(urth) Key to the Universe

[Son of Witz]

I agree. I much prefer it to be a painting from Urth's past, which was, I prefer to think, in the same creation, about thirty thousand years before, with no intervening deluge.

Re: stacked toroids.  Nah, I mean ONE torus. History is a path that cycles around the surface endlessly. 


On Dec 17, 2010, at 2:08 PM, Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm with you James. For me, the whole fun of that scene is that WE know what the 
> picture is, but they don't. It's another case where all the puzzling over the 
> puzzle seems to shrug off what that scene does for the story in terms of 
> establishing the depth of history/"Dying Earth" attitude. But, like you say, 
> that "aesthetic blowback" subjective stuff and likely unconvincing to those who 
> don't feel the same way.
> 
> As for other examples of "our Earth," there's also Dr. Talos' recognition of the 
> Frankenstein story and the host of quotations/misquotations in his play.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Sent: Fri, December 17, 2010 3:06:16 PM
> Subject: Re: (urth) Key to the Universe
> 
> 
>> Lee Berman-
>> Some of the stuff could be just Urthly versions of Earth stuff, like the moon 
>> astronaut. But some
>> seem too perfectly Earthian to be seen that way. I think Jonas' literary 
>> allusions are the best example.
>> His Alice/Looking Glass quote and him supplying the Earth/Theseus ending to 
>> Severian's story "proves" to
>> me that he (robot form) has either been to Earth or, more likely, spent 
>> significant time with true Earth books.                         
>> 
> 
> I'm probably just old-fashioned --a meat and potatoes SF guy-- but I find it 
> really unappealing that Neil Armstrong is not in Severian's chronological past. 
> Part of the fun of that scene for me is the way the perception of symbols change 
> due to Time.
> 
> I'm quite aware that this sort of "aesthetic blowback" always annoys me when I 
> confront it with _my_ theories, but there it is.
> 
> u+16b9
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