From: "Mark Millman" <Mark_Millman@hmco.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Regency Plot 2
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 14:53:44 

On 10 July 1998 at 5:42 pm GMT mantis sez:

> Anyway, applying details from "The Map" to
> Eata's tale in URTH, we find that "The Map"
> must be taking place in 8 S.R. or 9 S.R., since
> Severian is Autarch and "the law" (i.e., he
> hasn't left Urth yet, which happens in 10 S.R.),
> Maxellindis is dead (so presumably Eata has
> already been arrested, served on the ship,
> jumped ship in Xanthic Lands, spent two years
> there, then returned to the Commonwealth;
> since Maxellindis drowned avoiding the arrest),
> Severian's face is on newly minted silver coins.

But a close reading of "The Map" will convince you
that it's set immediately after Maxellindis' death; in
fact, the corpse that Eata fishes out of Gyoll with his
boat-hook doesn't make him cry because it reminds
him of her; it makes him cry because it is her.

I think that Eata's story in _Urth_ is the story as he
has convinced himself it should be.  Maxellindis,
in Eata's version of events, wasn't unfaithful to him
and didn't betray him, and, perhaps most import-
antly, wasn't casually killed by her lover right after
the theft of the map.

This suggests that Eata could indeed have returned
from the Xanthic Lands after Severian's departure
(in fact, I believe that Eata leaves soon after this very
episode; his rejection of the steady job is suggestive),
though it doesn't mean that Severian couldn't have
interpreted the story that Eata in fact tells in such a
way as to convince himself that Eata returned before
Severian's own departure.  And it doesn't in any way
invalidate your conclusion, mantis.  Indeed, if any-
thing, I'd say it strengthens it, since it introduces a
parallel situation, i.e.,

     Valeria : Severian :: Maxellindis : Eata.

Though I would like to know something more about
the relative timing of the composition of _Urth_ and
of "The Map".

Mark Millman



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