(urth) Eyes of Thecla

Roy C. Lackey rclackey at stic.net
Wed May 3 01:51:04 PDT 2006


mourning's glory wrote:
>1) Purn wonders if Lune is "big and white" -- which may mean he crewed
>aboard the Quasar before the moon was forested, possibly making him a
>contemporary of Jonas.

>3) Purn utters at least one Wellerism ("That's what makes the ship go, as
>the skipper said when they asked about the wench") --something Hethor does
>with even more frequency.

Did you mean Jonas? I don't recall Hethor ever using a Wellerism. Miles, of
course, did. So did Gunnie. (18) As did the old moonraker captain near the
end of CITADEL, so that type of speech was still used in Severian's day, and
I see no reason to believe that Maxellindis' uncle had ever served aboard
the Ship or been a contemporary of Jonas.

Purn (and Idas) had boarded the same ship on Urth that took Severian to the
Ship. (84, 107) Purn was lying about not knowing about green Lune.

Of course, with time travel all sorts of improbable things can happen, but
the last time Severian saw Hethor he was a little gray-haired man of more
than middle years. Purn was one of those big, blond, sunny-disposition guys
that Severian associated with men from the south of the Commonwealth, much
like Hallvard.

-Roy




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