(urth) House Absolute

[Craig Brewer]

While we all sit here and wonder about the practicalities and details of how Buenos Aires might have become Nessus, it seems that the best reason to think of the two cities as the same has less to do with plot than with one more allusive than literal reason: Borges.




----- Original Message ----
From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 1:23:16 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) House Absolute

Gene Wolfe stated to me, in so many words, that Nessus is Buenos Aires.

He could have been lying, I suppose.


.


> Thanks for the links, Tim. It looks like the "exact" origin of Nessus is
> unsettled enough for my theory to fit without contradicting anyone else's
> South American theory. I agree that a nod to Borges is extremely
> likely---without necessarily dictating exact coordinates.
>
> And I think the posters' suspicions about Severian's descriptions of
> spatial relations is fair on several levels. He has occupied several
> different bodies---how could he comfortably describe Thecla's left hand,
> just as a random example, as being on his (Severian's) right, when he also
> had known it to be on his (Thecla's) left?
>
> As an aside, I'm skeptical about any theory that "extreme" amounts of time
> have passed. There is simply no thematic or plot need for Urth to
> drastically change, nor for continents to change for the 20th century to
> be utterly forgotten and for cities to rise where now no cities are. Myth
> is as much about changes that occur on the same landscape as it is about
> what stays the same when the ground changes. Severian describes plastic as
> being still near the surface. Climate, sedimentation, and minor river
> movement are all fast changes vs any kind of mountain formation; so are
> language change/loss, cultural memory loss, and the replacement of
> political systems.
>
> The pampas are still there, as are the northern jungles, the Andes with
> its lakes, and the southern mists.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 16:43:42 -0000
> From: "O'Donnell, Tim (BOSI)" <Tim.O'Donnell at bankofscotland.ie>
> Subject: (urth) House Absolute
> To: <urth at urth.net>
> Message-ID:
>     <63FB9AC7E0AEC7459DBCC99DC44247CA01F6AFEA at BOSIDEXDB.Bankofscotland.ie>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi David,
>
> I thought that Nessus = Buenos Ares was accepted here but I could be
> wrong.
>
> In the archives I can find the following discussions:
>
> http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2008-September/010056.html
>
> http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2007-December/008446.html
>
> Although I do remember further discussion on the older lists (I had a
> great few months in a new job where I had the opportunity to read through
> the entire archives).
>
> Your objection based on the flow of the river came up.  At least one
> person (Raster) suggested that Severian may have spatial dyslexia and
> raised some interesting points in this regard:
>
> http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0001/0021.shtml
>
>
> Just on the point of the House Absolute connecting to Nessus (and I am in
> no way welded to the idea, just throwing some ideas around)
> at least 2 ways in which this could be the case and the two could be at a
> long remove:
> i)  Some transport device like the one Typhon uses to ascend to the top of
> the mountain with his face carved on it could be used to move around.
> IIIRC there is a suggestion of anti-gravity device in operation here
> ii) One of Father Inire's devices could be at work here.  Some variation
> on mirrors for transport to allow rapid transport.
>
> Is it established how long it takes to walk between the House Absolute and
> Nessus?  The tunnels are certainly extensive enough to allow children to
> be lost and possibly for timber wolves to live in the tunnels.
> There is also the possibility that the tunnels joining these two are
> extremely long.
>
> As I say, I don't think it is that important to the story, just idle
> speculation...
>
>
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