(urth) Pike's ghost

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>On 11/29/2011 1:23 AM, Jerry Friedman wrote: 
>From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> 
>>If a random someone has grown a fetus from a plant root for no apparent reason, I 
can't see that as a more interesting interpretation than one which explains 
who created that fetus and for what purpose. 
>>Okay.  I can't see yours as an interesting interpretation.  That's a matter of taste. However, I am saying that because of the Levi quotation, or just because a  fabulous mandrake root is something human-like but not really human, I don't think it's valid to say that the only possible reason for Wolfe to use the word was as a connection to Typhon.  Indeed, I think it's quite possible that such a connection never entered his mind.
>Sorry, what's the Levi quotation?


This sentence from the occultist Eliphas Levi, which I'd quoted earlier.

"Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on the culture of 
the mandragore, and experimented in the artificial reproduction of a 
soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create men without the concurrence of the female."

>It's quite possible, except that the whole cloning/in
    vivo/possession/scanning trope was plainly already in Wolfe's mind,
    and as such maybe the LS/SS arcs as well. Typhon is a major
    connection between Severian in the Citadel and the embryonic Silk in
    the Whorl. So it stands to reason that Typhon created it as a failed
    experiment on the way to devising his colonization strategies,

Well, I'd say it's no inconsistent with anything.  I'm very hesitant to interpret anything in BotNS based on the possibility that Wolfe was already thinking of the Long and Short Sun books.

> but it's not a critical plot point.

Agreed.


>>>As larry says, mandrake and Mandragora 
both point to Typhon (as homunculus ties to Dr. Talos, but we won't complicate 
the matter with that, for now).

>> Why don't they point to Ymar?  The two Biblical references to mandrakes are in connection with Rachel and
>> the maiden in the Song of Songs, both types of the Virgin Mary in Catholic theology (or I can find at least one
>> source that says that about each one).  I don't think I need to make the last connection.


>Actually, please do.

The last connection is that Ymar is an anagram of Mary.

> I don't follow this or know the references at
    all. Why Ymar? (I did just find the Rachel ones but don;t know how
    to interpret them.)


Just disagreeing with Lee's comment that the word "mandragora" could only point to Typhon.  I don't think any of these word games /necessarily/ point to one thing.  You can always find connections to others.  Of course, you and Lee and others may have reasons for preferring one connection.


I meant to add that "mandragora" can suggest "dragoman".  Agia and the jungle guide might both count as dragomans.  Maybe some people will like a possible connection between the mandragora and Father Inire.


>> Or why not the Sleeper?  Shakespeare refers to mandragora as a soporific, including in a fairly famous passage from /Othello/.
>Meaning "the sleepers" on the Whorl? Or another sleeper?


I was thinking of the god worshiped on Ushas under that name, but any one you want.

>>Or Severian in his first life or two?  The most famous quotation about a mandrake starts "Go and catch a falling star", which immediately brings to mind the slingers' song, which Wolfe said illuminates--darkly--Severian's past and future.
>This quotation?:
>
>“Go, and catch a falling star, / Get with child a mandrake root, / Tell me, where all past years are, / Or who cleft the Devil's foot.” 
> John Donne quotes(English poet, 1572-1631)

>

>That is indeed striking.

Great lines, and of course Severian finds out where past years are.  Other connections can easily be made.  But I can't say whether Wolfe had it mind or not.


>http://books.google.com/books?id=N-IemS8Uqn0C&pg=PA233 (You might prefer to associate the falling star with Lucifer and thus with Satan, who Typhon echoes.) 
>>larry miller: The question is who that someone is. 
>>Not necessarily.  Maybe we're meant to leave it as a mystery and concentrate on the interaction between Severian and the homunculus.
>I agree. But the Donne quote, if it is a key link, does lead to the
    image of impregnating a mandrake root, which takes us back to who
    and why, and what resulted from it.


Oddly enough, it doesn't take me to those questions at all.

Jerry Friedman