<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Sep 30, 2008, at 7:19 AM, James Wynn wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><font face="Arial" size="2">>Matt asks:</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">>I love this scene, but other than the need for Severian to get the books for Thecla,</font></font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">>I'm wondering what the Point is.<font face="Arial" size="2">..</font></font>What does this chapter contribute to the story?</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">>...What am I missing? Surely there's more to it than that.</font></div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">When people mention to me that they feel something is going on under the floorboards in this scene, I always direct them to this clause:</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">"...quite suddenly I felt that he and I were dead, and the darkness surrounding us was grave soil presing in about our eyes..."</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">There is something being declared here in a Lupean way -- narratively or character development-wise -- but I'll be danged if I know what it is.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div></span></blockquote></div><br><div>Somewhere--and I don't remember where--Severian also recoils when seeing a particular book, because it seems to him like he's suddenly run across a rotting corpse. Can someone point that citation out? I think that ties in here somewhere too.</div><div><br></div><div>Adam</div></body></html>