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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=severiansola@hotmail.com
href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com">Lee Berman</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>> > Gerry Quinn: None of that can sustain even cursory
scrutiny. A “wain” is just a <BR>> > large cart, but that’s beside
the point. The description refers to two of Pas’s <BR>> > bulldozers
which “were still at work upon the whorl”. They were planting a tree
<BR>> > behind his throne. If the mountain head were above a throne,
a tree behind it <BR>> > would be kind of invisible, no? It has
absolutely nothing to do with the mountain head.<BR>> > The orgy is on a
drape Blood has ordered or acquired to cover the Sacred window in his <BR>>
> rothel. It is an obscene parody of Campion’s well-known original
painting. Typhon did <BR>> > not have two penises, or if he had
Severian did not mention it. The two penises in the orgy <BR>> >
painting are clearly created by a painter steeped in the two-headed iconography
of Pas the <BR>> > whorl god – it was painted by someone in the Whorl, and
could not have been painted before <BR>> > Typhon became Pas.
[Campion may or may not have departed with the Whorl.]<BR> <BR>> Gerry,
you are entitled to your opinion though I concur that it doesn't sustain even
cursory<BR>> scrutiny. You are reading the text in isolationist fashion, as
though it is describing some<BR>> reality rather than being a work of
literary fiction which contains allusion, often to the <BR>> author's own
previous work.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No, I’m reading the text in order to learn what the author meant to imply
by it, which in this case is really rather clear. If the text says “Silk
went through the door”, we do not have to drag up every instance of a door being
mentioned in the text to understand it. Much the same may be said of
erections.</DIV>
<DIV><BR> <BR>> In this case there is a clear, easy to see connection
between this painting and Severian's <BR>> encounter with Typhon.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is zero connection. Typhon has an erection when he is excited
by the exercise of power. Porno-Pas has two erections in Blood’s
painting. But these have nothing in particular to do with one
another. Erections are not uncommon in hard-core pornographic images; it
is their absence that would be surprising.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>> We don't know where it was created, Whorl or Urth, but it depicts
<BR>> Typhon on Urth, where Typhon actually had a throne.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It cannot depict Typhon on Urth. There is no plausible reason that an
artist would represent Typhon with two penises, so clearly the pornographic
image depicts Pas. And therefore it was painted on the Whorl, where Pas
rules.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The original, non-pornographic picture by Campion on which it was based
also depicts Pas. Arguably. however, it depicts Typhon also. Both
paintings include both a physical and a non-physical figure (“the vast, dim
faces of the spiritual Pas”). The physical figure in Campion’s original
may be intended to represent the Monarch’s creation of the Whorl, where his
spiritual self is being enthroned. The painting is set on the Whorl.
We are told so in the text.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>> It does not depict Pas. </DIV>
<DIV>> How does a computer program have a throne, not to mention preside over
an orgy?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>A computer program doesn’t have a throne, but there is no reason why a
painting of one cannot include a throne, or an orgy, or both. Pas is
depicted in many ways by his worshippers (and, as we see, by others). The
content of Campion’s painting is metaphorical for the most part.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And certainly the gods of the Whorl could preside over orgies, if they so
wished. Apparently they do not, but that’s no reason why Blood’s unknown
artist, creating a painting suitable for a brothel, should not have imagined
it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>> Campion's painting is a cleaned up version of this one, not the
reverse.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Yet another reason to rule this out is Blood’s observation, “do you know
how much that stuff costs?” which has a clear implication of “a bit but not as
much as an antique from before the time of the Whorl”. Most likely Blood
or a previous owner of the brothel had it commissioned.</DIV>
<DIV><BR> <BR>> (Blood's primary association was with Scylla, not Pas,
btw) </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And? Maybe he has Scylla-porn drapes too. Tentacles
everywhere.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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