Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 09:53:49 -0500
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: (urth) One Ship: reply

At 04:03 AM 8/16/2003, Don replied to:

>On Saturday, August 16, 2003, at 01:36 AM, Ashley Crill wrote:
>
>>Anyway, I didn't intend the 'One Ship' idea to be particularly 
>>convincing. Its one of those fond oddball ideas that would be almost 
>>impossible to prove correct or incorrect. I also didn't take the 
>>Captain's statement about one ship as literal, though I didn't make that 
>>clear in my original message. The Captain seems to be speaking in some 
>>sort of poetical sense concerning the ideal of  'shiphood'. The strongest 
>>suggestion of this whole theory seems to be the fact that Gunnie has no 
>>idea what Cargo the Ship carries. She indicates that the Crew doesn't 
>>have access to the cargo holds at all, yet such holds must be 
>>unimaginably huge.
>
>One point in favor. :)
>
>>-I agree with the the symbolic idea of the Ship as the Church. Its very 
>>plain. I might point out, however, that the Whorl carries the same 
>>symbology, only its 'heavenly destination' is Blue/Green rather than Yesod.
>
>This is correct but it's a corrupt symbolism.

         I think this might even be "two points in favor of parallelism." 
Sure Tzadkiel's ship is the only one of its kind, though archetypally 
related to all other ships. And what can the Cargo be but "souls being 
carried to heaven" in some SF sense, within the construct of the epic.
         Satan is God's ape, said Luther, and doubtless many before and 
after him. Typhon is the Pancreator's ape. His ship also carries souls to 
his future hell, where he will somehow rule (as Pas, or as a revived 
Typhon, depending on where you think the Whorl is going).
         Tzadkiel's Ship is the archetype. Whorl is one of countless 
ectypes, and in this case a wicked ectype, a slave ship.

>>-The Chrasmologic Writings contain French and Latin because, A: Its a 
>>religious writing. B: It was written and the Whorl was launched far 
>>before Severian's time. Also, Latin is extant in Severian's day, along 
>>with Greek and Spanish.
>
>It certainly exists in the Library.

         Are these languages extant? Don't forget Wolfe's ur-note at the 
very beginning of the whole cycle, that he has translated Severian's 
manuscript in ways that 20th century readers can identify with. The 
appearance of Latin, French, Spanish, Arabic, etc. need mean no more than 
that Wolfe has assigned these languages to correspond to various languages 
of the far "future" (in whatever sense Urth is "future" to us). I'm not 
sure we can make anything out of the appearance of these languages in these 
books. All three of these epics are books that Wolfe has graciously 
translated for us.

Nutria


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