(urth) Thecla's fourth book

[James B. Jordan]

At 01:16 AM 9/30/2006, you wrote:

>b sharp, a few weeks ago, wrote:
> >>He [Talos] seems to understand Urth to Ushas better than anyone else. How
>does he know about the woman on the Path of Air?<<
>
>Talos's play bears only a superficial resemblance to the actual events
>related in URTH concerning the end of Urth.
>
>Logically, there is no way that Talos could have known about her. I think
>this is one of those situations where the sequel to NEW SUN doesn't mesh
>perfectly with the original tetralogy. We all know that when Wolfe wrote NEW
>SUN he didn't plan on writing URTH. It seems to me that once the decision to
>write Book 5 was made, Wolfe was forced to flesh out to some degree what was
>present only skeletally in his mind. I think he found it necessary to make
>some changes to his original concept.
>
>One place where this is evident is the last line of CITADEL. Severian, just
>before leaving Urth for Yesod, wrote that he was writing in what would be
>"the last year of the old sun." That turned out not to be true. For whatever
>reason, in URTH Wolfe made life go on on Urth for another forty years before
>the coming of the New Sun and the flood.

I've been way too busy to keep up here, but I did catch this. If it 
is really 40 years, then Wolfe has a basis in the New Testament. The 
Old Creation ended in AD 30, at Pentecost, but did not fully end 
until the Cataclysm (Flood, the Bible does call it that) in AD 70 
with the destruction of Jerusalem, centre of the Olde Order. There is 
a two-stage ending, for a variety of reasons into which I need not 
go. Suffice to say that Wolfe may have had something like this in 
mind, or might call on it if you pressed him !! :-[ Severian (type of 
Jesus) made king in "30" and world ends fully in "70".

JBJordan.


James B. Jordan
Director, Biblical Horizons
Box 1096
Niceville, FL 32588
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com 
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