(urth) Wall of Nessus

brunians at brunians.org brunians at brunians.org
Wed Jun 16 23:12:47 PDT 2010


Several of the list members enjoy arguing - can you believe it - about
things in the book, what they mean, whether there is science behind them,
whether they are real.

This is almost as much fun as the religious arguments.

Personally, I never argue.

It is an unhealthy practice.

.


> I think we should assume Gene Wolfe has considered this, as the Wall is
> quite a present part of the text, no?
>
> Or perhaps I'm reading you wrong. Could be a bit of n00b-itis on my part.
>
> ...ryan
>
>
> On Jun 17, 2010, at 2:03 AM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
>
>> This is like pretend for you people?
>>
>> I don't understand this phenomenon.
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>> On 6/16/2010 6:24 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>>> On 6/16/2010 12:47 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:
>>>>> And here's the quote, which was referenced earlier...
>>>>>
>>>>> "...just as that smallest and uppermost sail was an entire continent
>>>>> of silver, compared to which the mighty Wall of Nessus, a few leagues
>>>>> in height and a few thousand long, might have been the tumbledown
>>>>> fence of a sheepfold..." (Urth of the New Sun, Chap. XIV "The End of
>>>>> the Universe")
>>>>
>>>> And yet, Severian was able to cross this continent within a shift
>>>> worth
>>>> of air, as I said to IIRC Roy the last time this came around. There's
>>>> just no consistent detail on the size of the Wall.
>>>
>>>
>>> I recall that the green Lune is said to be 50,000 leagues away, which
>>> we
>>> have generally taken to mean 150,000 miles and indicate that it has
>>> moved closer somehow. Maybe instead, the units conversion error is in
>>> the past of urth, in all or in part, so that learned people of
>>> Severian's time are parroting an error made popular by some respected
>>> historian and "G.W." is caught up in it as well.
>>>
>>> This could mean that the Wall's dimensions are overestimated by a
>>> factor
>>> of 5:3, which is still pretty big, or it could mean that a measurement
>>> that G.W. has chosen to translate as "league" has different meanings or
>>> different idioms for measurements in space than for measurements on the
>>> ground, or for vertical height vs length.
>>>
>>> (It also occurs to me that if the moon's orbit hasn't changed, it's
>>> gravity and natural lack of atmosphere probably haven't either. In
>>> fact,
>>> the low gravity and lack of weather make it an ideal candidate for
>>> being
>>> largely domed over, similar to the Botanical Gardens.)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>>> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
>>> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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>>
>>
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