(urth) Sev's family tree

[Son of Witz]

On Jan 26, 2011, at 1:15 PM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> .
>> 
>> Pft!
>> I think the reason Dorcas has "golden" attached to her at several points is that it is an alchemical metaphor.  
>> She is Gold, weighed down by Lead. 
> 
> The gold and lead connection is a good one! But why the need for "pft!". Is each metaphor restricted to one
> meaning only to the exclusion of all others?
> 

Sorry. Just being goofily dismissive. Sorry to offend.



> Consider how the Cumaean continually refers to Jolenta as "Red-Gold". Is it so impossible this is a pointed
> reference to old and new sun while also hinting at her ancestry?
> 
> (We have red, gold and dark-haired haired characters suggested by Mr. T. as possible family members. Why can't
> hair color be a guide to the relationships? Agia has chestnut hair= red + dark.)
> 

I don't know. It seems Wolfe likes redheads. They are all over his books.
But it could mean more.



> 
>> I think you are putting way too much into these imagined gender confusions and homosexual guesses..If they meant 
>> anything, they would reverberate through the subtext. I'm sorry, but I do not detect a homsexual subtext.
> 
> I think the vernacular term is "gaydar". Different people have different levels of it. How is yours?


I actually have pretty strong gaydar and am very comfortable with androgeny.



> I think "bisexual" might be a better term. Didn't you ever wonder why Typhon had an erection in front of Severian

Because he wanted to debase Severian by forcing him to suck his cock.


> and demanded tribute of both sexy males and females and why Dorcas and Jolenta got it on and why the green man's 
> voice is so feminine or...welll never mind.  I'll just say that if you don't want there to be any gender
> confusion in BotNS, you should probably ignore all discussions mentioning Dionysus.
> 


No no, you misunderstand me.  There is plenty of gender confusion and bisexual/androgeny in the characters. I meant that you've mentioned a few cases where your theory is based on Severian confusing the gender, or lying about the gender. If Casdoes father or the Assasin is not male, then he is confused or lying. Thats all.  



>> Dunnoh, but I think while you are sniffing for clues, you might be missing the extremely potent symbolism on display 
>> in regards to Casdoe's house.
> 
> Are you saying you found this "potent symbolism" without "sniffing for clues"? What's with the condescension?
> 

No no, I'm not condescending. I think so often readers are looking for everything to be something other than what it seems, while they often overlook the symbolic import of what it seems.  Does that make sense.  If it seems condescending, well, I do feel that the symbolism of Casdoes house and how it relates to Severian's family (or ideas of family) is quite evident within a plain reading of the text, and seems, to me, to be a more useful path to understanding than, say, as to doubting the very identity of a throw away character.  I mean, that next level might be interesting, but I think what I've described is a more applicable reading. FWIW.




>> He has just DECENDED across an enormous swath of geologic time when he scales the cliff and arrives at a symbol of the 
>> most basic form of human existence...THIS is the example of the humanity he wants to save, of a life he might like to have 
>> lead.
> 
> Not to mention that the cliff he descended was full of archaeological levels of civilization. I think this is a very 
> good line of thought. By why does a good line of thought mean that there is nothing else possible to read into a particular 
> scene? Isn't it possible there are multiple intended layers of meaning in the Casdoe's Cabin scene? Multiple meanings for 
> every scene, every character? How simple/complex is Gene Wolfe, really?                         
> _______________________________________________
> 

Again, I don't think it precludes further investigation. I just think the import of this scene is so basicly evident from Severian's words that if a reader doesn't see it they are missing something fundamental.  


But sorry I pft! You. I just think people over complicate this stuff while missing the simple stuff.
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