(urth) theories

[Andrew Mason]

Sergei Soloviev wrote:

> About Dorcas sitting in a window.
>
> As far as I remember,
>
> a) she was sitting after she was married
> b) it was a shop window, i.e. - ground floor
> c) it was in Nessus, at that time, at a lively city street
> d) in the Fechin story, it was more "rustic" paysage
> e) not the ground floor
> f) the Casdoe father could wait calmly outside
> while Fechin visited the girl - not very likely
> on some street in Nessus
> g) also the school described by Casdoe father looks
> very poor and "rustic".
> h) I don't remember what is said about the complexion
> of the girl visited by Fechin, but something was said,
> and it doesn't sound like Dorcas.
>
> I am not convinced that it is the same situation.


I'm sure I've seen somewhere a suggestion that Fechin was Dorcas's
father, and his girlfriend, accordingly, her mother. This would
establish a thematic link between the passages without requiring us to
say it was the same event.

It has some plausibility: Dorcas's family had artistic interests (they
made enamel work), and there are hints they originally came from the
North (someone told her as a child about the blood bats in the North,
and of course there's a possibility that Casdoe and her son Severian
are related to her).