From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) Oracle
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 97 15:22:00 GMT


[Posted from Whorl, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #8070375 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

"Piaton"
Oxford Dictionary/Saints: none.
OED: "piation," expiation, atonement (from Latin "piation-em")
Latin: just like OED sez.
Greek: still and currently unavailable.
CASTLE OF DAYS: "Piaton has a human name" (p. 254).
Mythologies, etc.: nothing here.

----------------
Gene Wolfe's lure (plea?) for Oracular Reading (that is, a reading
more mantic than mantic):

"It seems to me that we can reasonably make two assumptions about
these four books.  The first is that they are books Thecla might
reasonably ask to borrow, and the second is that they all must have
something to do with Severian.  Note, for example, that the pictures
in the book of devotions are enameled and that Severian will soon
encounter Dorcas; Dorcas comes from a family once engaged in the
manufacture of cloisonne, and she once lived in a shop where it was
sold.  Cloisonne is a colored decoration of enamels.  In the rest of
this essay, however, I will concentrate on the first assumption, not
wishing to deprive you of the legitimate pleasure of deducting the
connections" (Gene Wolfe, PLAN[E]T ENGINEERING, NESFA Press, p. 9).
-------------------
=mantis=

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