(urth) Hut/Ultan's Library/Catherine

[b sharp]

James wynn writes:
 
>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.

I could go with D. Stockhoff's rather direct explanation:
 
>Well, they were both underground in a musty place of great age,
>where data was literally entombed, like the dead. Where the knowledge
>of the historians that Ultan desires is also entombed; where the whole
>of Urth is entombed. Who wouldn't get a creepy feeling? The place is 
>symbolic of death.
 
but also,
 
I don't suppose all Wolfe's protagonists function as the author's
avatars but some do, and surely Severian. I can't help but see the
meeting of Severian and Ultan as part of a fantasy of Wolfe to meet
with Jorge Luis Borges. Two avatars feeling dead together in a book
could be the mirror image of two live guys meeting in the real world. 
Perhaps it wasn't just a fantasy and Wolfe really did meet Borges in 
his library in Buenos Aires and that S. American trip provided much 
of the inspiration for BotNS.
 
ah, I dunno...
 
-bsharp
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