(urth) traveling north

[Jane Delawney]

First of all many many apologies if I have started a hare and then not 
been around to follow it up. it is a classic troll tactic and I am not a 
troll (although stating you are not is also a classic tactic of course, 
right now I know I can't win). Instead color me guilty of not thinking 
(ie. that I was on 3 12 hour shifts immediately following my last post) 
before posting. Will try very hard not to do this again.

Second: many many thanks to all those who have responded. I see that my 
15 years out of the fandom have resulted in some serious lacunae in my 
knowledge; I had not previously been aware of Gene Wolfe's statements on 
the issue of north/south on Urth and also of the identity of the Ascians.

[As an aside though - I wonder very much now why Wolfe initially 
identifies the Ascians as his 'equivalent of the Turks'. Turks of what 
era? I'm guessing ancient, warlike, sweeping across the plains Turks, 
not the inhabitants of the modern land of Turkey who are not well known 
for Ascian-like behavior.

The real  puzzle for me in this identification however is their evident 
totalitarian mentality, how this relates to the Turks of any era I am 
not sure.]

Anyway - I finally remembered the other place (well actually one of the 
others, but this is the most immediate one) where my vague recollection 
of a sense of north/south 'wrongness' came from.

The passage is right at the end of *Shadow*; on the last but one page of 
my Arrow Paperbacks copy (p.300 of the 1981 printing). The speaker is 
Jonas.

"In the old times, the Lords of this world feared no one but their own 
people, and to defend themselves against them built a great fortress on 
a hill to the *north* of the city. It was not called Nessus then, 
because the river was unpoisoned.

"Many of the people were angry at the building of that *citadel*, 
holding it to be their right to slay their lords without hindrance if 
they so desired. But others went out in the ships that ply between the 
stars, returning with treasure and knowledge."

[All emphases mine of course. Also of course, the Citadel where Severian 
was raised is in the far *south* of 'contemporary' Nessus.]

And so on. Of course at this point Jonas diverges into a tale which 
sounds like a fairy-story or legend, and it's entirely possible that the 
whole statement is such a tale, that the reference to the 'citadel in 
the north' is storytelling, and not related to the (subcreated) 
'reality' of Urth. But Jonas is a survivor of ancient times and at base 
a machine, not a human; this is in addition 'the only tale (he) knows - 
or nearly so'. Do robots tell fairy stories?

In Wolfe, they probably do :) However this entire passage gives me  pause.

If I remember / note anything else, I'll present it if the whole list 
hasn't gotten tired of the subject; but any comment as helpful as those 
already received would be very very welcome.

kind regards

JD


On 03/06/10 01:34, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> I will tell you the directions don't exclude that possibility.
>
> The line is, "Try to pass through it by day, with the sun over the right shoulder by morning and later in the left eye."
>
> On the equinoxes, the sun rises due east everywhere in the world (well, not at the poles), so the sun is over your right shoulder at dawn if you're facing northwest.  On the December solstice, the sun rises at its farthest south of due east; on the June solstice, at its farthest north.  In the South Temperate and Antarctic Zones, the sun is always in the north at noon, but in the South Tropical Zone, it's in the south at noon around the December solstice, their summer solstice.  Since Severian's sun is dim, he could be in the tropics even where we think of the climate as cooler than tropical.
>
> It's quite clear the Commonwealth is in the Southern Hemisphere: the south is cold and the north is hot.  I don't see a mistake.  The sun could easily be more or less east (over Sev's right shoulder) in the morning and more or less west (in his left eye) later.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jane Delawney<jane_delawney at sky.com>
> To: The Urth Mailing List<urth at lists.urth.net>
> Sent: Wed, June 2, 2010 5:09:59 PM
> Subject: Re: (urth) traveling north
>
> and a quick follow up (told you it was late at night, thinking things through ...)
>
> Of course it isn't possible to travel toward the equator in *either* hemisphere with the sun at your back. So something very complicated appears to have happened to the earth's orbit, the position of the continents, or both.
>
> Also awaiting comments from those who will probably tell me that the directions given do not in fact exclude the possibility that the sun was in Sev's face during the rest of the day. I'm sure there are other indications that Urth's north and south are not quite as we know them - but no time to go there now.
>
> got to go!
>
> jd
>