<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Gerry Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gerryq@indigo.ie">gerryq@indigo.ie</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">I think it was the white fountain too.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Of course, there is another issue with the white fountain, which Mr. Thallassocrat, at least, may find interesting. The concept of a white hole comes from the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution for a black hole. Few nowadays think that white holes exist in nature - but if one does it should be associated with a black hole (though perhaps in a different universe).</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">It would also make sense in that the result of combining the two should be to negate both - this doesn't seem so probable if an arbitrary black hole meets an arbitrary white hole.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Could Severian, therefore, also have created the black hole in the Sun?</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div></div></blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>I don't think so...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I think the black hole in the Sun exists as a white fountain in the lower universe (Abbadon?)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>It would follow that the white fountain Severian creates exists as a black hole in Yesod or some higher plane. There may be an incredible number of layers of universes...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Metaphorically (and maybe literally), I think Wolfe is making a point about grace. The layers of universe ultimately terminate at what Dante would have called the Empyrean, highest heaven, where infinite energy miraculously fonts from the Godhead. God, being the well that never goes dry, can give without taking, breaking the law of conversation of energy. This has a parallel with ethics--in love, humans partake in the divine essence, and so love is giving without taking, et cetera.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>These points would be lost, or their effectiveness reduced, if the white fountain and the black hole were one and the same.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">- Gerry Quinn</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>From:</b> <a title="transentient@gmail.com" href="mailto:transentient@gmail.com" target="_blank">Cliff Judge</a> </div>
<div class="im"><br>And then they engage in what a couple of Wolfe's characters call the "warm congress" and Severian says, I entered Yesod, or rather, it enclosed about me, yada yada, and then he describes his orgasm as this terribly serious cosmic event, and talks about something that is conceived from the union. Then he states that what was conceived was himself.<br>
<br>Now as a reader who has just decided that its pretty clear that Dorcas is his grandmother, Ouen is his father, and btw I like the idea that his mother is Catherine, of whom a khaibits is slain every year at the Feast of Holy Katherine, there is something in my brain that really WANTS to take the easy way out here and say, right what was conceived was "himself" meaning the actual white fountain that will replenish the sun of Urth.<br>
<br>But part of me is also thinking....yeah there it is, Severian is his own father.</div></blockquote></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Urth Mailing List<br>To post, write <a href="mailto:urth@urth.net">urth@urth.net</a><br>
Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net/" target="_blank">http://www.urth.net</a><br></blockquote></div><br>