(urth) Hut/Ultan's Library/Catherine
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Mon Apr 6 09:39:28 PDT 2009
>>> Stan: Why weird? Ultan is a Vodalarian, and has
>>>eaten part of the corpse. He is hardly a great exception.
>>
>> "...and quite suddenly I felt that he and I were dead..."
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand this explanation. At the time of this event,
>> Severian had not eaten any corpse; so, why did he feel that he himself
>> was dead? I suppose it is not absolutely required, but this pairing seems
>> to imply they were "were dead" for the same reason...whatever it was.
>
> A few months ago we went over this - they meet in unlit underground
> tunnels, essentially catacombs for books instead of bodies. Ultan is also
> very much like the barrow wights or dwarves of the Norse epics,
> essentially a barely animated corpse guarding grave goods and other
> treasures.
Hmmm...I searched the archives and nothing about dwarves or barrow wights
came up.
Anyway, I'll require a lot more convincing. If the catacombs lent out their
corpses, I'm not aware of it. I'm sure barrow wights did not abet such
practices. And if Ultan *were* intended to be analogous to an animated ward
of a grave, that would put Severian in the position of a treasure
hunter...not a corpse himself.
J.
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