I'm certainly not of a mind to believe the reason the Rajan ends up on Urth is purely metatextual. Any metatextual layer in these books must surely be accompanied by a more direct narrative link. However, there is certainly a theme in Long Sun/Short Sun of the power of stories, and the Rajan/Horn demonstrates that he can enter the stories of others (Fava in her story of her youth on green(?) and the Grandmother). The nature of dream travel seems at once figurative and literal. However, I feel like it has to have elements of both, not one or the other necessarily.<div>
<br></div><div>I'll admit that when I first read Short Sun I was fully expecting to find that Green and Blue were Urth and Lune. I looked hard for evidence to support that. I just don't think much of what has been presented is that compelling. Mostly because I just don't see the purpose of it, in terms of the large thematics (and the notion of 'you can't go home again', while a good thread to follow, is subsumed by much stronger themes, in my opinion, which makes a theory like matching Urth to Green in order to fulfill the 'can't go home' theme a stretch too far).</div>
<div><br></div><div>Why does the Rajan end up on Urth? Some people point to the Duke, which is a likely element, but what about Oreb/Scylla? Am I completely off base and misremembering here? Wouldn't Scylla's desire to return to Urth be a powerful element of changing course from Green to Urth? Syclla and the Duke just seem like such likely and comprehensible (What, in a Wolfe story???) explanations, that to me pretzling around to find out a way for Urth to be Green (or Blue!) is unnecessary.</div>
<div><br></div><div>What is the link then between Blue/Green and Urth/Lune? Well, on a certainly level, for me, it is mostly thematic. They left a world destined to be flooded, and landed on a world post flood (clearly Blue was the subject of flooding at some point in it's past). Megatherians on Blue and Urth seem to have a connection. To me, it is just i irresistible to conclude that the Mother is connected with Scylla/Erebus/Abaia and also to the consciousness contacted by the Cumean. Is it possible Blue had it's own version of a Conciliator in the past? How ironic that if the Cumean was attempting to contact an old consciousness on Blue, a planet which may have already seen it's own 'conciliator' facilitated flood, she was doing so in the presence of Urth's conciliator. Who's to say that the consciousness contacted on Blue by the Cumaen (in this unlikely scenario) didn't recognize that fact, seeing Severian for what he was? Anyway, that's a riff of another color.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:03 AM, James Wynn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com">crushtv@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
Okay, there's also "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" as
well where a character in a short story reads a book of short
stories, and they all know they are characters in a short story. But
if someone is claiming that that is what is happening in The Book of
the Short Sun, get ready for some aesthetic blowback. And I'll be
puffing along side them.<br>
<br>
u+16b9<div class="im"><br>
<br>
On 12/28/2010 11:58 AM, Stuart Hamm wrote:
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<td style="font:inherit" valign="top"><div class="im">There certainly are
instances of characters jumping between short
stories..when I first read "Ain't you 'most done" and got
how it related to "Blueberry Jam" was my GW lightbulb
moment.........<br>
<br></div><div class="im">
--- On <b>Tue, 12/28/10, Lee Berman <i><a href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com" target="_blank"><severiansola@hotmail.com></a></i></b>
wrote:<br>
</div><div class="im"><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px"><br>
<div>Antonio Pedro Marques:
>Besides the fact that it is *the* probable way a
travel powered by the <br>
> mind would work?<br>
<br>
This seems right to me. I can't imagine checking star
charts and making careful mathematical<br>
calculations before engaging in dream-travel.<br>
<br>
<br>
>James Wynn: Are you saying that the Rajan
psychically emplants himself in the memories of other
<br>
>people or are you saying he's a meta-fictional
character than can travel through Wolfe's own novels?<br>
<br>
The latter seems like a very cool possibility. I think
there may be some examples of this in classic<br>
literature but for some reason all I can think of is
R. Daneel Olivaw managing to insert his god-like<br>
presence into three different Asimov universes, tying
them together.<br>
<br>
I get the sense that Gene Wolfe is more aware of
himself as a god-like/demiurgical creator of his books
than <br>
Asimov. I'm not as familiar as I should be but I think
James Joyce does something like this in his work.<br>
<br>
<br>
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