(urth) Geography of the Whorl

[Gerry Quinn]

From: <soloviev at irit.fr>
> 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.
>
> 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.

I agree that there is no special importance in any correspondences between 
places on Urth and present-day Earth.  Likewise it is unimportant where the 
various individual cultures of the Whorl cities came from.  I agree with you 
abouty the imperfection of the Whorl - Typhon arguably made about as good 
aWhorl as is humanly possible to make, yet it is lamentably imperfect 
compared with the outside universe.


> 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.

I don't quite see the Romeo and Juliet correspondence!  But indeed, I agree 
that there is no intended mirror of any culture, event or myth.  Wolfe uses 
fragmentary reflections of many other stories for various purposes, 
including humour.  But his stories are always his own - they are never 
retellings of some earlier story.


> 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.

Obviously the timescale of Typhon's life is finite, and many things must 
have happened fast.  Your argument above makes a lot of sense, and yet I 
have a feeling that it should not be pushed too far in matters of detail. 
The iconography of two-headed Typhon seems to have been very strongly 
established among the early colonists, suggesting a relatively long period 
of rule by him in this form,  On the other hand, Mamelta talks about the 
royal family wandering through her dreams, as well as never having to 
speak - it's clear that some alarmingly intrusive brain-networking 
technology was prevalent on Urth at the time, so such iconography might have 
been established rapidly.  (My pet theory is that the *removal* of this 
technology was what was done to the colonists on the Whorl - they remember 
it as the destruction of their memories whereas in fact they were being set 
free, at least partially.  It is also conceivable, of course, that the 
two-headed iconography was implanted as a sort of joke.)

As for Scylla, my impression was that she revolted against Typhon and was 
killed by him.  But I don't know; your theory is perfectly possible also.

Wolfe wasn't thinking about the history surrounding the launch of the Whorl, 
and probably not thinking much about the details of Typhon's story at all, 
when he depicted him in Sword of the Lictor.  I think later when he was 
writing Book of the Long Sun, he saw how he could do a lot with the 
two-headed concept.  So he used it even though logically Typhon probably had 
two heads for too short a time for its use to be 100% believable.   Maybe 
I'm underestimating Wolfe, but I think picking at such threads in too much 
detail, or chronological logic, may lead to the construction of random 
unintended stuff.


> 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?

It is Mamelta I recall as referring to the Loganstone, and indeed that is 
what it seems to be, although there is some inconsistency in her talk about 
it which I will put down to confusion.

- Gerry Quinn