(urth) House Absolute

Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 1 08:31:01 PST 2008


I don't have my copies with me, but wasn't Father Inire responsible for building most of the House Absolute? Or was he just responsible for the "additions" to a structure that was already there?




________________________________
From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 10:24:16 AM
Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute


My curiosity has been awakened---What is the argument for Nessus' being Buenos Aires? 

I agree that it's a candidate, and I understand that, if anything, Nessus would be "a descendant" of that city rather than in the same location. But if we are to take the present geography of South America as any kind of guide, it's impossible. The small river that flows through BA runs from NW to SE, so that the city would move NW, not south. No river flows due north anywhere in the region, and we know Nessus moved to get away from the squalid lower river area, just like London did. So Nessus did not move south---unless a new, wide, long river with a huge estuary sprung up out of nothing, in which case all bets are off. 

Once you accept that the city moves north or northwest (regardless of what Severian says), Gyoll may as well be Rio de la Plata/Parana River. Only this river has a long estuary and a region where the land is flat enough for the river to meander as Gyoll does. The river descends from the north before turning southeast.

So if Nessus IS Buenos Aires, it first enlarged itself to include the estuary and half of Uruguay, then moved northwest. If this contradicts any other known facts, then we have to accept that contradiction. Wouldn't be the first time.

Incidentally, there is a town/province of northern Uruguay, up the Parana, called Salto, which may be Saltus. 

And I need not point out that Borges wrote extensively of the rebels of the plains north of the rivers in Brazil and Paraguay, and Wolfe is a fan.

As for House Absolute---who knows. There is plenty of room there and time for various ancient installations and constructions. We do know, however, that its tunnels connect with Nessus, so it can't be too far away.



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:26:35 -0500 (EST)
From: brunians at brunians.org
Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <1343.67.142.130.14.1228145195.squirrel at brunians.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

It is North.

Nessus has been moving south.



.



> I don't have the text to hand so I cannot verify till I get home however I
> don't think the House Absolute is in
> Nessus at all.  Did Severian not travel North for some time before he
> reached Nessus?  He was walking over
> House Absolute with Jonas when they were taken capture by the Guards.
> 
>>brunians at brunians.org >>Nessus is the descendant of Buenos Aires, it has moved south (other
>>things, some more and some less plausible, are also assumed to have
>>happened). House Absolute is thus to be found somewhere in the present
>>bounds of Buenos Aires. I have no idea how familiar Wolfe might be with
>>modern Buenos Aires.

>



________________________________
 
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. 
Virus Database (VPS): 081130-0, 11/30/2008
Tested on: 12/1/2008 11:24:17 AM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software.



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20081201/d3523a02/attachment-0005.htm>


More information about the Urth mailing list