From: Matthew Freestone <matthew@matthewf.demon.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) fluff and nonsense
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 23:33:51 +0100

>> Dan Rabin:
>> We have recently been discussing whether the identity of Severian, the New
>> Sun, and the Conciliator is deducible from _The Book of the New Sun_.
>
>> ``I, knowing no prayers, spoke without sound to someone who seemed at times
>> within me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''
>
>Michael Straight:
>I don't think this bit says much about Severian's identity.  It sounds to
>me like the way many people might describe their experience of prayer, but
>few if any would mean by it that they are themselves Jesus.  It seems to
>me more an expression of the paradox of God's immanence and transcendence.

Or, as someone (Russell?) once put it, "I know that I am God, because
whenever I try to pray, I find I'm talking to myself."
--                              II         |\      _,,,---,,_
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