(urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff 


> On 12/17/2011 9:15 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > > But they also tell us what's being subverted and thus a clue
> > > as to why. It's not a question of "if Dorcas is Sleeping Beauty, then
> > > who's the witch"? There is no poisoned apple. But if there is a witch,
> > > it's Severian.

> > The story of Sleeping Beauty involves witches and poisoned apples now? 
> > It only remains for Lee to propose that Father Inire is all of the 
> > Seven Dwarfs. But anyway, that error is not important, but it points 
> > to the real error: you neither know nor care whether you are talking 
> > about Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, because you are just riffing on 
> > stuff in your head which has completely lost contact with the text.

> You keep getting stuck on this, Gerry. There is no poisoned apple in 
> BNS, therefore there is nothing to clearly reference either story. The 
> witch and the sleeping woman are the key parts. There is no 1:1 
> relationship.
You are flailing desperately, in my opinion.  Severian was certainly not responsible for Dorcas’s death, so placing him as the witch (or wicked fairy, in the canonical version of Sleeping Beauty) is absurd.  If you want to change every aspect of the story, and even what story it is, what is the point of your argument?  When you say “there is no 1:1" relationship”, then, given the sort of relationships you are apparently willing to propose, you are tacitly admitting that there is no relationship at all.  Because admitting the sort of relationships you are proposing now would imply that every book should be discussed as if it reconstituted the Library of Babel.
There is a vague resonance with Sleeping Beauty when a beautiful woman is resurrected.  Just as there is a vague resemblance between Dr. Talos and a stuffed fox.  Discussing the stuff that you are suggesting is meaningful – for example the “enchantment” you claimed Dorcas is under – is the equivalent of discussing the horsehair Talos is stuffed with, and what colour horse it came from. 
- Gerry Quinn
 
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