(urth) Wall of Nessus

[DAVID STOCKHOFF]

The discrepancies that have been uncovered could fit into any or all of at least 3 categories:

Unintentional error (oops!)
Conscious error (So what? It sounds cool.)
Intentional error (Bwa ha ha!)

Only the last is of any real interest. Certainly, Severian's incomplete attempt to present a flat, simple version of himself and his life becomes a little more flawed as a result, and the relationship between the Translator and his text correspondingly more problematic. What does either one know about estimating height and distance? Why would they inflate what they saw? How would their story benefit from obfuscation?

Truly the Wall is a Wonder, and it cannot be expected to survive close, quantitative scrutiny. If the Translator were to write about his travels in far Cathay, the results would not be much different.

--- On Wed, 6/16/10, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:

From: Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
Subject: Re: (urth)
 Wall of Nessus
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 10:21 AM

Forgive me if this hasbeen asked, but was it needed to keep out Typhon? Was it supposed to? What else? Any megatherians want to cause harm?

I can't reimagine a scenario where a 9 mile high wall would be critical to Nessus. And I don't want to believe Wolfe just liked the idea of a 9 mike high wall. Unless it was a sarcastic jab at immigration reform.

...ryan

On Jun 16, 2010, at 7:28 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:

> So it's truly a Big Object.
> 
> But how Dumb is it? That's the question ...
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