I seem to recall someone saying the Ascians would be less affected than the Commonwealth by the arrival of the New Sun. As for the sea monsters, it's not immediately obvious that they have much directly to fear from a flood. Maybe they plan to chill for a few centuries until human society renormalises, then start their war games again. I don't think they were for it, but I'm not convinced that they expended great effors fighting it either. The undines don't seem to have tried to kill Sev; they may have preserved his life. - Gerry Quinn

...

I don't see that. If there are any "good" characters in /Pirate Freedom/, they're pretty minor. As I recall. But I don't think Tzadkiel (who I'd like to forget) was supposed to be evil. On the monkey business--I didn't notice the monkey repetitions, and I agree that they're interesting. Perhaps even more clearly crying out for an explanation are the two appearances of Fechin. I have no idea what the explanation might be, but I really don't think it's that Rudesind, the old man, or Fechin is Inire. I find it much more believable that we're supposed to think the baboon at the lazaret is a spy for Inire. (Somebody asked why /Father/ Inire. I still want to know. And I'm with those who think he isn't sexually interested in girls, or any humans.) People, I think Ryan Quinn especially, have been saying they think that since Wolfe spent all that time on TBotNS, every detail must be significant. I don't think that's necessarily true. Nadine Gordimer, in her introduction to a collection of her early short stories, defined the short story as fiction short enough for the writer to keep it all in his or her head at once. (As I recall.) Vladimir Nabokov claimed he wrote his novels this way. He wrote on index cards and could fill in any point in the story (though he also said he wore out erasers faster than pencil lead). He may have written /Ada/ this way, but TBotNS is more than twice as long, and I don't believe Wolfe knew at every point what he had written at every other point that readers might connect with it. (Heck, Nabokov didn't notice every possible false lead either.) In particular, I think that when he wrote the appendix to /Shadow/, he was thinking that it took place in our future, not in a past cycle of the universe. Executive summary: When he mentioned a monkey, he might not have remembered every other time he mentioned a monkey. (By the way, Nabokov said specifically that some of his stories, maybe all his later ones, contained a second tale hidden under the first one, like the "Second House" that Lee mentioned. I recommend him for those who like fiction of that kind. I'll also say, and have said at NABOKV-L, that Wolfe is the most Nabokovian sf writer. But I'm not guaranteeing you'll like Nabokov.) I too was horrified by the flood in TUotNS (though I'd stopped enjoying the book long before that because I felt the writing was far below Wolfe's standard). The afterlife doesn't mitigate the disaster unless the victims got as good a chance to repent as they would have if they hadn't been killed. True, the Bible says God caused a flood, but he seems to have thought it was a bad idea afterwards, which he apparently didn't after the flood Severian caused. Jerry Friedman

Some thoughts on Jerry's stuff.

I have assumed from the beginning that it was a religious title. But then, I'm a mackerelsnapper.

I repeat my citation of Alan Moore re: Watchmen: "Not everything means much.

This seems very likely to me.

Yet ... we are faced with Wolfe's insistence on not repeating clues. He seems to think he has this level of control over his material.

I think it is intended to be horrible. I also think that there's an important point you're missing -- God doesn't cause this flood; Severian and the Hiero(foo)s do. God responded to the Noachian flood by promising that he would never again destroy the world this way; but he doesn't promise that creatures won't do likewise.

Wolfe does make mistakes. And he can inadvertently reuse ideas. A famous instance that he noted himself is that his protagonist in "The Other Dead Man" and the villain in "An Evil Guest" have the same name. And it is not uncommon for writers to have an inclination for particular adjectives and analogies. But if this is the case in this instance, I would think there would be examples of Wolfe comparing characters to monkeys in other stories? Especially since he did it three times in this one novel. Can anyone think of some others? ᚹ

I think it is more like, they let it happen as late as they possibly could without endangering the success of the New Sun. This meant a dying urth about to disappear under its final ice age with a population in the millions rather than billions, so that the minimum loss of life would be necessary for the coming of Ushas.

Ushas was not seeded with just any humans from the Ship. Specifically, Sev means the sailors who survived the battle with the eidolons and fled the room where they fought (URTH, 155). Those are the men Sev and Gunnie feared would kill them on the way back to Urth (161-62). Apheta said the problem would not come up, and it didn't. I guess you could say that running away is a survival trait that could be passed on, but I don't think that's what you had in mind with genetic screening. <g> -Roy

I meant "not part cacogen or two generations north of man-ape or whatever." Pure human.

Mantis mentioned that Sev describes his pouch as manskin on one place and doeskin in another.

2010/7/10 Ant?nio Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com

The sailors who witness Sev's "trial" almost unanimously choose to oppose the new sun. (The only one who doesn't is poor Gunnie, who seems fated to always be a traitor, in both younger and older guises.) They either die or have their memories wiped for this. I don't think it's too glib to note here that "matyr" means "witness".

I think the coming of the New Sun is only a relatively short time after Severian left; a matter of several decades. His (ex)wife is still alive. Ash's time, when the glaciers are finally closing in, is - if I recall correctly - some four thousand years in the future. - Gerry Quinn

Or Julhi in the eponymous C.L. Moore story starring Northwest Smith. Adam

He might have just had monkeys on his mind at the time. Or happened to think of characters who were monkeylike. Or wanted them in a book (that may be) about transcending one's baser nature.

But that's why the Pansuccursor gave us Google Book Search. Not counting characters who are monkeys or who are compared to monkey bars who flunked Darwin, there's Pouk (twice), Mother Cloot, a girl in a story told by Fava, and I hesitate to mention anyone in the same universe as Father Inire, but Severian (in TUotNS), Silk (in both /Litany/ and RttW), and all human beings (in "The Death of Dr. Island", "The Ziggurat", and OBW). That leaves the field pretty open. You can see all of those and more mentions of monkeys at http://www.google.com/search?q="Gene+Wolfe"+monkey&hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&ei=T8Q3TN6DIcT7lweG3O3UBw&start=0&sa=N Jerry Friedman

Mr Thalassocrat wrote (10-07-2010 00:38):

Yes, I had originally said something about excepting those who were simply fighting for their lives (only in the crucial moment, I add). But either way you have a point. Though I was hoping for a more widespread presence. Kind of like, with all the evil in the Whorl, someone like Silk is genuinely good - but then Silk is only one person, even though he seems to have honest followers.

It's God's plan that everybody die. Sometimes a whole bunch go at once. Get over it. It's really not a big deal. .

Jerry Friedman wrote (09-07-2010 22:31):

Why are Latin Rite priests 'fathers'? They're not supposed to be producing children. Maybe someone that old and important in the Commmonwealth should be called Father. But the reason, that I see, is that the whole FI is a title. Inire does not look like a proper name to me. And when people refer to someone of such importance, they don't use proper names. They won't do it for the Autarch - he may be externally referred to by name, but not generally, I think - and they won't do it for the Autarch's vizier. That raises the question - what's the meaning of FI?

This I think is unknowable. Sex has a way of popping up in those books where you least expect or actually want it.

Maybe FI is actually a permutation of another word/phrase... Father in Ire Inherit Fear Fire in Earth Fainter Heir In Their Fear I dunno. Just a thought? ...ryan

Michael Andre-Driussi mentions the fact that "inire" is a Latin infinitve meaning "to begin" or "to enter," related to "initiate" and suggesting the guardian of a secret knowledge. This is turn Andre-Driussi connects to the password "quercine penetralia" and the word "Ylem," which is the primordial substance of creation. When I read the explanation of "inire" for the first time I realized that I had subconsciously made the connection to the Latin word myself.

And though I'm a back-wheel skid, that was my first thought too. But why is he the only one with a decipherable title? And are any caloyers, sannyasins, etc., ever addressed or referred to as "Father"?

A good one.

Exactly. But he doesn't. We can't tell the difference between his single clues and all the other things that might be the single clue to something else. Which is why everyone finds his stories so frustrating and ultimately uninteresting, including us, so we're not even having this discussion. Which brings me to more stuff--/The Silmarillion/ this time. In addition to the flaws people have mentioned, much of it is too ordinary. It doesn't have the pervasive nostalgia of LotR. More to the point, for large stretches the elves are just like people. In LotR, Tolkien was very careful to hide things about the elves--the hobbits have fields as well as food, for instance, but there's no mention of fields in Lorien where the grain for Lembas would be grown. Likewise Elvenhome was only hinted at. In /The Silmarillion/, we see Elvenhome, the elves are onstage all the time, and they can't live up to our imaginations. Normally Wolfe displays complete mastery of mystery. He describes things that will be impressive or beautiful, and leaves other things as hints. In /TUotNS/, to the extent that I haven't blotted it out of my memory, this didn't work for me. A lot that I enjoyed imagining in /TBotNS/ is now spelled out, as you said, and it doesn't measure up. The worst is Yesod, mentioned in one almost thrown-away line in /Citadel/. In /Urth/ we go there, and Yesod looks a lot like Earth or Urth. Of course Severian's human mind can't assimilate what's there and Wolfe's human mind would have great difficulty describing a higher universe. But that was a reason not to try it. The puzzles, intentional or unintentional, are a big part of what keeps us occupied here. (The same is true on NABOKV-L.) I wonder how much time we'd spend on Wolfe if he communicated exactly what he wanted to most of his readers.

But if Urth is in a past universe, then God saw what a worldwide flood was like. You would think if it displeased him when he did it, it would have displeased him earlier when Tzadkiel and Severian did it, and he'd have known not to do it on his own. Of course I'm picturing God as responding to events, which seems to be the picture in Genesis, not as omniscient the way modern Judaism, Christianity, and Islam see him. Jerry Friedman

Jerry writes:

Why? Do you believe that Gene Wolfe pictures God like this? God, the real one, the omniscient and omnipotent one, intends for everybody to die. Why should he not, now and again, intend for a whole bunch of people to die at about the same time? In fact, he does, as geological history and traditional story both show. Promises in Genesis and so on to not do this and that can easily be taken for the wishful thinking of the humans who wrote the book, or wrote it down. .

Fenrir

2010/7/10 Ant?nio Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com

I don't think they are simply fighting for their lives. They attack, rather than defend, voting with their weapons against the new sun whose consequences Tzadkiel has just explained to them. They are fighting for Urth. Most of them would have no direct stake in the outcome - they were born on other planets.

Why? .

Plenty of reasons potentially. He's a wolf which would appeal to the author. Additionally, he's destined to be chained to rock until the end of the world. You don't think F. Inire likes his post do you? Stuck on a backward planet tweaking the pointless politics of the Autarchs. ᚹ

These are not bad reasons. I was thinking, frost giant. Now I think, huh. .

Sev mentions the land abutting the ice in his time - there could come a point where even the rehabbed sun could not return the balance if the ice advanced far enough. They know Severian takes the Phoenix throne and all the other chiliads of trials and hardhips have worn down the populace of old Urth - best to strike then, to delay further could not be expected to advance the cause of Ushas.

This may well be so, and certainly it makes sense not to have the advent of the New Sun delayed until the last possible moment. I was just pointing out that Urth is populous at the time of the coming of the New Sun. - Gerry Quinn

I'm sure you caught this, but it was late and I failed to spell it out: Fr. Inire = Fenrir That's a pretty darn close anagram. ᚹ //

Indeed.

You did? What was the list of anagrams about? Do you believe that things must be spelled out for most people to get them? Don't answer. Think.

Indeed. I believe that I said that after initial skepticism, I find this quite interesting. Where the monkey fuck is my zen stick? .

That's a great insight. Maybe this gives a triple meaning to the name--"Father" suggests the politically involved churchmen of Byzantium; "inire" suggests an initiate of a Gnostic sect or Greek mystery cult, but at the root he is "Fenrir," sharing with Abaia et al. the name of an ancient monster that describes his function. It's easy to hyperbolize when discussing Wolfe's writing, but if you've nailed his intent that's a really nice bit of writing.

I do think this is impressive, and I want to say this publicly. .

I'm not sure how serious I was when I suggested Inire's name may be anagrammatic, but it's interesting for sure. ...ryan

He could leave at any time via the mirrors, or take a vacation of most any length via the Atrium or the Botanic Gardens. Severian thinks he has taken the post voluntarily: "We know your master is what the people call a cacogen, and that for whatever reason, he is one of those few who have chosen to cast their lots entirely with humanity, remaining on Urth as a human being." Citadel, XXXV

Hm...let me make a distinction in terms: "chained to a rock", not "marooned" there. And by associating Fr Inire with Fenrir, I do not intend to say that Fr Inire was captured and forced to stay on Urth by some means physical means. "Chose for whatever reason" includes choices based on very limited options...including no real options at all. Sure, he was physically able leave at any time (perhaps) or travel to a better Time, but the very word "hierodule" (Heiro slave or Heiro robot) suggests that any "choice", for him is a highly qualified term. Anyway, it's hard for me to imagine Father Inire taking two weeks off to hang at an off-planet resort. Does Severian's statement here imply that he didn't KNOW at the time Fr Inire's reasons for being stationed on Urth? Or only a decision not to "get in to it" with Rudesind? ᚹ

I like the possibility of Fenrir as a name origin for Fr. Inire too. I also agree that suggesting Inire could escape Urth whenever he wanted is not capturing the spirit of the suggestion. One might similarly suggest that Moses could have just gone down from Mt. Nebo and walked into The Promised Land whenvever he pleased despite what God told him. I think I am safe in saying that nobody is suggesting Father Inire IS Fenrir, any more than I was suggesting that he IS the baboon-headed Egyptian god Thoth. The Tale of the Boy Called Frog borrows from greek mythology, the Old Testament, Rudyard Kipling, roman mythology and the Mayflower/Pilgrims stuff. Wolfe poaches from all these stories to make a melange which serves his purpose in this story. Perhaps he makes a similar melange of mythological characters with Father Inire, also to serve the purpose of this story. Lest one think that any mythological story can be contorted into fitting into BotNS I'll mention that I did check into what is probably the most notable monkey-like god of the pagan world, the Hindu deity, Hanuman. I didn't find much at all that could suggest Wolfe had borrowed from him for Father Inire. On the other hand there is the Chinese monkey-king, Sun Wukong, who travelled with a monk from China to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from India.

I see some possibility for BotNS poaching there.

Lee Berman wrote (12-07-2010 14:44):

Are there any other cases in the Sun books of - a proper name that isn't a real historical proper name - a proper name that is a pun/mangled version of a real historical proper name? - a title that is a pun/mangled version of a real historical proper name? These are commonplace in fantastic literature, but I'm unsure when it's Wolfe we're talking about. I do have the idea that there's Wolfean precedent, but I can't recall where.

2010/7/12 Ant?nio Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com

Or a proper name that is the infinitive form a verb? I don't see the Fenrir thing, but I also don't see the Latin "inire". The name is a real puzzle.

He could save some effort by leaping only 8,544 miles. - Gerry Quinn

Sun Wukong is in some ways the Chinese version of Hanuman. Hanuman is a monkey general, leader of a monkey army, spy and advisor to Rama, who is a human king and God in his offtime. He is a manifestation of the Wind. .

Well, I'm the guy who argues that the word "inhuma" comes from a complex and multi-layered word association with the name "Dionysus", so swim at your own risk. Puns are a tricky thing to emphatically prove, I know from experience. Usually, the punned terms and names have a ready casual association as well. But Inire is another matter. In answer to your question, I can't think of another instance in which Wolfe breaks his established naming precedents so emphatically...and well...badly. So I say Inire's singularity is part of the argument FOR a word game in this instance. The hierodules Ossipago, Barbatus, and Famulimus are named after minor divine beings or, in Ossipago's case, a minor name for Hera. They are not named for saints (except in that saints are often Christianized minor divinities). It is not unreasonable to expect that Inire would be named for a minor god as well. What if "Father Inire" is a malformation of the actual name he gave...a name that was difficult for those whom he first encountered to pronounce or even hear properly. That would explain why he is the only one with the title "Father": When he said "Fenrir", they heard "Father Inire" or that was an approximation they chose. Just as Horn named his new girlfriend "Seawrack" because it was close to the foreign sounding name she gave. And, as with O,B, & F, "Fenrir" would be a name that suites Inire's role--not in nurturing Severian as they do--but something more final: bringing the New Sun and the end of Urth. I guess Fenrir isn't the only possible option but it certainly fits the bill. And Fenrir's actions are also associated with the name they gave him: the the Latin "finire", meaning "to end". Or perhaps, for Fr Inire's name is a later malformation. The name Fenrir would place him from an ancient Time, as John Watkins suggests: the time of Typhon, Erebus, Abia, and the rest when powerful persons were named for monsters, not saints. True, the Cargo in The Book of the Long Sun were named after saints, but they weren't "powers". On the other hand, Typhon's family certainly took the names of monsters when they became powers on the Whorl. In The Book of the Long Sun & The Book of the Short Sun a great deal is made of names, which follow a conscious structure and show the connection of family members---not only based on flower and animal concepts but also on the structure of the names themselves. At one point, Silk mulls his possible brotherhood with Sand in some metaphysical sense because their names both start with "S" and have the same number of letters. Typhon's name itself is stripped from Egyptian Sun mythology as the enemy of Osirus. That sets him as a foil against Severian. But then neither Osirus's nor Zeus's Typhon had two heads. So that's a kind of break with precedent as well since it associates him instead with certain Kabbalist figures and with two-faced Janus, the god of doorways (which sort of associates him with "Inire", doesn't it, since "inire" means "to enter"). Typhon's name in The Book of the Long Sun is "Pas", claimed to be associated with a term for "father": tenuous in any real sense, but (I argue) intended to associate him with the god Pan. ᚹ

James Wynn wrote (12-07-2010 18:23):

Quite possible, I just mentioned the same for Jonas.

The thing I don't like with the 'to enter' parsing is that it's an infinitive, though I don't think that's an obstacle. I mean, I don't like it because I'd rather not have Wolfe resort to an infinitive there, but that has little import on its plausibility.

And Pas was exactly the precendent (well, in fact a postcedent) I was thinking of but couldn't put my finger on it. It's not an attested or composite name, or at least nobody found it out yet, hence the tenative connection to Pan (which I don't like because of the phonetics, but see above).

James Wynn, I liked your previous post about names. I also think A.P. Marques raises a legitimate concern about a Fenrir origin. Other authors are likely to distort to disguise a mythological name but Wolfe seems to prefer retaining the orginal name and distorting the character for disguise. So we probably need a real version of "Inire" to understand the meaning/origin of the name. I was remembering that Borski observed that Hiero-types are given Roman names while maybe monsters get the Greek names or something like that. I was doing a search to refresh my memory and bumped into this description of Inuus-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuus I'd seen the "to enter" meaning of "inire" mentioned before but not so much that it might be a specifically sexual reference. The mention of mating with animals is rather intriguing to me since I am exploring the possibility that Father Inire has sexually acted on his attraction to young girls to the point of mating with most/all of the female members of Severian's family, including his own daughters. Perhaps "mating with animals" does not mean the same thing to a hiero race being that we would take it to mean..... On the other hand, considering the man-apes in the cave and the dog-men guarding the gold wagon, maybe it does. I am thinking the connection of Inuus/Inire to Faunus and Pan/Pas (the pas version being the origin of "pastoral") might be even more interesting for you. Who was it that was recently suggesting Severian could be a version of Inire recently? That seemed pretty far fetched or even tongue-in-cheek. But I think the idea that Silk is a cloned version of Pas is reasonably well accepted maybe? (I always wondered which of Typhon's heads was Typhon and which was Piaton. Silk cloned from Pas would answer that, based on hair color). Anyway, so if Typhon=Pas=Inire, then the idea of Severian as a some version or offspring of Inire becomes....possible? Either way, I must think all this suggests the "Inire" epithet for Pan becomes a very good candidate for the origin of the padre's name.

Some thoughts...

Me again, and I was joking.

I think it's one of many reasonable hypotheses. He's unlikely to be a strict clone of Typhon--he's almost certainly genetically enhanced in some way--but Typhon's souped-up clone is a good bet.

I think the weak link here is the idea that Typhon and Inire are one and the same. There's maybe some onomastic link, but we have no other reason to accept this, and in order to accept it we have to believe some pretty stange things--Typhon preserved himself not only via "possible rehydration resurrection" and by copying his personality into the Whorl (and maybe other ships too!) but by finding some way to put his soul in the body of a bent old monkey-looking fella? This bent old money-looking Typhon is content to be the power behind the throne, instead of ruling himself?

It's certainly worth considering, but we should probably recall that "Typhon," the monster, is who the dude is. "Pas," the Pan-derived god, is who he pretends to be. If Pas and Inire share a common link to Pan, I expect only the latter is genuine.

2010/7/12 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>

Wolfe makes the connection of Pas and Pan ("all") explicit. When Scylla possesses Chenille she explains that the gods are Pas's family, saying "with Daddy to be the god of everything--that's what his name meant--and the boss over everybody." (LotLS, ch 11)

That may have been a bit hasty, but the even though the fettered Fenrir was tied to Gyoll, Inire is awfully mobile about his duty station and commands means of egress and ingress - his position is more like Heimdall guarding Bifrost and standing sentry over doings in distant places on other worlds. It doesn't hurt that Heimdal is also the "Father" of the classes of men, in disguise as another person yet! But I don't think this makes Father Inire part Heimdall or part of Fenrir the way Frog is very much part Mowgli, just that letting people identify their concerns with an exalted parallel is what makes myth and legend endure.

I do! I like a lot. "Inuus" (the enterer) links to Inire's name, to Typhon as Pan, and to Typhon as the two faced Janus, god of doorways.

If Inire=Inuus, then it would follow that Father is a literal title. But the obvious question is "father of whom or what?" Typhon? Ymar? Ouen? All of them? I recall that Don Doggett posited that Sev was a clone of one of those black beans in the story of "Spring Wind" (Typhon). But where is Inire in the old stories? It's moments like these when we realize how little we know about the hierodules. There's too many options in this line of inquiry. We need another clue!

This is true, generally. Although we do have the example of Seawrack.

The idea of Inire mating with humans seems far-fetched except that Wolfe really likes the idea of interspecies and apparent- interspecies mating. In "Fifth Head", Sandwalker (apparently) has a cat for a girlfriend. And in An Evil Guest, the Woldercons mate and breed across species. In the Book of the Short Sun, Jahlee the inhuma accompanies the Rajan to Urth in the form of a beautiful woman and has as much sex as possible. It's a faeryworld/mythical motif that seems to appeal to Wolfe. So, yeah, this is possible. In Fifth Head, the clones are also interested in young women...not for sex per se but strictly for procreation.

I recall that Sev determines this in his conversation with Typhon in UotNS. ᚹ

Ummmmm..... the one that talks is Typhon. Piaton is unable to speak but mouths a message to Severian. There is enough information to determine the rest from that fact.

I'm pretty sure I missed that bit! AFAIK Seven Girls Waiting is Sandwalker's only lover in the story, and she is no cat.

Procreation for them is cloning... I don't get your argument. - Gerry Quinn

You forget the "control" "brothers."

Oops! I meant V.R.T.

My argument is that Fr Inire's interest in young girls might not be Platonic and yet still be procreative.

Somehow, I never imagined Maitre making David "the old fashioned way". You're right that he could have I suppose. But we don't have any examples of "controls" being sold off. So, again, it's not about the sex. But, then again, being unstated does not preclude its existence. ᚹ

Just when I'm ready to leave the Norse association behind, you pull me back in. You're right about Heimdall because he's the Norse Janus. The link between Janus, Pan, and Osirus is Priapus who was variously associated with all of them. Heimdall, as the father of humanity, fits right in there. That leaves us here with reasonable mythological associations for Typhon, Severian, and Inire. The only frustrating thing is that the monster Typhon doesn't fit for any this. Fenrir doesn't fit for any of this either except in one way. He is an important father too...he's the father of the race of wolves. And, yeah, his rock is Gyoll which is also a mythical river. ᚹ

And regardless of genetics, the baby has to gestate somewhere. Rather than go to the expense of glassware, nutrients, and telemetery, a healthy broad-hipped woman is naturally suited. And if she's already in your employ, she can go on earning for a couple of trimesters or even later, depending on your clientele.

might BE Platonic, that is.

All of the speculation and mystery make me consider "Father Inquiry" as a possible pun? (Assuming it's "in-ee-rey" rather than "in-ire-ay" or somesuch.)

The reader for Audible.com's audiobook (John Davis, I think) pronounces it "in-EER." For what it's worth, I always pronounced it "in-EER-ay," but I've been told I have a rather thick Texan accent that colors my choice of pronunciations. LH

John Watkins wrote (12-07-2010 22:33):

I suppose the default pronunciation is ['fAT at rI'naI at r]. Does this look like something else mistranscribed? The 'father' part is more or less established, unless 'father' itself is an enlgish transalation of a misheard original. 'Inire' itself doesn't seem to offer many possibilities. ['InIri], [I'ni at r], [InI'r at I]? ['] stresses the syllable following it [I] short i [@] the uh sound in -er [i] long i [T] th

James Wynn wrote (12-07-2010 21:10):

I always associate Father Inire with Dworkin from Zelazny's Amber novels. Dworkin is supposed to have fathered the king of Amber through a unicorn. (The king was AWOL during the novels.) That would make Inire Typhon's father or something.

Um....Didn't you think it was kind of odd the way Corwin's henchman Gamelon from a Shadow was able to one-punch Girard, the biggest, toughest brawler on the true earth? I see Oberon as being more like Inire: the crafty, hidden manipulator and kingmaker, but there's a bit of the old Autarch's multiple guises and manipulating both sides as a double-double agent. Both series deal with some similar themes, and Zelazny's attitude is very different from Wolfe's, but it is interesting how close the internal attitudes of Corwin and Severian are, while ending up in opposite directions. Both acknowledge they are villainous, selfish men but regrettably find themselves the best of a bad lot, but the much more self-confident Corwin refuses the throne he'd sought after while the self-doubting Severian embraces literal responsibility for everyone on Urth.

Given Inire's role with respect to time and mirror portals, the infinitive seems perflectly plausible. One might reflect that Severian's name could be taken to be a rather obvous pun as well. Adam

"Bob" would've been funnier

Well, Tzadkiel is the demiurge. There's no doubt about that at all---he's the highest of the low, not the lowest of the high. And Christian dualism was imported straight from Persia, so .... He's not Satan though---that's merely a Muslim insult. I doubt it was Patrick O'Brien, but I'm curious as to the reference. David Chacko? Edward D. Hoch?

I assume that there are so few "people" left on Urth (subtract the not-quite-human and failed Ascians, who may well control the rest of the planet, and some outlying tribes) that this is not a real concern.

Exactly. And this does not make Tzadkiel evil, but he is not good either.

I've always assumed it's pronounced: FAH-thur in-AYr (aka father-in-ire) no? ...ryan

Wow. I knew "inire" but I did not know "finire." That's plenty of solution for me. But I agree that these are not "real" names. Inire probably has his own name, which we don't know.

I.e. ['fAT at rI'naI at r]

LH says an audiobook has in-EER [I'ni at r] while his? own pronunciation is in-EER-ay [I'ni at re]. I default to your pronunciation as well, but something about the name always makes me think of [I'ni at r] as an alternative (maybe it's because that kind of rhymes with vizier).

-----Original Message----- From: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net on behalf of David Stockhoff Sent: Tue 13/07/2010 00:21 To: The Urth Mailing List

It was - hartshorn

-----Original Message----- From: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net on behalf of Mr Thalassocrat

Alas, no. I only know of him thru HPL's letters. He seems to have been talented hack. - hartshorn

Fenrir as father of "Wolfe"s is good enough for me.

It seems like a stretch, but I for one expect that Wolfe will stretch for a wolf reference. I think he expects us to expect that of him. The words "inire" and "finire" (initiate/begin and bring to an end) are enough to start us off on that path, combined with the logical "Fr. Inire." He probably began the Autarchy, he initiates Urth into a mystery, he facilitates the end with the last Autarch. I'll bet the man is a mean crossword puzzler.

Fascinating. I only wish Fr. Inire to Fenrir was a true anagram. F E N R I R F R I N I R E One too many I's, unless we get epically poetic: I, Fenrir or we get back to origins: Fenrir I As in Fenrir the First, with Fechin and Rudesind (boatman?) as cloned descendants. ...ryan

Plausible. We live in a universe in which J.K. Rowling indulges in similar games.

I don't think so. Clones who don't look much like the original?

I'm very impressed with how you snuck that conclusion in there. ;) Granted, the wolf is not critical to the story---almost a tease. But I think a cacogen hitching his star, so to speak, to Ushas is just similar enough to being chained to a rock when you have the entire universe open to you as master of Doors, to be impossible to ignore.

F E N R I R E X O A T E N O X I O S R A I L M N I T O M A C R E S N C E .

I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat. I mean buy a vowel. No wait... ...ryan

As has been noted before, tBotNS has references to Robert Graves' "I, Claudius".

It appears that Severian is, potentially, not the only one with parallels to Christ. ᚹ

It's a particularly tasty one. You never know where these things are going. .

Inire. Severian. Thecla. There's another trinity for you. Quite literally the father who created the Autarchy and brought it to its end, his (presumably figurative) son, the scion of the father's ages of planning and manipulation (including possibly genetic manipulation?) and the pretty-literal ghost. I kind of like the notion that, contra Witz, Severian is the logos of Inire, not the Increate.

Ah. "I, the Alpha/Omega."

But who's the archon of this universe? Inire, appropriately mysterious and aged as a Titan, or Tzadkiel, violator of all known laws of scale and appearance? Is one ruler below and the other ruler above? The Titans rebelled against Time. Hmm...

Maybe it's as simple as this: Inire is the archon of Urth and Tzadkiel is the archon of Briah. On the pure level of plot, I think we can conclude that Tzadkiel's agenda and Inire's are pretty similar. Tzadkiel wants Briah's human beings to evolve into Hieros. He doesn't care which line of humanity does it, and he doesn't need them all to turn into Hieros--he just needs some Hieros. Inire wants the humans on Urth to stick around. Because of the black hole in the sun, that requires propitiating Tzadkiel. So his long-range goal (what the good folks at TvTropes.org would call a "Xanatos gambit") is to produce through the Autarchy a savior figure who will convince Tzadkiel that Urth is worth keeping around. He's advancing Tzadkiel's goals, although maybe for his own reasons. This raises two questions: 1) Does Inire care about turning humans into Hieros? 2) Are there Inire-esque figures on other human-populated planets? Is there a crooked old Hierodule winding his way to Green or Blue even as the Short Sun ends? I dunno.

You know "long i" in American English means the vowel in "eye", /aI/? We use "long" for the vowel sounds that "say their names". The usage in other English-speaking is different, I think.

(You want /D/ for the "th" in "father".)

I'm with Lane: I pronounce it in foreign, /@n'ireI/. (I don't have a Texas accent.) Jerry Friedman

No one's perfect. LH

Many Texans seem to believe themselves so, possibly through confusion of meaning of the terms loud and perfect. .

Incidentally, "finire" means "to end" and also "to limit". Terminus Est also has these dual meanings, essentially. ᚹ

Referring to their shirts? You may be thinking of Hawaiians.

Ironic. "Loud" is the stereotype that Texans and other southerners have of yankees. And it is the stereotype that Europeans have of Americans. Perhaps if you don't like the idea of someone, anything they say is too loud. ᚹ

Texans aren't Southerners. And my only stereotype of Yankees (meaning anyone from the north of Dallas) is that they add unnecessary "gs" to the end of words endin' in "in'." LH

You're on thing ice, Lane.

I guess you've all heard what was labeled as one of the 2 funniest jokes in a recent survey.. A Texan moves to NYC and goes to a local bar. He turns to the man in a business suit next him and says in a friendly manner "Where are you from?" The guy in the suit turns to him and says in a condescending manner "I am from where people don't end their sentences with prepositions." And the Texan replies.... ???????? ? ? ?Mobile — (415) 786-3624 STUHAMM.COM FACEBOOK/STUARTHAMM myspace.com/stuhamm Skype? stuart.hamm ? ?? --- On Tue, 7/13/10, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote: From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> Subject: Re: (urth) lots of stuff To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net> Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 12:36 PM Texans aren't Southerners. And my only stereotype of Yankees (meaning anyone from the north of Dallas) is that they add unnecessary "gs" to the end of words endin' in "in'." LH

In this case, I meant "southerners" in the sense of any state that was on the right side of the Great Cause. ;-) That is, those who would use the term "yankee" as I did. My family have called themselves Texans since at least sometime shortly after it stopped being Mexico, so I realized they don't like being lumped with Oklahoma, Louisiana, and parts beyond. No offense was intended, I assure you. ᚹ

I know, I know. I'm pullin' y'all's legs. LH

Talks to much is the stereotype people from south AZ have of everyone else. .

As everyone from the South and Southwest agrees.

That and they want to mess everything up. .

Supporters of the right are Southerners, wherever and whenever born. .

No one's gonna post the punch line??? Sent from my BlackBerry? smartphone with SprintSpeed -----Original Message----- From: brunians at brunians.org Sender: urth-bounces at lists.urth.net Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:19:10 To: The Urth Mailing List<urth at lists.urth.net> Reply-To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net> Subject: Re: (urth) lots of stuff Supporters of the right are Southerners, wherever and whenever born. .

The punch line of the preposition joke? Something like "Okay, where are you from, asshole?" I first heard this thirty years ago with Harvard instead of New York City, a "hick" or "redneck" instead of a Texan (I think), and "Whatchoo lookin' at?" as the question. I like that better, since no one in his or her right mind would "correct" the grammar of "Where are you from?" and pedantry is a better stereotype for Harvard than for New York. Of course, it would be off-topic to mention that New Mexico has fought off three invasions from Texas, especially since we're now happy to allow Texans in as long as they pay. Jerry Friedman

Thanks for bringing this up, this gives me some food for thought with regard to the "down is up" thing I am on about lately. E.g. Typhon throws Severian into the sled, they plummet downwards, then arrive at the very top of Typon's mountain fastness, and Severian asks Typhon how they could have come up so high, when they had just fallen so far.

ha...! ???????? ? ? --- On Tue, 7/13/10, Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> wrote:

The punch line of the preposition joke? Something like "Okay, where are you from, asshole?" I first heard this thirty years ago with Harvard instead of New York City, a "hick" or "redneck" instead of a Texan (I think), and "Whatchoo lookin' at?" as the question. I like that better, since no one in his or her right mind would "correct" the grammar of "Where are you from?" and pedantry is a better stereotype for Harvard than for New York. Of course, it would be off-topic to mention that New Mexico has fought off three invasions from Texas, especially since we're now happy to allow Texans in as long as they pay. Jerry Friedman ? ? ?

Could

If I remember correctly, the Autarch's craft employs "anti-iron" as some sort of contra-terrene matter that repels gravity. Maybe this sled is made of such stuff and they are facing backwards? Cautiously, Rob

"Pray pardon me for my lack of grammar, sir. Where are you from, asshole?" Adam

Of course. But I would never think a nifty science-fictioney reading would preclude an allegorical or symbolic reading.

Typhon responds, "Why should gravity serve Urth, when it can serve Typhon?" I interpret this as an adjustable antigravity effect, where the sled and Severian's viscera fall freely as the acceleration of gravity is reversed, then restored just in time for the sled to cease rising at its destination and then lock in place. The flier's buoyancy seems to be always present, but uses conventional action-reaction propulsion to move, causing the screaming noise that accompanies the hasty departure of of Vodalus , and explaining why people riding in them don't feel as though they are falling. Reverse-matter buoyancy has made something of a comeback with Robert L. Foreward's notion of "negative mass", but at the time gravity-reversal of antimatter was an obsoleted SF device since word had gotten around the readership that antimatter was only electrically reversed, not gravitationally. Wolfe's deliberate use of this outdated concept alongside a similar but distinct outdted antigravity concept makes me wonder if the mirror-traveling trick of accelerating light and the reflected objects across or beyond the universe was also a plot device previously used band then discarded by previous authors.

I always suspected Wolfe of deliberately using pulp cliches in BotNS. I had no idea he applied the principle so thoroughly. It almost has the effect of reading about ancient, clever technologies like ballistae and water clocks.

Baldanders has an anti-gravity belt too. - Gerry Quinn ----- Original Message -----

Good one! I should say, not just "pulp cliches" but Golden Age of Science Fiction cliches. I think they are intended to suggest exactly the sense of "boyish" wonder that they do in fact inspire---but looking back, not forward.

Jerry Friedman wrote (13-07-2010 21:51):

But with "Whatchoo lookin' at?" how do tie the answer to the question so neatly?

Jerry Friedman wrote (13-07-2010 19:47):

You're right. Should I have written 'long e', then? I can't bring myself to it.

D'oh. Of course.

Has anyone remarked on the explanation given in Joyce's APOTAAAYM of the Latin phrase INRI being a schoolboy acrostic for Iron Nails Ran In? Steve

I could have sworn that that's from Ulysses, and it's Bloom thinking it. Bloom thinks a lot of things about Catholicism that are factually wrong (for example, he also contemplates the "fact" that nuns invented barbed wire, which is of course false.) In fact when I first read the book I felt that Joyce was working in anti-Catholic propaganda that he either knew or ought to know was false--upon rereading I felt that he was parodying it and emphasizing Bloom's status as a cultural outsider. (Not that Joyce isn't criticizing the Church--he is, but he's far too smart to need to resort to telling lies.)

INRI is what is called a formula. It has various readings. It may have whatever acrostic meanings in whatever arbitrary languages people wish to assign it. There are many such formulae. .

yes, exactly! only more briefly. IIRC, Lem does a bit of this in his CYBERIAD.

There are a few latter period ones, like the giant flying robot warriors guarding Typhon's mountain citadel. Of course, in the conceit of the Book as Dr Talos mentions, their existence in the future inspires people to dream about them and write about them in the Golden and Silver Ages! And my earlier objection about how people would pick out a particular image out of the all images from all of time is a bit silly , considering they're non-physical notional technologies decorating a non-materialist's novel, like complaining that fairies are shown with wings of insufficient lifting area.

I can't think of many things I have read which have the same emotional effect upon me as Severian, Baldanders and Faustus together on the tower in the rain, and the torchlight procession is coming, and Faustus is the only one who sees. The last few paragraphs of Dhalgren, possibly. It is Gene's perfect take on Borges, in much the same fashion as Lathe of Heaven is LeGuin's perfect take on Dick. .

Wilson writes:

You believe that this is a conceit? This is an accurate description of Reality. It has happened to me. As I have mentioned, long before I read the Book of the New Sun, I would have dreams, hallucinations or visions in which I was going to be taken by aliens and tested somehow, and that if I failed the test I would be castrated. This was a feature of my internal life - and not a pleasant one - from the age of ten or so. I read the Book of the New Sun when it came out. It was immediately obvious to me what had happened. I was born in 1957. If this happens in my personal timeline, why should such things not happen in the historical timeline? .

Not Southerners? Brownsville is as southern it gets, Pardner.

They are Mexicans who seceded. You people that know a lot kill me. .

The South refers more to what we call the "Southeast" now. Texas was a part of the Confederacy, but not because we felt any particular loyalty to Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas or Georgia. We were just a bunch of ig'nant racists that wanted to continue to own people. In all seriousness though, Texans do not consider themselves to be part of "the South," nor would Southerners admit Texans in to their ranks willingly. When Texas formed its unique identity, and Texans as a people, it was as an independent nation. And yes, it was an independent nation of Tejanos that seceded from Mexico, with a little help from some uh... luminaries... from the United States. We showed 'em good at San Jacinto (which is pronounced "SAN juh-SIN-tow," I tell you what.). Seriously; as a fellow Texan, I'm sure Mr. Wolfe would agree with me in this regard. Even if he did go to that dark and terrible school known as "A&M." LH

Wouldn't say anything against Texans. Basic waste of time to. .

The two need not be mutually exclusive. The whole Confederate movement was about maintaining the member states' unique identity and destiny as much as possible. And all the member states suffer from roughly equal proportions of disposessed gentry that descend from the finest carpetbagging families as the genuine articles.

What part of Texas are you from? It's always "SAN juh-SIN-ta" 'round here.

I'm a born and raised Texan myself, fellow Aggieland matriculant, and no other fellow Texans of my acquaintance have ever objected to being considered "southerners". Then again, this is all sampled from the eastern limb of Texas, which extends hundreds of miles further in various directions. Technically, it would be 10 miles shorter for me to visit yankees in Chicago than my neighbors in El Paso. But perhaps I am biased; my greatgrandmother's maiden name was Davis, and I'm not the only Jeff in the family.

I'm originally from the Midland/Odessa area, though I went to law school in Waco and UT for undergrad (hence my virulent hatred of Aggies). I currently live and work in the RGV but my accent is pure Permian Basin. LH

I am a good old rebel Yes that's just what I am For this fair land of freedom I do not give a damn I'm glad I fought against her I only wish we'd won And I don't want no pardon For anything I done. .

I road with Robert E. Lee, For three years, thereabout. Got wounded in four places, And starved at Point Lookout. I caught the rheuamtism A-campin in the snow. But I killed a chance of yankees And I'd like to kill some mo. .

Hey, my first semester roomie was from Midland! This was the same year Baby Jessica fell down the well. I have a gaming buddy and a publisher from the same law school. For those playing at home, while U.T. (we write it as tu) and A&M are big athletic rivals, in 1926 there was a half-time riot at Baylor that resulted in the death of Charles Milo Sessums '27 the following day. The unsupported legend is that the other cadets commandeered railstock to transport their training artillery with the intention of leveling the Baylor campus but were dissuaded, either by the Commandant or by Texas Rangers felling trees across the tracks. There was a documented 4 year cessation of play between the schools.

Them Great War vets got up to some shit I'll tell you. .

And Typhon replies: Why shouldn't gravity obey my will? Words to that effect. Steve

Right, of course. The original is said to stand for Jesus, King of the Jews? Steve

Yup. IESVS?NAZARENVS?REX?IVD?ORVM .

Have to say the first time I came across the name of the Sword, the meaning I grokked immediately was 'It Is Finished'. Admit right now that other translations are more than likely more accurate representations of the Latin. I can't help it if they are all wrong anyway :) :) JD

For what it's worth, I checked to see if "Terminus Est" was the Vulgate translation of Christ's last words. Of course it isn't, nor is it "finire est." It's "consummatum est."

"It is fulfilled?" "I want some soup?"

Hmm...No. "I am full. No thank you."

That's it!

"This is the End" - you know, like the Doors' song, the one with the killing and the incest and the masked executioner with the special blue rock and the ancient buildings and the lake and the giant serpent?

What serpent?

"Ride the snake, ride the snake To the lake, the ancient lake, baby The snake is long, seven miles Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold"

Don't forget the "Weird scenes inside the gold mine." But there's no serpent in BotNS.

Hello? Abaia.

Eel. Close though.

Cold? Probably. Seven miles long? A good estimate.

Thanks for the response (I think); I don't remember mentioning the Vulgate in my post. And it wouldn't be 'finire est' either would it? Finitus Est actually. JD

No, nothing AT ALL like that. RIDE THE SNAKE, Adam

Jane Delawney writes:

What? .

Morrison bought his Mother a front row center seat so he could perform that song for her. What a guy! .