(urth) Fr Inire + Cumean + others (was: Re: Inire as a hierodule)

Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 17 06:15:49 PDT 2010


>I'm inclined to disagree with this, invoking Occam's Razor; it's  simply 
>unnecessary.

Not criticizing the theory of the Cumean, but I just find it awesome that you 
invoke Occam's Razor to eliminate the possibility that she's an alien in favor 
of the vicissitudes of four-dimensional perception as related to Hindu/Buddhist 
cosmology.



----- Original Message ----
From: Jane Delawney <jane_delawney at sky.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Fri, July 16, 2010 6:40:55 PM
Subject: (urth) Fr Inire + Cumean + others (was: Re: Inire as a hierodule)

Just a couple of quick thoughts.

On 16/07/10 15:34, Lee Berman wrote:
> I think it can matter a lot. Borski assumed Inire was a hierodule and 
>consequently short-
> lived and consequently only able to move backwards in time and consquently an 
>obedient
> servant of the hierogrammates, etc. He took his error (I believe it to be one
I do too, I don't see the evidence for it. Borski relies entirely too much on 
the alleged naming conventions IMO.
> , though
> Andre-Driussi doesn't) and ran so ridiculously far with it, he undercut much of 
>the
> credibility of his Solar Labyrinth book IMHO.
>    
agreed.
> So, where does The Cumaean fit into the scheme of things? Borski casts her as 
>sort of a
> Mother Inire, a paired, parallel but less important than Inire hierodule 
>character.
> But she isn't tall and beautiful nor short-lived. Any others have thoughts on 
>her?
>    
Regarding the Cumean, there seems to be an assumption (based primarily upon the 
vision of her as a many eyed serpent during Sev's first experience at the Stone 
Town) that she's an alien; that while the Witches regard her as one of their own 
she's not human but a representative (hierodule? Hierogrammate?) of the hieros 
upon Urth.

I'm inclined to disagree with this, invoking Occam's Razor; it's simply 
unnecessary.
Sev's vision is entirely in accordance with the Hindu/Buddhist cosmology Wolfe 
invokes in many places (manvantaras and all that) and represents a vision of the 
'Long Body' of an 'occult' initate ie. in BOTNS terms, a witch. 'Long Body'? 
well, that would be the body of a human or other living being seen from a 
four-dimensional POV; from that POV your body, mine, everyone else's, would 
definitely seem many eyed and snake-like!

To elaborate: since Time is the fourth dimension, the 'body' appears as  a 
snake-like form from the 'outside' as it were; from (perhaps) the 'divine' point 
of view which Sev seems to achieve, momentarily, during this experience. 
'Divine'? Well maybe that's a bit tendentious. 'Outside of the temporal 
universe' perhaps; Sev adverts to this point of view a few times, stating that 
every being that has ever lived is alive 'somewhere / when', and also asserting 
strenuously that he believes his Autarchia, Valeria, is still alive ... 
*somewhere*. Yes she is; from one who can perceive directly, or imagine, the 
temporal universe from some place 'outside' time, she is alive indeed in her own 
segment of the four-dimensional world. It's learning to jump into and out of 
this world at the desired / destined points, that is the real trick; learning to 
navigate the Corridors of Time, in other words.
> 
> Perhaps Ossipago is worth discussing here. Borski thinks he is Inire. I don't. 
>I think he
> is one of the machines that humanity built which then created the 
>hierogrammates. The phrase
> "deus ex machina" is hinted at toward the end of Citadel and I've always liked 
>how Ossipago's
> role in the story fits both the literal and theatrical meaning of that phrase.
>    
I find I'm in disagreement not only with Borski, but with Andre-Driussi about 
the three known and named Hierodules. Both seem to assume that since Ossipago 
can be translated as 'bone grower', he, although basically a mechanism, is the 
nurse / guardian of both Famulimus and Barbatus. I think it makes far more sense 
in the context of the New Sun opus that all three names have some relevance to a 
role vs. Severian himself: Ossipago being the 'demigod' who oversees his growth 
from babyhood; Barbatus the one who sees him through puberty (Barbatus = name of 
minor Roman deity responsible for the sprouting of the first beard of the 
adolescent boy) and Famulimus the one who keeps him on the moral (as opposed to 
traditional) straight and narrow: the famulimus is the Roman minor deity 
responsible for a person's  reputation, and s/he is presumably rooting for Sev 
as he makes the very difficult decsion to go for basic good vs. evil morality 
rather than for guild tradition (which kind of turns good and evil on their 
heads in this context) as he grants mercy to Thecla at his own future's expense 
(he had every reason as he did what he did to expect that he  would be executed 
for his 'crime'; this is therefore a real sacrifice of self for the greater 
good).

don't know if any of this is of any interest, but I've been mulling over the 
statements of the various commentators on all of these questions and given the 
thread, this seemed a good place to comment.

Again forgive me please for modifying the header a little, I really really want 
to get my list posts sent back to me, and my ISP won't do it unless I start a 
'new' thread.

regards

JD




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