(urth) The Trailer of Ink

[Jeff Wilson]

> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
>> In URTH, Chapter XXXIX, "The Claw Of The Conciliator Again", Sev gives
>> the
>> new thorn to Typhon's guardsmen, establishing  a one-off timeloop for it
>> to
>> come into his younger self's possession a thousand years later.
>>
>> However, he also says, "Whence comes this unslakable thirst to leave
>> behind
>> me a wandering trail of ink, I cannot say" when contemplating a further
>> volume of memoirs. This may be another timeloop setup, as in SHADOW VI,
>>
>> "'Of the trail of ink there is no end,'" Master Ultan told me. "Or so a
>> wise
>> man said. He lived long ago?what would he say if he could see us now? '"
>>
>> Could this be actual textev that at least one of the volumes, or a work
>> that
>> quotes a found volume of Sev's manuscript, has come to rest in Ultan's
>> library?
>
> Severian's phrase doesn't include the key idea - the endlessness of
> writings. (Or at least, in a rather indirect way, with 'unslakeable'.)

That's what I mean - he can't say where the end is, either. In the
original idiom, the wording may be even closer. Which is ironic, given
"terminus est" can also be translated as "the end" or even "the final
word".