From: Peter Stephenson <pws@ifh.de>
Subject: Re: (urth) An introduction and a question
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 10:45:35 +0100


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

About Dan Parmenter's comment on Master Ash (and without looking back
at the archives to see if this has come up, I'm new here too): The
second time I read the Book, I remember having a powerful feeling that
I was missing something about this episode and came to the conclusion
that the house represented the world ash tree Yggdrasil of the Norse
myths, which fits in with the Ragnarok (probably missing a consonant
or two) future of ice.  My Norse mythology isn't too strong, but I
think the tree had a deer in its branches and a dragon gnawing at its
roots.  I don't remember any properties to do with time, though.

Master Ash's cold future is presumably somehow opposed to the warm
future of the Green Man, but I haven't worked out if this has anything
to say about the latter.

Peter