(urth) vanished people=Hieros

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Marc Aramini 
> From: Gerry Quinn gerry at bindweed.com
 
> >I don’t get why you think it’s a moon at all, as distinct from a portal 
> >out of Yesod.  [Severian later ruminates on whether the White Fountain 
> >may be a similar portal, or even the same one.]
 
> Gerry, I feel like we've inexplicably switched places!  Doesn't sev say 
> it's a moon in that quote (and isn't that your normal preferred method 
> of definitive narrational statement)?  but yes, clearly a portal from yesod,
>  too.  the moon is a balloon.

> > Somewhere behind or before us, above us
> > or below us, was a wide circle of light, spinning,
> > frantically spinning, a thing like Lune, if such a thing as
> > a moon of the most brilliant white can be imagined. Gunnie
> > fluttered across it once or twice before she was lost in the
> > diamond-decked blackness. (And once it seemed to me—and
> > still seems when I call that frantic memory forth—that I
> > saw Apheta's face as she leaned from that moon.) "

I don’t know where you get the idea about “my preferred method of definitive narrational statement”.  I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Wolfe’s characters – just like real people - often use metaphor which should *not* be taken literally.  And here he starts with plain old simile, even if he finishes up with metonymy or metalepsis or whatever.  Same difference.  He’s not saying it’s a moon.  

- Gerry Quinn





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