(urth) Geography of the Whorl

[soloviev at irit.fr]

Dear participants of the thread -

my impression is that this discussion is based on slightly
distorted premisses - as if some perfect correspondence between
different places in our world and in the Whorl is to be expected.
Would this correspondence be the main secret of the universe
described by GW??

Urth itself is in some correspondence to our Earth,
in geography as well, but this correspondence
is not an isomorphism. It looks like Nessus is somewhere
in southern hemisphere, like Buenos-Aires (there are pampas,
mountains like Andes), there are Ascians coming from another continent,
but at the
same time there are hints that the continents are different;
it is some sort of "parallel Earth". I think
the geography of URTH was discussed before but I had no
time to look. It is not the main point.

Was such correspondence a prime concern of GW himself? I don't
think so. I think much more important is the idea that Pas
is a sort of an impostor, a demiurge trying to substitute
himself for the Increate or Outsider, and as such his
creation cannot be perfect. It looks much more plausible
that he (Pas-Typhon) tried in some imperfect way to
put in his cosmic Arc the representatives of all main
human cultures. It seems that the question about the role
of Pas is much more important, AND GW illustrated it
in particular using this imperfect correspondence between
cultures and places.

By the way, the story of Silk and Hyacinth in Viron reminds
also Romeo an Juliet in Verona. At the same time
the culture and institutions are more hispano-american
as it was mentioned. I believe that the absence of
perfect correspondence was intended by GW, and it is
useless to look for 'ultimate truth" in this - the
possibilty to establish perfect correspondence would be
contrary to his intentions.

The language of the Trivigauntis is semitic, (maliki etc).
At the West pole (sick bay) there
are people of african descent. The people
in Pajarocu and Wichote are amerindians.

All this makes sense if the Whorl was filled up in haste,
probably when the revolts against Typhon already started.

Severian meets Typhon twice - first time as a mummy
that resuscitates afterwards, and second as the Conciliator
just before his demise. We get the information that
Typhon had two heads (before going to mummified state)
only during relatively short period,
about one year. He had no time to take under control
all the functions of the body belonging to his
slave Piaton, and he obviously was scanned for the
Whorl during this short period. So the Whorl was
launched in the last year before the end of his rule.
Scylla (a copy from Whorl) says that she died young,
when she looked at her coffin, less that a year after
her scan. Implication: the family of Typhon
was probably killed in the same revolts.

One more thing: duco Rigoglio mentions the same
"Loganstone" (some cosmic vessel) as Hethor
in the "Book of the New Sun". A vessel used to fill
the Whorl?

Best regards,

Sergei Soloviev


> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
>
>
>> I'm pretty sure that Viron's culture is South American--presumably that
>> of
>> the Commonwealth. The "ball game" is based on the Nahuatl game. It's an
>> analogous Catholic culture.
>>
>> Still, that doesn't mean that Viron couldn't be based on Jerusalem of
>> course.
>
> I agree that it is plausibly South American, though I'm not terribly
> convinced by the above points.  The Commonwealth did not exist when the
> Whorl was launched, and the Whorl contains elements from numerous cultures
> (e.g. an Indian culture which provided the forebears of Gaon).  The
> religion
> of the Whorl is allegedly a parody of the state religion of Typhon's time,
> which would have been worldwide - and anyway the Catholic religion is
> hardly
> confined to South America .  The ballgame is not specifically the
> aforementioned game, in which catching the ball in one's hand is illegal,
> though it has elements of it.
>
> On the other hand, the coloration of the people fits, and Mamelta had a
> pet
> parrot named Chiquita.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
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