From: John Moar <jmoar@zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) Little Severian, Things in Jars, and Martians
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 98 08:09:23 +0100

Thanks for the responses so far, although I'd still like some information 
on the homunculus.

As for my not 'getting' the Little Severian sequence: I originally read 
parts of tBotNS when I was far too young to understand it properly. I 
did, however, remember how Little Severian died.

This sequence is, IMO, one of the simplest uses of shock in tBotNS, not 
following the usual methods of foreshadowing or retrospective 
inevitability.
Little Severian's death seems to be unusually timed, part-way between 
leaving him a bit-player and expanding him to a secondary character. So, 
when I reread this knowing when he would die, it fell flat.

BTW, do Big and Little Severian remind anyone else of Batman and Robin? 
<g>


On the subjects of the rats in the library. I was reminded of something 
in a story by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The story, _Valley of Dreams_, is the 
sequel to _A Martian Odyssey_. In this story, the Martian Tweel, upon 
entering a library, angrily chases away a ratlike creature which is 
attempting to read the books stored there. This story may be rare enough 
that this is nothing, but still...

--
James Moar

"...it represents for me all that monomaniacal fabric of argument, so
tightly woven that not even the tiniest objection or spark of light can
escape its net, in which human minds become enmeshed whenever the
subject is one in which no appeal to fact is possible" - _Sword_, Ch. 38

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