From: "Alice Turner" <al@interport.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v002.n012
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:03:08 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

I put that badly. The point really is that one can say "Jumping
Jehosaphat!" without having the foggiest idea of who (or what) Jehosaphat
was, simply because it's ingrained in tradition, like saying "Geshundeit!"
when someone sneezes, whether or not you believe in demons. Agia makes a
casual, throwaway reference. The reference is not picked up as significant
by Severian, nor is it a plot point anywhere else in the quintet. I take it
that there is a traditional story of such a character, perhaps in the Brown
Book, but certainly somewhere in the long rich half-forgotten history of
Urth. And since my own position is that Severian himself is a form of that
character, then, yes, indeed there is significance in Agia's throwaway
line. 

-alga-