(urth) Fish and Caves

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>>Gerry Quinn: But he's speaking to people who have all just seen Monster 
>>Scylla on Urth.
>>So it's not so clear...he probably means the Mother rather than Monster 
>>Scylla.  Still,
>>there is a possible ambiguity there.
>
> Not just possible it IS ambiguous. That is the point. WOlfe CAN'T be too 
> clear in descriptions
> of god-like beings.If they were clear, they wouldn't be god-like. Is it 
> really important to
> distinguish which giant being is which? These things reproduce asexually 
> and have the capacity
> for interstellar travel. So it probably doesn't matter so much which is 
> which.  The human
> conventions of distinct identity and distinct names may be something only 
> we need, not they.

You previously said "The words are spoken on Blue so there is only one sea 
goddess he can mean."  I was pointing out that there are in fact two 
possibilities.

Humans reproduce in a variety of ways and have the capacity for interstellar 
travel.  Does it matter much which is which?   I think so, even if you do 
not always seem to!

If the condition of being detached is significant, as you say (and I agree, 
even though I do not fully accept or reject that this is the source of the 
undines), then Monster Scylla and the Mother are different entities.

Long sun Gods can also split off pieces of themselves.  Does that make them 
all the same god?

I do not subscribe to what might be described as the 'character soup' theory 
of Wolfe's books, in which everybody is everybody else.  There are 
confusions of identity, certainly - but such confusions are possible only if 
there are identities to confuse!


>>I don't recall the female figure you mention, but as I've said I have only
>>read the Short Sun books once.
>
> Horn is making some fish for Seawrack on the boat when:
>
>>A new voice said, "Do not give it to her"  It seemed that the words issued 
>>from the sea itself.
>>The top of the speaker's head broke the water, and she rose effortlessly 
>>until the oily swell
>>reached no higher than her waist. I can never forget that gradual facile 
>>ascension. Like the
>>face of Kypris...it remains vivid today, the streaming form of a cowled 
>>woman robed in pulsing
>>red, a woman three times my own stature at least..
>
>>I knelt and bowed my head.  "Help my daughter into your boat"....Do not 
>>allow her to eat uncooked
>>flesh or..do anything thqt your own women do not do.  I said, "Yes, Great 
>>Goddess".  etc. etc.
>
>>More swiftly than she had risen, she slid beneath the swell. For a moment 
>>I glimpsed through the
>>water--or thought that I did--something huge and dark on which she stood.
>
> Since we can't see this giant woman below the waist, I conclude she is 
> budded and not really "standing".

Okay, I remember now.  Yes, she is created by the Mother as a sort of puppet 
figure in order to communicate with Horn.  She seems quite like the figures 
produced by Monster Scylla, which were also used for communication, although 
the large number is hard to explain - sure,. they could be buds, or maybe 
Monster Scylla just produced lots of them to make an impression.

In short, the figures produced by Monster Scylla were like the "feignings" - 
and therefore in some sense *unlike* Juturna and her siblings.  Unlike 
because not detached, or unlike for some other reason?  I don;t claim to 
know.


>>Gerry: Monster Scylla certainly has or can produces attached figures 
>>(feignings?),
>>as seen on their astral visit to Urth.  The ancestry of the undines is 
>>still not entirely certain.
>>You assert they are detached parts of some sea monster, and it seems 
>>logical given that Monster Scylla
>>seems to be budding, but there is no proof of it.
>
> Gerry, are you suggesting that Great Scylla has these waves and waves of 
> budded human female extensions
> in black hooded robes (abayas) for no reason. They won't detach and become 
> undines, they will just sort
> of wave around in the ocean without purpose? Even I can admit that seems 
> unlikely.

They have a proximate purpose, i.e,. communication. Perhaps Monster Scylla 
just created them on the spot and absorbed them after.  *Maybe* they are 
buds that Monster Scylla carries around for a time and then detaches.  But I 
don't think we know enough to be certain of that.


> Wolfe is simply not going to hand you the mathematical "proof" on a silver 
> platter. His mysteries
> have multiple variables to solve simultaneously. You don't ever see a 
> budded undine detach from Abaia or
> Scylla or The Mother to become its own entity. Right. But you DO see a 
> budded appendage break off and
> become an independent being with Tzadkiel. She (Tzadkiel) explains the 
> process by comparing it to the
> budding of sponges. SEA CREATURES.(fishy things) If you can't add these 
> clues together, then I think you
> might want to consider ending your quest. Wolfe will not ever make it 
> easier to understand than that.

You are the one who is always insisting that theories, however off the wall, 
should not be criticised - now suddenly you insist that there is only one 
true way to explain these phenomena.  Sponges are not fish.  Nor are the 
gods of the Long Sun Whorl who can also break off pieces of themselves. 
*Possibly* the brides of Abaia are pieces of Scylla - it could be part of 
the sea monsters' reproductive system (but how many sea monsters is there 
room for? Maybe they serve for communication between the sea monsters).  On 
the other hand, we also have what is apparently originally a man 
(Baldanders) who becomes something akin to an undine.

Like I say, I don't dismiss the theory that the undines have such a source; 
I just keep an open mind on it.  As I said, Severian finds reasons to doubt 
it, and Silkhorn indicates that the 'feignings' are something quite 
different from the undines.


> I hate to speak condescendingly but I don't know how else to say it. To 
> understand Wolfe you have to stop
> shrinking away from ambiguity and embrace it. You will never, ever get 
> your "proof". And the reason he writes
> this way (aside from being so frickin' smart) is that he is religious. He 
> is pointing readers toward the path
> of having faith in that which you can only understand intuitively, not 
> logically. In a word, God.

I don't shrink away from ambiguity - in fact I have been pointing out 
ambiguities here!  What I don't accept without very strong evidence are 
theories that are self-contradictory.  As for understanding Wolfe, I have 
some doubts as to whether Wolfe would recognise his stories in your 
interpretations of them.  I don't mean the undines, you may well be correct 
as regards them - I mean these huge schemata in which Inire controls 
everything, or every woman is Severian's sister.  All these ideas from 
allusions to Greek gods or fish or whatever may lead to illumination, but to 
make it useful there must be some winnowing of those which do not find 
anchorage in the text.  Without both figure and background, there is no 
image; that is to say, the image does not exist until we cull those parts 
that are not of the image.

- Gerry Quinn