(urth) interview questions

[Jeff Wilson]

On 12/30/2010 6:53 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>
>> Jeff Wilson: Hercules' and Gilgamesh's stories don't include extended meditations on
>> numerous scientific principles, and they do not appeal to the authority of science to
>> suspend the reader's disbelief in their fantastic elements, while Sev's story does many times
>> over.
>
> That's because Hercules and Gilgamesh are stories from earth's past, before science was invented.

Not so; they did not have the scientific method, of course, but there 
are appeals to the authority of the useful arts and natural principles 
in the central pot devices of Aesclepius and Icarus, for example. 
Aesclepius even addresses the conflict of science and myth!


> Severian is on Urth, which is probably not even our universe. Also, Hercules and Gilgamesh did not
> keep diaries, as Severian has sort of done. Those heroic guys were not just big stupid idiots! If
> Hercules had kept a diary of his travels and adventures what would it be like? Extended mediations
> and pondering of philosophical principles? Damn right. Gene Wolfe has given us his opinion- Hercules'
> Diary would be something like a combination of BotNS and the Soldier series. Latro, hello!
>
>> Severian himself is so creeped by his alien heritage that he lies or feigns ignorance and refuses to
>> openly discuss the creepier aspects of his being, hinting to us only with labels like "Father" Inire.
>> (Inire does not call himself that).
>
>> Whose father does? Did your dad introduce himself to people as "Father Berman?"
>
> I don't catch your drift, Jeff. The last Mass I attended was presided over by Father Missimi and he would
> refer to himself thusly. My father was my father. Does any of Severian's paternity reside in Inire? If so,
> we really don't have a problem here.(FWIW, children I know who have some confusion on their paternity
> will refer to their two fathers as Daddy Dave and Daddy Steven; perhaps Severian's usage is similar)

I don't see any particular inhumanity in Severian as a person of his 
time. I advanced the theory that he's part undine, but with the proviso 
that the undines are just humans treated to live in the water, like 
Baldanders becomes.


>> Given the profound difference in scale, how could Sev's encounter on the strand with Juturna be characterized
>> as erotic?
>
> Jeff you really need to re-read that section. Severian even comments on the likely disbelief of his readers but
> he avers the sexual nature of the attraction anyway.

I'll stipulate he gets aroused checking out the giant naked woman on 
display, but that doesn't usefully distinguish it from the bulk of 
other times he meets a halfway presentable woman or image of one.

>> And how is he connected to Fomalhaut? The Cumaean is, but her use of a link to a familiar power to help her call
>> Apu Punchau to manifest doesn't make it a full circuit.
>
> Fomalhaut: Its name means "mouth of the whale", from the Arabic فم الحوت fum al-ḥawt. WOuld you also deny that
> this star has anything to do with Jonas? C'mon Jeff. This is the constellation Pisces. The Fish/aquatic theme extends
> from undines to Hierodules to Abaia to The Mother to Seawrack and more. In constellations we must "connect-the-dots"

But he already has a completely different star devoted to him, and 
Fomalhaut's not even the right color!

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >