<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>One other tiny point (and an apology for hitting Send too quickly before):<br><br>Just because it's South America doesn't make Nessus Buenos Aires, of course. They layers upon layers of sedimented "civilization" that Severian sees in the cliff face and talks about with the "miners," suggests to me that we're seeing a city that might have a vague organic connection to BA but which, given how much has been built, destroyed, and forgotten in this area, probably also has equally as many "organic" connections to countless other South American cities, both historical and "Urth-historical." Even within the book's historical scope, Nessus seems to have grown on its own for so long that it's forgotten much of its own "recent" history. To want to then identify it as a city that existed in its own "Age
of Myth" seems to not even really be an option. New York and New Amsterdam, for example, may be geographically identical, but so much has happened in 2-300 years it doesn't really make sense to "identify" New York as New Amsterdam.<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Craig Brewer <cnbrewer@yahoo.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, December 1, 2008 11:21:12 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) House Absolute<br></font><br>
<div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div>Although we might argue about how much authorial intention matters on a point that isn't necessarily stated explicitly in the text, Wolfe has said that he intended South America.<br><br>From his interview with Larry McCaffery:<br>>>><br><i>LM</i>: What kind of research was involved in <i>The Book of the New Sun</i>?<br>
<br>
<i>Wolfe</i>: The main research was on Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire, which was a
stagnant political entity that had outlived its time in much the same way that
the Urth of the Commonwealth had. One of the things that bothered me about the
reviews I got on <i>The Book of the New Sun</i> was how often they compared my world
with that of Medieval Europe. Insofar as I was trying to create any kind of
parallels with an actual historical period here on Earth—and obviously I wasn't
aiming at developing an exact analogy—I was thinking of Byzantium. Incidentally,
I also got into trouble with some reviewers over my presentation of the Ascians,
who were my equivalent of the Turks. If you read the book carefully, it's clear
that the action is taking place in South America and that the invading Ascians
are actually North Americans. What I didn't anticipate was that nine tenths of
my readers and reviewers would look at the word "Ascian" and say, "Oh, these
guys are Asians!" This confusion got me accused of being an anti Asian
racist—which I'm not. Actually, the word "ascian" literally means "people
without shadows." It was a word used in the Classical world for people who lived
near the Equator, where the Sun is dead overhead at noon and thus produces no
shadow. I felt it would be an interesting touch to show that the ordinary man in
the street in the Southern Hemisphere wasn't even conscious that their attackers
are coming down from the Northern Hemisphere (they aren't even aware that there
is another hemisphere).<br>(<a target="_blank" href="http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm">http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm</a>)<br>>>><br>I'm find with this being geographically South America. The question remains, and which Wolfe's answer above implies, is how much the culture of South America is supposed to be reflected in the Commonwealth. There, I think Dan'l's point is correct, and the severe time span makes Urth alien to contemporary culture. (Apart, perhaps, from the fact that they still drink mate.)<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List
<urth@lists.urth.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday,
December 1, 2008 11:14:30 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) House Absolute<br></font><br>Nessus as B.A. is *not* universally accepted. There is a <br>small group, of whom I am one, who take it as given that<br>the continents have changed by the time of the NS. It <br>appears that the core of the Urth has cooled; this is implies<br>
a futureity of hundreds of millions, probably billions, of years<br>from our time. And until the core *does* cool to solidity, <br>tectonics will continue to move the continents around, <br>submerge some and raise up others, as it has done since <br>
the crust hardened.<br><br>Therefore I suggest that to identify the contient of <br>Severian's journey as South America is not so much<br>wrong as meaningless.<br><br>-- <br>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant<br>
-----<br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer">http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer</a><br><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.danehyoakes.com">http://www.danehyoakes.com</a><br><br>I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce. -- T. Pratchett<br>
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