<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Nov 14, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Eric Ortlund wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">2) When Severian and Agia are in the Jungle Garden, the apparently travel in time and space (the story about Father Inire's mirrors apparently prepares the reader for this) to a missionary couple in the jungle. Can someone please explain to me what on earth the native is talking about on pg. 131? The woman in the couple reads from Deuteronomy 34 - about Moses looking into the promised land but not being able to enter it <BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>This would be Severian and the Urth of the New Sun, is my reading. In addition to being a Christ figure he's a Mosaic figure--he brings his world to salvation but does not himself get to enter the New World.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">- and then the native tells a story about a fish who apparently is a woman. I'm totally at a loss here; what is the connection? What is the naked man talking about? How does this contribute to the story? <BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>Undines? Dunno.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">3) What about the vision Dorcas and Severian see when they're leaving Nessus of the huge palace (pg 181)? What is it of? I vaguely remember that the conversation which Severian has with the woman who gives him tea at the fair in Saltus might hint that it is somehow identified with the tent of the Pelerines. Is that on the right track?</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>As I recall, the tent of the Pelerines rising like a hot air balloon as it burns. But I might be misremembering, because that doesn't sound plausible.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">4) At the end of Shadow of the Torturer, there's a disturbance at the huge gate of Nessus; we only learn in Severian's dream in the next book about the five soldiers turning people aside. Severian seems so circumspect in describing this that I'm suspicious he knows something which he isn't telling us. Is this incident in the book significant? Or is it just that Severian doesn't know why the soldiers are there?</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>This has been discussed before, but I don't think anyone knows definitively what's going on. I myself love the idea that Severian thinks he can impress chicks with impromptu excruciations.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P><FONT size="2" face="Arial">5) One more and I'll stop - when Severian nearly drowns in the Gyoll near the beginning of Shadow, he sees a woman's face; later, during his dream while he's sleeping next to Baldanders, the brides of Abia hint that they came to see him at the Gyoll - so that's who he sees. Two questions: who is the woman crying that he hears - Thecla? Also, when his friends pull him out, he says that he saw the dead Malrubius - and a boatman asks if Malrubius is a woman. I know this is really small, but, like I said, no detail is insignificant; why would the boatman say this? Is there anything here?</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>The boatman may have seen an undine. Or maybe not. There's something there all right. What, though...<BR></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Adam</DIV></BODY></HTML>