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Neurosis posted:while scanning the Urth Mailing List for discussion I saw someone suggesting dorcas might've killed jolenta, given her weird protestations of a vampire bat - i hope not, since dorcas seems to be one of the more morally sound characters in the sea of iniquity that is the Commonwealth (jonas is maybe the only unambiguous one i can recall that we spend any time with). I was pretty drat sure that Jolenta cut her own wrist, Severian and Dorcas caught her before she actually bled to death then and there, but she eventually died from that, her degeneration after parting ways with whats his face who's name I've forgotten, and the elements.
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Mar 22, 2018 00:38
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I'm going through some short story collection and found one I haven't read before - "Beech Hill". Anyone remember that and willing to decipher it for me? All I figure is that the protagonist committed a crime, probably murder and was setting up an alibi by tossing a toy gun into the lake, but what's the significance of the changing guns? Everytime he mentions a pistol, it's from a different maker. What I'm thinking is that it's all just the toy gun and part of his role but in that case his final words "You might be required to testify about this" make no sense. I'm thinking his motive was that while he thought party he attends was roleplaying, where he pretends to be a spy, in fact the others were what they seemed - genuine scars on the animal trainer, seeing a supposed billionaire on TV. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Mar 23, 2018 |
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Mar 23, 2018 18:54
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NecroMonster posted:I was pretty drat sure that Jolenta cut her own wrist, Severian and Dorcas caught her before she actually bled to death then and there, but she eventually died from that, her degeneration after parting ways with whats his face who's name I've forgotten, and the elements. Are there any characters in the sequence that really take their own lives? Severian claims he sincerely planned on doing so on at least one occasion, but this is expressed long after the fact. Thecla is compelled to destroy herself by torture, which destruction is sympathetically hastened by Severian - and after her 'revival', Thecla rages against her sense of betrayal and abandonment. It feels like suicide isn't really dealt with on similar moral-philosophic terms to other forms of death in this extremely morbid text - maybe there are instances where it occurred that are elided or hidden, like so much of the narration, or maybe I'm missing a theme here? Good catch tho. edit: I just half-remembered the Ascians who jam the butts of their weapons into the soil and blow off their own heads. Not exactly characters, are they? How about the zöanthrops? I had better think more on this Mousepractice fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 27, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 22:44
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The chick at the beginning of book 2 who framed another woman for murder killed herself.
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Mar 28, 2018 04:29
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what the hell is the significance of fechin? it seems he may be rudesind, who may be keeping tabs on severian for the autarch, but aside from that i don't get why he's mentioned in as many places as he is. i base the previous observation about fechin/rudesind on: (1) my recollection is that something rudesind he says early on which seems to mean fechin came to visit rudesind, who was a famous child artist, could have literally been taken to mean a famous artist came to visit rudesind, and that the reference to fechin wasn't necessarily to the visiting artist. (2) the old guy in casdoe's shack knew fechin and they were peers; severian says the old guy was about the same age as rudesind. (3) rudesind is described as monkey-like in his motions, and fechin had monkey-like limbs (but a handsome face). (4) the old guy at casdoe's shack mentions fechin taking something from his family when they were both kids that led the old guy to wonder if fechin did a self-portrait with the reflection. (5) rudesind also indicates he is in a painting of fechin's; again, this is from a passage which apparently indicates fechin visiting rudesind, the famous child artist, painted rudesind, but it could be the self-portrait referred to above. (6) vaguely recall something tying red to rudesind - maybe just his name? - and fechin had red hair. i remember speculation that fechin was severian's grandfather, paired with dorcas, and that the girl fechin and the casdoe guy visited (and fechin hosed) in the story the old guy told was dorcas. while that would give him significance, i didn't find this theory too persuasive - too little tying dorcas to fechin, and we know dorcas remembers keeping shop with her husband and child, and that the nature of the shop was not explicitly art-related. sexual mores of the Commonwealth don't appear to be such as to make an earlier dalliance with fechin producing that child impossible, but it seems a little thin just to observe that fechin and dorcas were likely contemporaries and fechin used to gently caress (a lot) to then suppose it's his child, with dorcas' husband also being a candidate for that child's paternity. you'd expect to see some fechin resemblance in ouen if fechin were his father, too, when there is none. at least it seems likely ouen would have light coloured hair if he was the get of blonde dorcas and redheaded fechin. the only similarity is that severian seems to be handsome (notwithstanding his self-deprecation), ouen resembles severian, and fechin was described as being good-looking. i suppose while the parentage theory does give fechin significance and give rudesind a reason for watching severian other than any link to the autarch, i find the evidence too thin on what i've noticed this read-through and what i can remember from past readings. but if i discount that theory, i can't figure out why fechin gets as much press as he does. or rudesind for that matter, other than to indicate severian is being watched, but that seems too simple for wolfe. it seems one could come up with a reasonable handwave as to why rudesind might want to avoid being identified as fechin, given fechin was known as a wild man and is apparently quite famous in a world where fame seems a magnet for trouble. edit: oh, minor point, but there seems to be a bit of a monkey motif with things tied to the autarch. the ape-men obviously serve him. remember also that when severian was recovering after his fight with agilus he saw a monkey-dog thing running through his room, which i think we can safely say was on assignment from the autarch. inire is also described as monkey-like. tying fechin and rudesind to the autarch would fit in with this. edit 2: and some quotations i found on the urth list about monkeys from the books, sorry for the lack of page references: RUDESIND: "When I admitted I did not, he scrambled down from the ladder like an aged monkey, seeming all arms and legs and wrinkled neck; his hands were as long as my feet, the crooked fingers laced with blue veins." THE CYNOCEPHALUS: "An ape with the head of a dog ran down the aisle, paused at my bed to look at me, then ran on. That seemed no stranger to me than the light that, passing through a window I could not see, fell upon my blanket." This guy, but with a dog head: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Dschelada_cynocephalus-gelada.png RED MONKEY: "Birds unknown to me called overhead, and once a monkey who might, save for his four hands, have been a wizened, red-bearded man in fur, spied on me from a fork as high as a spire." FATHER INIRE: "More fantastic still were the tales of his vizier, the famous Father Inire, who looked like a monkey and was the oldest man in the world." FECHIN: "He was the worst of us all, that Fechin. A tall, wild boy with red hair on his hands, on his arms. Like a monkey's arms, so that if you saw them reaching around the corner to take something, you'd think, except for the size, that it was a monkey taking it." SHAMAN IN JUNGLE (INIRE): "The old man had a staff as crooked as himself, topped with the dried head of a monkey." edit 3: lol that little severian asks for a story from severian's book with certain characteristics and severian said he did the best he could to find such a story. the story he finds tells in its first couple of hundred words of a woman finding part of a plant which she masturbated with and which inseminated her. little severian is 3 or 4 years old. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 6, 2018 |
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Apr 6, 2018 12:39
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Being 18 and a torturer tends not to make someone father of the year material, turns out. Oh, and I finished Peace a while back. Which, given it's a Wolfe novel, means I have a basic kind of idea of what the hell actually happened. My main takeaway is that the conversation he has with Gold about manufactured works reshaping reality is one of the outright spookiest bits of writing I've ever read.
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Apr 8, 2018 06:19
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couple more observations from my reread. i've seen it remarked more than once severian's memory is actually imperfect, despite his claims. i don't think that's quite true. it seems he has three modes of recall. the perfect one is where he actually relives the memory. i gather large tracts of the botns are written like this, with him acting as an amanuensis for the memory. the second is the more standard type of memory everyone has - here he makes mistakes, and is perhaps more prone to self-deception. the third type isn't actually a mode of memory in itself, but is him recalling his recollections from previous memories - i gather those past recollections that he is remembering in this case involve him using the normal, fallible memory. i wonder if his first mode of recollection is a manifestation of his new sun powers. there is speculation (from dorcas in thrax?) that what the claw (really severian) does is bend time for an object back to where it was before. severian reliving moments may involve him doing this for his subjective perceptions. i've never looked in-depth at the theories regarding severian's memory, though, so these guesses may be trite or wrong.
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Apr 14, 2018 05:39
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I actually thought it was the other way around. He is the least reliable when he totally gets lost in his memories, because then he starts lying about things young Severian cares about.
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Apr 14, 2018 07:11
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you may be right, as there are definite points where severian elides things that seem pretty intrinsic to the memories, like his very long affair with thecla which early on he denies ever having... i feel confident there's some system to it involving his memory-trances and about some things he is 100% reliable and there are probably tells but i guess paying attention to try to figure that out will have to await another reread.
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Apr 14, 2018 07:50
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Neurosis posted:you may be right, as there are definite points where severian elides things that seem pretty intrinsic to the memories, like his very long affair with thecla which early on he denies ever having... i feel confident there's some system to it involving his memory-trances and about some things he is 100% reliable and there are probably tells but i guess paying attention to try to figure that out will have to await another reread. Does he deny it? Or does he just omit it?
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Apr 14, 2018 08:02
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life of lemons posted:Does he deny it? Or does he just omit it? actually denies it. he later confirms it about 10 thousand times from both severian and thecla's perspectives (when he seems to be writing in a memory trance).
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Apr 14, 2018 08:58
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Japanese covers of Book of the New Sun have been drawn by Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy) and Tasheshi Obata (Death Note). Pretty funny seeing Severian look like this: https://twitter.com/JohnImadNasr/status/987647364050640902
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Apr 22, 2018 17:38
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Ccs posted:Japanese covers of Book of the New Sun have been drawn by Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy) and Tasheshi Obata (Death Note). those amano covers are fantastic
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Apr 23, 2018 00:21
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Started and finished Pandora by Holly Hollander on Saturday - very fun, quick read. I finished with the distinct belief that the murderer was Holly Hollander herself. She's got motive, opportunity, and smarts to do it. Blue may have been in on it too, with the whole thing being a plot to get Holly the freedom to move in with Blue - isn't much of a stretch to assume a romantic relationship between them. Whoever opened to box is the story's "Pandora" and Holly fits that role much better than Elaine.
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Apr 24, 2018 20:17
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I read that one before I was aware of what Wolfe was up to and I like using it as one of my go-to descriptions of why I enjoy reading Wolfe. It's a light whodunit novel where they wrap up all the loose ends in the last few chapters. Then you find an essay that's 20% the length of the book and realize that the book was clearly lying. Clearly, blatantly, deliberately lying. Then the real whodunnit begins. I need to go back to it now that I'm a little more perceptive. As an aside, it's fun reading some of the Goodreads reviews which agree with my non-spoilered statement.
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Apr 24, 2018 23:45
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towards the end of citadel. many things to note i've forgotten, but a few moments that interested and amused me. the first was where agia tries to scare severian by telling him the terrible things hethor and she will do to him. severian responds 'quite honestly', as he puts it, how he's been involved in much worse acts of torture and that she should seek the advice of a trained professional. if this were just a random excerpt from a book one might see it as lame bluster, but we know how clinical severian is about torture and it seems there's ample evidence to suggest that yes, really, they'd made torture as close to a science as it could be (i do like in this last respect how in making it so precise palaemon, when young, stressed that they would not inflict an iota of suffering more than that prescribed, nor one less - someone trying through engaging in evil practices to extract what good is possible from them). agia's posturing is thus pretty funny. the second is the part where severian is reflecting on the weight of history on urth, ending with this: quote:And what of the dead? I own thatI thought of myself, at times, as almost dead. Are they not locked below ground in chambers smaller than mine was? In their millions of millions? There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men - all are dead. Their bodies repose in caskets, in sarcophagi, beneath arches of rude stone, everywhere under the earth. Their spirits haunt our minds, ears pressed to the bones of our foreheads. Who can say how intently they listen as we speak, or for what word? in the modern day, western liberal democracies have been feeling the gravity of our own past sins and failures since at least ww2. seeing the failure of secular liberalism to achieve its most utopian desires, many now doubt its value entirely. and i think liberal democracies have a reasonable claim to having advanced human well-being, even though some of its developments also allowed us to inflict suffering on a far grander scale than had previously been possible. how much more crushed under the weight of its own history must the commonwealth be, and how poorly must its morale fare when the best it can argue for in terms of bettering humanity is that it's a preferable alternative to Ascia? thirdly, i thought it was a cute inversion how severian sees behaviour and ties it to the conditions which obtained in human civilisation in its long technological waxing. he reflects on how men in his day behaved as if the conditions of that past greatness now obtained. this is the thinking of evolutionary biology, but tying ingrained behavioural and cognitive defects to the period where we were advanced, rather than tying them as thinkers do now to our primitive origins. while i don't think there's a ton of evidence for severian being right, it seems like a reasonable line of thinking from his perspective, knowing little of the earliest days of humanity and with the technological apex of humanity being temporally in the same position to him as the pleistocene is to us.
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Apr 29, 2018 06:51
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So the Atrium of Time must move at a slower time rate than elsewhere, somethinh like Ash's tower being in different time periods, right? On returning Severian finds Triskele's footprints and the bowl he left. Valeria seems like a relic from the past herself, even moreso than the rest of the citadel. And the Atrium can only be accessed by going down, and despite it being open to the sky, Severian could not find it in a flier. I'm trying to think if there's any way that Valeria's second husband could be related to Severian, given their resemblance. Looking for the incest angle. And trying to figure out what Valeria's significance is - I've never had the vaguest notion. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 14:18 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 14:13
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I started up an online book club to initially discuss "The Book of the New Sun" (and if it works out other stuff later on) with some friends (a couple goons included*.) We'll be having our first discussion of the first 4 chapters tonight. I believe the majority of the people involved have never read it before, so it will be interesting to see their reactions and thoughts. I've read it (and BotLS**) a couple times and absolutely don't think I have a complete grasp of it. This time I'll be reading each chapter multiple times, taking notes, and looking up referenfces which I never really did before. Might be coming here with some questions or thoughts. *-I'm going to recommend that anyone new to the books not try to do too much outside research because there is just too many spoilers, wild conjecture, and complicated theories that I think would spoil a first read. So any goons in my group, try not to read too much from this thread. **-I only recently realized I have never read BotSS before, and was going to read that concurrently but I think it might be too much and too confusing, so I'll put that off until later.
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May 2, 2018 06:27
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Section 9 posted:**-I only recently realized I have never read BotSS before, and was going to read that concurrently but I think it might be too much and too confusing, so I'll put that off until later. it's really good. i think long sun is the weakest of the solar cycle, but it's absolutely necessary to understand short sun (and isn't bad by any means anyway, just it has some flaws in terms of structure i wouldn't normally associate with wolfe), which is only a step behind the new sun in terms of quality.
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May 2, 2018 09:05
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I just about finished my re-read of BotNS and I’ve been listening to Alzabo Soup. I don’t agree with all of their podcast but it was indispensable in getting a better handle on the book. I’m not going to spoiler this because they’re not plot points but I really overlooked just how much sci-fi tech is actually in the world the first time around. I imagined it as medieval with bits of future tech and spaceships lying around but on the second reading something like Mos Eisley seems like a better way to visualize it. It’s a lot more fun then I remembered. When I first read it I was trying to approach it with, “this is a sci-fi masterpiece and must be viewed with the utmost gravity” but I realized things like Wolfe’s “translator’s note” make it clear while he’s taking it all seriously he recognizes it’s also a bit ridiculous. It made some parts like the avern and the man-apes a lot easier to process. Once I got into the mindset of, “Wolfe is turning something akin to the Taarna section of Heavy Metal into something approaching literature” it really clicked. I’m wondering where I go from here. Should I go straight to Urth of the New Sun or into a short story collection or another part of the Solar Cycle? I’ve already read Peace and 5th Head. Really the biggest obstacle I have is how to pitch it to other friends I know who like sci-fi because it’s really hard to describe it in a way that captures how it’s fun, dark, thought-provoking, and weird it really is.
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May 3, 2018 20:26
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I was only able to get my friends to read it when Patton Oswalt started Tweeting about it. For whatever reason his endorsement was enough. I'd recommend reading Urth as it's a nice, if confusing and weird, little coda to New Sun. My gut is to tell you to then power on through Long Sun so you can get to the utter joy of reading Short Sun.
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May 4, 2018 00:49
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I mentioned before that we were starting a book club to read through BotNS. We're doing weekly discussions of about 4-5 chapters each week over Google Hangouts which I am recording for people who can't make the Hangouts. Would anyone be interested in listening to those discussions? I'll need to check with folks if they're comfortable with me posting our discussions elsewhere, but if anyone is interested and the participants are down with it I can post them here.
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May 4, 2018 04:00
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Section 9 posted:I mentioned before that we were starting a book club to read through BotNS. We're doing weekly discussions of about 4-5 chapters each week over Google Hangouts which I am recording for people who can't make the Hangouts. Would anyone be interested in listening to those discussions? I'll need to check with folks if they're comfortable with me posting our discussions elsewhere, but if anyone is interested and the participants are down with it I can post them here. Sure! Even if no one is super knowledgeable there are sure to be observations I hadn't thought of that will make me think about my interpretations. Shark Sandwich posted:I just about finished my re-read of BotNS and I’ve been listening to Alzabo Soup. I don’t agree with all of their podcast but it was indispensable in getting a better handle on the book. Go straight into Urth. There are a lot of things in there having a fresh memory of Book of the New Sun will help with. I notice in Book when Severian thinks of calling his memoirs the Book of the New Sun he says it's using the name of some fabled but long lost text. I assume he is in fact talking about the Gene Wolfe authored Book of the New Sun (it might be a reference to the New Testament, too). This occurs to me since it seems in the Wizard Knight the conceit was the way Michael would let Able communicate with Ben, who was on our Earth, was to inspire Gene Wolfe to write the fictional work the Wizard Knight.
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May 4, 2018 06:00
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Shark Sandwich posted:
For non sci fi readers I usually explain some of the identity and writing devices Wolfe plays with as a hook, then recommend Peace, Fifth Head and short stories as a way for people who aren't into sci fi to get an idea what he's about. Fifth Head is sci fi of course but it's a lot more concise and easier to perceive the themes and narrative tricks, while being very good. If they like any of that Book is an easy sell.
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May 4, 2018 06:05
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Shark Sandwich posted:I’m not going to spoiler this because they’re not plot points but I really overlooked just how much sci-fi tech is actually in the world the first time around. I imagined it as medieval with bits of future tech and spaceships lying around but on the second reading something like Mos Eisley seems like a better way to visualize it. Any examples of this? It has been a few years since I read it now but I also envisioned it as mostly medieval/early modern with various pieces of sci-fi tech around, much of it inoperable.
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May 4, 2018 13:52
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Neurosis posted:I notice in Book when Severian thinks of calling his memoirs the Book of the New Sun he says it's using the name of some fabled but long lost text. I assume he is in fact talking about the Gene Wolfe authored Book of the New Sun (it might be a reference to the New Testament, too). This occurs to me since it seems in the Wizard Knight the conceit was the way Michael would let Able communicate with Ben, who was on our Earth, was to inspire Gene Wolfe to write the fictional work the Wizard Knight. The 'lost' BOTNS is almost certainly the text that Canog writes sometime after encountering Conciliator Sev while he's imprisoned at the Matachin Tower in Urth of the New Sun. I don't remember the details but Sev dictates his story to Canog through the wall and this goes on to form the basis of the Conciliator myth (via the lost BOTNS). Here's the catch: we have no idea what this BOTNS contains and if it's entirely different/somewhat the same/entirely the same as Wolfe's BOTNS. It's imo likely that it's mostly different though. One of the books Sev brings Thecla is the 'lost' BOTNS and Dr Talos has read enough of it to write his play. For being a 'lost' book it sure seems easy enough to get. Re: technology remnants - I think Baldander's castle is implied to be some sort of mini-spaceport that was used by cacogens as a base and then given over to Baldy. The caco flying saucer docks at the top and it would explain where he got some of the whack tech.
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May 4, 2018 16:30
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Neurosis posted:Sure! Even if no one is super knowledgeable there are sure to be observations I hadn't thought of that will make me think about my interpretations. I think its the Bible (New Son)
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May 4, 2018 19:48
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my bony fealty posted:The 'lost' BOTNS is almost certainly the text that Canog writes sometime after encountering Conciliator Sev while he's imprisoned at the Matachin Tower in Urth of the New Sun. I don't remember the details but Sev dictates his story to Canog through the wall and this goes on to form the basis of the Conciliator myth (via the lost BOTNS). i forgot about that. makes sense.
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May 5, 2018 01:52
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Here's our first discussion session for anyone interested. We covered the first 4 chapters of "Shadow of the Torturer". Only 5 people were on the call, but there will probably be more in the future (there's 17 people in the group, but not sure if everyone's going to participate.) One person had issues with his mic so is a little quiet at times, but mostly audible. We're meeting once a week and are going to try 5 chapters next week to see how that works. Trying to balance getting through the book quickly with being able to have a deep discussion of the material each week in about an hour.
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May 5, 2018 02:50
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Halfway through my Urth reread. Every reread the Hierogrammates become more malevolent. Almost like they want to inflict suffering on those like their forebears. The problem of evil in a benevolent creator's universe is of course a running theme, and it seems like the answer to the question of its existence Wolfe prefers - that suffering pain reflection and ultimately death are the road to redemptive transformation - provides no comfort as far as the intentions of the Hieros and the experience of humanity when the New Sun comes.
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May 6, 2018 16:25
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Happy birthday Gene Wolfe! 87 years young.
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May 8, 2018 01:23
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my bony fealty posted:Happy birthday Gene Wolfe! 87 years young. may he live many years more. urth: i'm starting to think that not only are the hierogrammates not benevolent, but that they might be either of the same species or tzadkiel may literally be abaia. the most obvious evidence of them being the same species - inire shows tzadkiel (or another hiero) swimming through space in his book in botns. djuturna (or whatever her name was), abaia's undine, speaks of swimming through the void. in describing the hiero's shapeshifting abilities, tzadkiel refers to sea creatures on urth that have some similar physiological properties to hieros, calling to mind abaia as a sea-dweller, of course. later, when severian is speaking with burgundofora and gunnie, he is in a room with crying masks, the three he sees showing zak, tzadkiel, and the captain - covered faces are a motif in the series and it seems a clear indication there was a true appearance behind the captain - possibly abaia? abaia is referred to as a he, of course, but it's stated more than once gender is irrelevant to a hiero. time is all flexible for these entities thanks to the ship, so one becoming abaia is far from impossible. i vaguely remember some discussion of abaia being a fallen angel in analysis somewhere, which would make him a hiero, too, though i'm relying on poorly remembered extra-textual discussion there. we're told once or twice that the coming of the new sun will destroy abaia, and that he wants to stop that, but it's not entirely clear if that will be the case. if urth is blue from the short sun it would certainly indicate that's not the case - though i'm not 100% on board with this theory. there are some problems in figuring out how the undines relate to the hiero- er, i can't remember the proper term for them, but the hieros we see in yessod. those hieros are said by apheta to be larval hierogrammates, although i'm not entirely sure this makes sense. if hieros can procreate like that, and they are from a prior creation, why bother trying to ensure hieros come again in briah rather than directly colonising it. anyway, if undines are young members of abaia's species (which isn't actually ever stated), they wouldn't line up with those hieros too well. those hieros are also shown to operate in some kind of insect hive under the island in yessod, so there's not much correspondence there, though yessod seems mostly aquatic. anyway, insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions, but on my next reread i will be looking out for other signs. i was also struck by how some of the abilities of the hierogrammates are, well, kind of cheap and not very angelic. there being some weight-based contraption to trigger a mechanism to step into paintings, tzadkiel's throne also being presumed by severian to operate by some cheap mechanism (albeit he could have been wrong), some of the doors below not even being automated... just a few things which suggest there's some fraud going on. there was something else, too, but i can't remember what. i also wonder how much of the really out there stuff like aquastors and the white fountain comes from the hieros, really. it may be severian himself has more power than might be thought, and the hieros are just latching onto him opportunistically. something else interesting i also noticed - ash mentions a woman from his time, vine. that sounds a lot like the naming conventions from the long sun! don't know if that actually means anything, but it's interesting, although inconsistent with blue and green being urth and lune if it is to be taken that the long sun world leads to master ash's world. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 05:57 on May 8, 2018 |
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May 8, 2018 05:41
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Neurosis posted:something else interesting i also noticed - ash mentions a woman from his time, vine. that sounds a lot like the naming conventions from the long sun! don't know if that actually means anything, but it's interesting, although inconsistent with blue and green being urth and lune if it is to be taken that the long sun world leads to master ash's world. Ask and Embla, or Ash and Vine are the names of the first two human beings in Norse Mythology. Vine works as a Long Sun names, but Ash is just the name of a tree or the residue after a fire as far as I know, so it doesn't quite work as a masculine name, though it's worth a thought.
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May 8, 2018 20:39
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Unless Ash is a Chem? A bit unconventional as a Chem name, but I don't think it'd be against the rules?
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May 9, 2018 00:20
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Ask and Embla, or Ash and Vine are the names of the first two human beings in Norse Mythology. Ah! That makes sense. I thought the same of Ash - not really linked to animals - but iirc some of the male names in Long Sun are pretty remotely connected to animals so some connection could be found. Anyway this Norse connection seems the better one and there's little to say the Long Sun had been conceived when the New Sun was written. Although something else strange about Ash: he has the facial features of the statue things in the gardens at the House Absolute. Those things are meant to have the facial features of the humans who created the hieros. Yet Ash's future has no New Sun. I don't hang any significance on this without more but I'm going to have to think about it. Edit that you can have ashes from creating animals would probably be enough. As I say the connections demanded were loose. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 01:53 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 01:01
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Neurosis posted:evil hieros My most recent reading of BOTNS had me feeling that there was some sort of galactic war that happened between the Hierogrammates and the Megatherians, for which Urth was ground zero, probably in Typhon's time. The culmination of which was putting the black worm into the Sun. Which led me to think: if the Hierogrammates are what humanity's descendants eventually create after the New Sun comes, could the Megatherians be created by future humanity in the future without the New Sun? It's never made much sense that the New Sun would be devastating to Abaia and co. given that they are giant aquatic beings; surely a flooded Urth would be ideal for them. So Severian's Urth is kind of in a superposition where the Hierogrammates and Megatherians both exist, and they're fighting to determine which one shapes the future (and therefore brings themselves into existence). The Commonwealth & Autarchs are the Hiero's proxies on Urth and the Ascians are the Megatherian's. Hierodules are the equivalent of Undines. Dunno if I buy my own theory but it would shed some more light on the motivations of the Megatherians which are rather esoteric. Re: Blue as Urth, I'm way more convinced that Marc Aramini is on the right track and Green is Urth/Ushas, Blue is probably Mars. Coming of the New Sun dramatically hosed up the solar system. Short Sun works very, very well as a wrap-up to the Solar Cycle if it's correct that the events depicted therein are some of the stages of mankind's journey towards evolving into the Hieros. Which suggests some interesting implications that most of the, perhaps all of the, "aliens" we see in the Solar Cycle are actually different stages of human evolution.. I think this is backed up by the fact that the scary cacogen masks are really hiding beautiful human-esque faces underneath. The Inhumi are so good at copying humans because they carry the genetic memory of being homo sapiens.
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May 9, 2018 02:08
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Will have to read the post above more closely to write a proper reply, but the pressure created underwater from those things that produce flooding can be immense. So it is possible those disruptions would kill the megatherians. Also the idea of Abaia etc being involved with timeline manipulation makes sense - it is implied Juturna saved Severian at the start acting on knowledge of other Severians. Although the megatherians appear to have their roots roughly contemporaneously with Typhon, and if that's correct the future in which humanity produces them would have to involve them subsequently being returned. I like the idea the coming of the black hole had to do with the megatherians, though. The problem seemed to come about at around the same time and the megatherians are clearly deeply interested in the New Sun. (I read the most tedious Urth mailing list thread looking for stuff on Hieros and Abaia yesterday - some doubted megatherians referred to the alien monsters. I thought the Group of 17 and Lives of the 17 Megatherians plus Abaia being referred to as the Great Beast was enough of a connection to make it likely the megatherians are the alien monsters. There's also Cadroe of the 17 Stones which I find hard to place - maybe the stones refers to the black seeds of the alien monsters. Anyway I found it surprising there was scepticism 17 was connected to the aliens and the megatherians are either the monsters or those closely connected to them.) Neurosis fucked around with this message at 03:47 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 03:43
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further new sun thoughts, re the times Severian's powers works and the times they don't: could it be based on the probability of him bringing the new sun at the time in question? from what i've read in urth the time stuff that happens in botns is not a fixed loop, but at any given time future events (but not past ones , obviously, because they've already happened). causation runs in both directions, as well. hence, master ash fading into nonexistence, and severian's 'trial' involving tzadkiel looking at the probability of severian bringing the new sun. so perhaps severian's powers work or do not work depending on the probability of him bringing the new sun at any point in time. the only serious flaw i can see in this is that we know the conciliator (ie severian in the past with new sun powers) has already existed, and therefore it seems the past says severian bringing the new sun is certain. maybe the conciliator for any given universe is from another creation, not actually the severian of that universe in the past? this doesn't have any support to it other than that we know there are ways to move between creations, i'm just thinking of what could make the probability theory work. because i find it to be a satisfying explanation of why severian's powers are sometimes inert. another thing i'll have to think of on my next reread.
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May 10, 2018 08:00
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We had our second book club session for "Shadow of the Torturer" covering chapters 5-9. Same people as last week minus one. I realized it'll probably be easier (both for our book club and here) to just share the folder I'm putting recordings into rather than linking to each recording. So here's the Dropbox folder. I might not post here every time I add a new recording (unless people are interested enough that they'd like notification) but we're meeting weekly on Wednesday nights and I add the recordings shortly after we finish. So if you want to follow along, just check the folder on Thursdays. Is there any sort of official pronunciation guide for names in the book? It was brought up that Thea and Thecla being sisters, and their names maybe being related (which I didn't comment on, because I'm trying to avoid future spoilers, but I agreed with because I've read some ideas about in the "Lexicon Urthus" and elsewhere) that if it's "Thay-ah", then it might be "Thay-clah" instead of "Theh-clah". Or if it's "Thee-ah" then it might be "Thee-clah. I am terrible with pronouncing words I have only read.
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May 11, 2018 02:24
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A couple more Urth thoughts: (this one's kind of obvious) the reason women are banned from being torturers was said to be because they were so much crueler than men. This is very likely because of Ymar's experiences growing up with that woman that Severian kills when he goes to the Matachin Tower in the past, whom everyone lived in fear of and hated. Secondly, another explanation for the Ymar anecdote rears its head: that Ymar laughs to himself and follows the dog because he realises this is exactly the anecdote that will be passed down to Severian and that Severian told him of.
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May 13, 2018 02:15
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