(urth) theories

[Marc Aramini]

--- On Sun, 10/23/11, Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr> wrote:

> From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
> Subject: Re: (urth) theories
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Sunday, October 23, 2011, 11:18 AM
> Dear Ryan,
> 
> I see the flaw in the theory that the boatman is Inire
> because the
> it was suggested before that Inire has some diabolic
> aspects
> (the authors of this theory tried to identify him also with
> the
> "healer" in Vodalus army who drained the boy and indulged
> also in "sadopedophilic" practices with him), and it would
> mean
> that Severian has, at least partly, diabolic origin. It is
> this
> theory that reminds me Polyanski and seems not compatible
> with the message of Gene Wolfe. It is not
> the question, whether the boatman reminds me about
> Polyanski,
> it is the question of the theory that does. And it is not
> just a question of arbitrary decision
> (my arbitrariness against yours).
> 
> Sergei

My problem with all this is simply dismissing evidence in the text.  I don't like James' Tussah as Typhon because Silk and Chenille don't look alike, its an insurmountable block for me (Silk's face on Pas at end of Exodus), but his explanation for the password Thetis is SPOT ON.

I don't like dismissing an italicized part in Suzanne Delage that claims extraordinary events will be forgotten, then moving naturally to assuming that the narrator has remembered one such extraordinary event.  I don't like ignoring dream statements like Mother was Hyacinth was Kypris was Chenille was Mamelta when you have other evidence in the text that can make those statements actually true (it doesn't say Mother was Saba, for example, or someone never possessed by Kypris).  I don't like assuming that Trees that eat trees that eat trees can't be getting genetic material from the things they eat when inhumi DO get some geneticamaterial from their diet.  

Dismissing text based evidence as dreamlike, only metaphor, or flat is simply not conducive to any explication at all.  If Wolfe tells us everything, we don't need this discussion list.  Not that everyone is right, but I do think there is interpretive work to be done in almost every Wolfe story when details start to accumulate.