From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 09:04:28 -0700

Roy,

Two points: one general, one nit.

The general point: In most of the (apparent?) contradictions you list, you 
make an
interesting assumption ... you cite Sev talking about an incident, then say 
that what
he says is wrong, because it contradicts what he said in his direct 
narration of the
incident. The point here is, what is your basis for thus privileging the 
direct narration,
when both are from the same source (i.e., Sev)? If I were to privilege one 
over the
other, I would be more likely to go the other way -- he's more likely to 
"edit" the
incident when he's attending directly to it, rather than when he's attending 
to some
other incident in which the incident in question is mentioned in passing. 
This would
be especially true, I think, when the passing mention is in reported 
dialogue; it might
not occur to him to edit the reported dialogue to match the edited incident.

The second point has to do with the Feast of Holy Katherine.

The contrast between his own feast, with "gray shirt and ragged trousers,"
and the "relatively new and clean clothes [the apprentices]  had been given
for the ceremony" strikes me as just that -- a contrast. It isn't a 
contradiction;
it's a fact of the ceremony. The apprentice to be raised is not among the 
general
run of apprentices that day; he is participating in a ceremony in which he 
is
changed, from prentice to journeyman. Part of the symbolism of the ceremony
-- pardon me if I am belaboring the obvious -- is the taking off of the garb 
of
the prentice and the donning of the fuligin cloak of the journeyman. (In 
particular,
recall that the journeyman never wears a shirt under his cloak.) Thus it 
would be
appropriate, even necessary, for those being elevated, and _only_ them, to 
wear
ragged clothes.

--Blattid

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