(urth) a lurker asks a question

[Duncan Truter]

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Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:55:23 -0500
From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) a lurker asks a question
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
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On Sep 30, 2008, at 7:19 AM, James Wynn wrote:

> >Matt asks:
> >I love this scene, but other than the need for Severian to get the
> books for Thecla,
> >I'm wondering what the Point is...What does this chapter contribute
> to the story?
> >...What am I missing?  Surely there's more to it than that.
>
> When people mention to me that they feel something is going on under
> the floorboards in this scene, I always direct them to this clause:
>
> "...quite suddenly I felt that he and I were dead, and the darkness
> surrounding us was grave soil presing in about our eyes..."
>
> There is something being declared here in a Lupean way --
> narratively or character development-wise -- but I'll be danged if I
> know what it is.
>

Somewhere--and I don't remember where--Severian also recoils when
seeing a particular book, because it seems to him like he's suddenly
run across a rotting corpse.  Can someone point that citation out?  I
think that ties in here somewhere too.

Adam

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Is this maybe something to do with the fact that one of the books
Severian picks up is The Book Of The New Sun (it is, isn't it?) this
could be why he feels he's already dead: the book is a book of his
life that he wrote, which for him hasn't happened yet but in the book
it already has, and the book is there. This may be the book he recoils
from later?

Duncan