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Well Jack you are so right and I am so embarrassed!<br>
<br>
Nothing to do to 'fess up and say that I plain didn't see that 'I' in
there ... back to the Work after some 15 years I have to admit and may
be reading in stuff that isn't there for sure. <br>
<br>
It's the case though isn't it - every time you come back to this book,
you see something different. Even though, on occasion, it may be
something that isn't there at all :) Possibly wishful thinking I have
to say - perhaps, or perhaps not, occasioned by reading Borski before
going back to BOTNS itself. <br>
<br>
Would be interested to hear others' opinions of Borski by the way, he's
quite the Kabalist isn't he?<br>
<br>
peace<br>
<br>
JD<br>
<br>
btw all - now half way through book 2 as I mentioned after quite a
number of years, and there are several things that stand out now. Never
before quite noticed that the phrase that gets the "old Autarch" so
twitched is 'Then you can show me where the garden is'. <br>
<br>
In context that should be Garden, nu? The Autarch only at that moment
realises that his greeting of a couple of pages earlier ('Welcome,
Death') was all too appropriate. He still knows that Severian is the
one, his later small sense of relief is only that of one who has a
temporary reprieve, not that of one who has been pardoned entirely.<br>
<br>
On 30/05/10 03:51, Jack Smith wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTimbsGB_JPSZZKq8QIFrMOjLtLeuBfD3wPW7HdL0@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Isn't it Severian who makes this statement about "the top of our tower"?
Is this the passage you're referring to?
"Even Jolenta shook her head, and I said, "No. I've spent my life so
near the middle of the city that the wall was no more than a dark line on
the northern horizon when we looked from the glass-roofed room at the top of
our tower."" (Shadow, XXXV)
Best wishes,
Jack
On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 9:42 PM, Jane Delawney <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jane_delawney@sky.com"><jane_delawney@sky.com></a>wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hello? Is there anybody out there?
Just about a third of the way through my fifth or sixth rereading of BOTNS
and wondering if anyone has any insights to offer on a few things I never
noticed before (there are always things one didn't notice before!).
On this occasion - when Severian meets up with Dr. Talos's Players at
Ctesiphon's Cross (even tho' he meant to do no such thing!) Jolenta at one
point remarks to him regarding the Wall of Nessus that she could see it as a
line of black on the northern horizon 'from the glass-roofed room *at the
top of our tower*'.
Now I've read a little more I am aware of the interpretation placed upon
this by Robert Borski who extrapolates that Jolenta, whose original name we
are never told, was possibly raised amongst the Witches and may indeed be
Severian's lost twin sister. Whatever the truth of this, it's certainly
clear that Jolenta has known a life where she dwelt in a tower high enough
to view the Wall even from the midst of Nessus, and that in addition, like
Severian himself, she once knew a fellowship close enough that even after
some time, during which she has either left voluntarily or been ejected for
some infraction, she (like Severian, again) still refers to her former
comrades as 'us'; it is 'OUR tower'.
However this does not afford proof that she was ever apprenticed to the
Witches; whilst the Witches' Guild is the only one we are told of which is
exclusively female, Severian is careful to tell us that most guilds (saving
his own, that of the Beast-Masters and that of the Witches) do admit both
sexes. So even if Jolenta does remember a childhood in a Guild Tower within
the Citadel (and there's no suggestion that all Guilds have their
headquarters in this area, whether within ship/Towers or not, so she could
have been raised in a Tower outside the citadel, or even within some
entirely different kind of structure which could none the less have
qualified as a 'tower' and sported a glass roof of a different sort) there's
no certainty that this was the tower of the Witches. She could have been an
upholsterers' apprentice perhaps; or an apothecaries'.
I wonder if anyone on the list has any views on the subject? Asking,
because as someone who has read BOTNS several times it was really striking
to me really to notice this phrase for the first time (I'm sure I've read it
many times without taking in the possible implications).
Apologies to all if this is a simple beginner's question and merely betrays
that I haven't been following the fandom for some years - this is quite
true, and I'm currently trying to catch up.
cheers and thanks
JD
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<pre wrap="">
</pre>
<pre wrap="">
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