(urth) Father Inire as Dionysus

[Andrew Mason]

Lee Berman wrote: >
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>>Andrew Mason: He knows about Carina, who either is Severian's mother
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>>or is somehow symbolically linked with her - I don't see that he has
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>>to know that she is Severian's mother....Regarding his knowledge in
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> general, sometimes I wonder if he has read the Book of the New Sun
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> I'm not following this. HOw does a doctor, created and bred solely to
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> minister to Baldanders, know of the Contessa Carina? He lives in a remote
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> place.  He is not supposed to be privy to the lives of exultants nor the
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> politics of the House Absolute and Carina is not found in Severian's writings
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> (except, of  course as a contribution from Talos, himself).


Talos predicts, in a way that is uncannily accurate (though also
strangely skewed) the events of the last day of Urth. He places a
prophet, a giant, a demon at the House Absolute; he tells of a man and
a woman descending from the sky; of  a bell ringing; and of a woman
who, while being escorted along the path of air, sees a man looking in
at the windows. All this happened.

I can see two possible explanations for this. One is, as Jerry
Friedman suggested, prescience; he thinks he is making it up, but his
story reflects the future, as _Frankenstein_ reflects Baldanders and
the stories  in _Wonders of Urth and Sky_ reflect the life of
Severian. The other is that he has read the _Book of the New Sun_.
Well, he says he has - the speculative bit of my proposal is that this
is not Canog's book, which would presumably give only an brief outline
of these events, but Severian's. All the events are detailed in _The
Urth of the New Sun_, so if he has read it, he knows about them.

Of course, this would not tell him that the womans' name is Carina.
But we don't know that her name _is_ Carina;  he may have added this
name because of its symbolic resonances.