(urth) Future Echoes: Hut in the Jungle +

Son of Witz sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org
Fri Mar 20 09:38:59 PDT 2009 

The next bit I read after this discussion was from Shadow 24 Flower of Dissolution:

"Beside me, Dorcas plucked a water hyacinth and put it in her hair. Except for the vague spot of white on the bank some distance ahead, it was the first flower I had seen in the Garden of Endless Sleep; I looked for others, but saw none. Is it possible the flower came into being only because Dorcas reached for it? In daylight moments, I know as well as the next that such things are impossible;"

Is it possible the flower came into being only because Dorcas reached for it?

I can't help but feel this is a slightly different illustration of this idea of future >><< past echoes influencing each other.

He's waxing philosophical as he describes the reversal of things on the other side of the world when he writes this. 

"the seeress's cave, and thus this garden, was on the opposite side of the world. There, as Master Malrubius had taught us long ago, all was reversed:"

That everything is reversed is a big clue, right? the reversal of causation in this idea of, "flowers leaping from nothingness into a girl's fingers just as by light in spring they leap from mere filthiness into the air?" is similar to the causation reversal in Baldanders>>Frankenstein  and NewSun>>Consiliator or, say, SecondComingJesus>>JesusVersion.  (can someone give me a better label for that please? O-Jesus is to gangasta.)

pretty cool.
what a dreamy, poetically surreal illustration Wolfe has given us in the opening of this chapter.

~witz



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Craig Brewer [mailto:cnbrewer at yahoo.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 10:52 PM
>To: 'The Urth Mailing List'
>Subject: Re: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
>
>
>Or another way to put it would be that some myths are true only in the future. They make themselves true by projecting pseudo-false stories about themselves in the past which help bring about their realization. That would be Severian, yes?
>
>And on that reading, Talos realizing that his situation is what Prometheus was really all about is significant in the text because it's a smaller example of your Amphisbaena where the REAL meaningful Amphisbaena's are the cosmic myths which are lies (in the past) that make themselves become true (in the future).
>
>Is that right? If so, then I can retract my underwhelming.
>
>Oh, and:  Gee Whiz. Gene Wolfe. Coincidence?
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
>To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:44:41 AM
>Subject: Re: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
>
>
>On Mar 18, 2009, at 10:37 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
>
>> 
>> Dizzying from one perspective. Underwhelming from another. Or I suppose both at once.
>
>that's interesting considering your and my first exchange where you argued that the flattening of a hierarchy of the 3 meanings was what you found interesting, and what I found interesting was the depth and hierarchy of those 3 meanings.
>
>
>> If you're right, then the upshot of this would be that myth (Prometheus) is a retelling "from the future" of a very worldly event, Baldanders creating Talos and eventually destroying himself, which comes to have "mythic" proportions by being "projected" through a past lens darkly. Is that right?
>
>Yes, that's what I think is going on.
>
>> 
>> But why does it have to be "from the future"? What does that add to the idea that real events can be blown up into myths that resonate with meaning far from their original context? What's different about a myth's origin being in the future than in the past? (Apart from the coolness factor, I agree.)
>
>
>It might be Gee Whiz to realize that time isn't uni-directional.
>but, it does elaborate on that idea to some degree.
>ie: take Jesus. Is the second coming a myth that made from "real events" blown out up into Myth,
>or is the actual fact of the second coming resonating back through time to create the Myth.
>this is why I found so much Christic resonance in Severian, as this is exactly what's happened to him.
>He became the new sun, and by crazy circumstances went back and planted the seed of hope for the New Sun.
>
>dunnoh, I find that concept pretty badass and not mundane at all.
>
>~witz
>
>
>
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
>> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:31:05 AM
>> Subject: Re: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
>> 
>> no no.
>> It's not just "cute". it's fairly profound. it's literal, and it's a good example of why I've been saying the time loop is intractable.
>> Things in this story's past have their roots in it's temporal future.
>> I know it's a steady refrain from me, but Amphisbaena, Amphisbaena Amphisbaena.
>> 
>> He's suggesting they ARE Frankensein, and the "particular past event that Talos is referring to" is the writing of Frankenstein and other Promethean stories.
>> Dizzyingly awesome idea.
>> ~witz
>> 
>> On Mar 18, 2009, at 10:06 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Fair enough. (Although it leaves the Frankenstein reference as just something "cute" to throw in there.)
>>> 
>>> Can you explain how it works here? Is there a particular past event that Talos is referring to that their present-as-future is affecting? Perhaps both? Is he suggesting that they're writing _Frankenstein_ at that moment? heh...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
>>> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>>> Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:02:39 AM
>>> Subject: Re: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
>>> 
>>> No, Talos (or Wolfe) meant that pretty literally. We discussed this when
>>> Wolfe and met in the mid 80's. John Cramer was also present. Gene and I
>>> found that we agreed that time was a certain way, which includes future
>>> events affecting the past in certain tricky ways.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> .
>>> 
>>>> Gwern, I see what you mean about those being two directions of the same
>>>> issue. But there's something else going on there, as well.
>>>> 
>>>> I always thought that Talos was really talking about myth and stories:
>>>> he's saying, "Hey, this is _Frankenstein_, but backwards!" And the point
>>>> is that myth shapes us, but we also move away from the original intent of
>>>> myths so that they are changed and distorted over time.
>>>> 
>>>> What happens in the hut seems less about myth and story than about
>>>> reflecting on the consequences of one's actions, but also realizing that
>>>> who we are may be the consequence of someone else's actions.
>>>> 
>>>> Both are about how, you're right, it's hard to pin down an "original"
>>>> cause or action. But they're dealing with different mechanisms: choices on
>>>> the one hand and myth/story on the other.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that there may be different
>>>> ways that they're thinking about the relationship between past and future.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
>>>> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 6:27:57 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: (urth) Hut in the Jungle
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>>> and they feel the Tokoloshe, spirits from the future.
>>>>> "Don't you see they are only the results of what we do? They are the
>>>>> spiritis of the future, and we make them ourselves?"
>>>>> Is this just saying that the fallen state of Urth is contemporary
>>>>> Earth's doing, somehow?
>>>> ...
>>>>> /confused
>>>>> ~witz
>>>> 
>>>> I've always taken this as being the opposite of what is said in _Sword
>>>> of the Lictor_:
>>>> 
>>>> 'Dr. Talos whispered, "Look about you—don't you recognize this? It
>>>> is just as he says!"
>>>> "What do you mean?" I whispered in return.
>>>> "The castle? The monster? The man of learning? I only just thought
>>>> of it. Surely you know that just as the momentous events of the past
>>>> cast their shadows down the ages, so now, when the sun is drawing
>>>> toward the dark, our own shadows race into the past to trouble
>>>> mankind's dreams."
>>>> "You're mad," I said. "Or joking."
>>>> "Mad?" Baldanders rumbled. "You are mad. You with your fantasies
>>>> of theurgy. How they must be laughing at us. They think all of us
>>>> barbarians... I, who have labored three lifetimes."'
>>>> 
>>>> I've always loved that line: "our own shadows race into the past to
>>>> trouble
>>>> mankind's dreams."
>>>> 
>>>> The spirits of the future trouble the dreams of the present, and the
>>>> present make the results that lie in the future. Which was the
>>>> original? Neither, perhaps.
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> gwern
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