(urth) Dorcas (was: The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind)

Tony Ellis tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com
Sat Jul 10 06:13:59 PDT 2010


James Wynn wrote:
>If it was explained in terms at all before the late 90s, I'm unaware of
>it. It's not an issue of it being in "un"convincing terms. Perhaps
>"insufficiently convincing" is accurate, because people can be very hard
>to convince. But in the late 90s, the explanation was carefully detailed
>in a way that many people began nodding their heads in agreement.

Ah, I think I understand now. We are talking at cross-purposes. When
you talk about the Dorcas theory being  'explained' or 'understood'
you mean 'explained in circles of Wolfean criticism such as this
list', don't you? But I, and I think also Antonio, Dan'l, Ryan and
Roy, are talking about how it is explained *in the text*. In the text,
it is made transparently clear that Dorcas is Severian's grandmother,
as several people have now come forward and demonstrated.

This is why I can't agree that 'if Wolfe hadn't confirmed the
grandmother theory, it would be on the Half-Baked Theory pile today'.
People like us would never have allowed it to languish there.

>If I've inadvertently dissed you, I apologize.

Not at all. I am entirely un-dissed, but thank you.


Roy C Lackey wrote:
>It is stated in the original LEXICON URTHUS, p-90, published in 1994, that
>Dorcas is Severian's paternal grandmother.

If anyone has issue 164 of Vector, the critical journal of the BSFA,
they'll see that some tiresome guy called Anthony Ellis stated it back
in October, 1991. :-)



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