(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173

[James Wynn]

>>> Andrew Mason-
>>> (We know of Catherine only through Ouen; and Ouen only
>>> seems significant because of his similarity to Severian, both
>>> physically and in powers of memory,  so if they're not Severian's
>>> biological parents, that whole episode becomes pointless.)
>> James Wynn-
>> It's not pointless. It connects Severian to Dorcas.
> Andrew Mason-
> I'm feeling lost here. How does it connect Severian to Dorcas? It can
> do so only through Ouen, but what reason is there to connect Severian
> with Ouen if he is not his biological father?

Severian knew Dorcas before he knew Ouen. They might have even been 
lovers before he met Ouen.
So why bring up Ouen at all? Well, appearance suggests they /are/ 
connected. But another answer to your question might be that Dorcas is 
the /only/ one who is important, and Ouen is her son. And in some sense 
by reuniting the two of them, Severian is reuniting himself to Dorcas. 
Again, that's an off-hand supposition. It is worth noting that false 
familiar ties is a staple of Wolfe. The Rajan calls Hoof, Hide, and 
Sinew his sons. He warns Hide that Jahlee (in soul travel and bearing 
the soul of Chenille) could be his "sister or aunt". Resurrected Horn 
accepts an inhumu bearing Sinew's soul as his son. Number Five calls 
Matre his father. This is all very mythological in that gods become the 
children and relatives of each other as told by mythographers although 
historically they were unrelated.

>> James Wynn-
>> Wolfe thinks
>> the The Book of the Short Sun would be "lame" if, once we know the Rajan
>> can travel to Urth, he does not meet with Severian. But it seems fine to
>> him that his mother is just a name? I don't buy it. If people are
>> suspicious, they should be.
> Andrew Mason-
> Of course they should be. But I think that suspicion should lead us to
> find out more about Catherine. The connection with the names of Holy
> Katharine and Contessa Carina, the connection with the Pelerines, who
> keep turning up throughout the series, the link with the story of
> Frog, whose mother was also a virgin priestess - these all make her
> significant. There is probably a clue, which Wolfe considers very
> obvious, that tells us exactly who she was, but no one has spotted it
> yet.

I take it differently. I take Catherine's absence as evidence of a feint.
EITHER:
She has been sitting in plain view all the time (for example, she's 
Dorcas or Jolenta -- I'm not saying that's the case, I'm saying that's 
the sort of thing I expect if she's been in plain view). This is common 
for Wolfe. I remember getting to the end of "Peace" and say "Wha???" 
Then I thought about it for two days and realized most of my biggest 
questions had already been answered.

OR

For some reason, she's not really as important as we naturally thought 
she would be.

>> James Wynn-
>> If Severian is understood as somehow directly associated with the myths
>> in the Brown Book, it restores a scattered unfocused unedited brain dump
>> back to a comprehensible narrative.
> Andrew Mason-
> He is associated with the myths of the brown book; but they are not,
> as I read them, straightforward reports of his ancestry; they are
> myths, and he is their fulfilment.

In what way? Remember that the myths are very detailed. And if Severian 
fulfills them, I expect a detailed fulfillment.

>>> James Wynn-
>>> That he's the father of Typhon is not
>>> problematic in the same way (though it would have to be reconciled
>>> somehow with Typhon's claim that he he was not born).
>> Andrew Mason-
>> I'm curious why you think this would not "mess the story up" as well.
> Because it would not conflict with what the narrative seems to tell us
> about his parentage. (It would have to be a time-travlling Severian
> who becomes Typhon's father, of course. I've no attachment to this
> theory; I'm just saying it produces less of an obvious conflict.)  And
> I didn't say 'the story'; I said 'this story'. I proposed a specific
> story about Severian's ancestry and its significance; I think it helps
> to make the work a coherent one; it shows how the world is being
> guided - whether by an actual conspiracy or by the Increate - towards
> the birth of the New Sun. This story is spoiled by making him a clone.

I agree it complicates matters regarding Ouen. But Time-traveling is 
worse in some ways. You put your finger on probably the most unsavory 
aspect of the Clone Solution. It makes the story not just Deterministic, 
but Super-Deterministic. Severian is not just destined to be the New 
Sun. He was existentially designed for it. That's probably the aspect of 
the The Book of the New Sun that I like the least: The entire race of 
the Hierogrammates. But Time-traveling over-determines, and 
/incestuates/ the story in the same way. And even when I understand that 
the H's are always behind the curtain --nudging Severian like NASA 
nudging Voyager around Jupiter, and even rebooting him when he 
catastrophically dies-- I'm still left with the feeling of something 
going on just beyond my field of vision. I'm not so attached to the 
Clone Solution. It's just the simplest path to get there. If there were 
evidence of a more complicated solution --if it answered an open 
question for me-- I'd probably go for that solution.

u+16b9