From: Dan Parmenter <dan@lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Space Assignment: Rocket to the Moon!
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 11:29:40 

All the evidence of the novels suggests that the Matachin Tower in its
original spaceship form was your basic rocket design with some
windows; yet, somehow in my mind's eye I see it almost exactly as an
unwieldy 1950's-style spacecraft as envisioned by say, Wally Wood (EC
Comics), perhaps with some ridiculous fins, though of course it's
never described as such.  

Also, the Witch's Tower is described as being different, with no walls
inside and cold.  I imagine it as a cubicle-style office building
where all the cubes are gone and there are only large open spaces that
have been re-partitioned in different ways.  It's never stated that
*all* the old Citadel buildings are ships is it?  Damn, I don't have
my copy of URTH handy.

Also, the Bear Tower: do we ever meet any Beast-Handlers?  Severian
believes that they take bears or sows in marriage, but is it possible
that this is simply a joking put-down based around a misunderstanding
of the term "animal husbandry" (which I see translated as "the art of
working with farm animals") which could be indicative of Severian's
naivete considering that he takes pains to dispell some of the
misconceptions people have about his own guild.

Finally, the Bear Tower as Zoetic Transport as Noah's Ark: are we to
picture a Monarch-era fellow who, acting on some inner compulsion
which he interprets as instructions of the Increate gathers up as many
animals as he can because of some impending disaster?  His mission
never materializes and the ship is never used for its original
purpose, but he's got the animals and the know-how and so he sets up a
small agribusiness concern which evolves into the modern Bear Tower?

D


*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/