From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) Pike? Auk?
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 97 20:29:00 GMT


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

Reply:  Item #1489788 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Ranjit,

Re: "It Was All A Dream."  I agree with you entirely.  And likewise
with the way you link the dream sequences to the fatigue and
post-concussion sequences.  Now what I'm asking you to do, and
this is a very small step, is to see these semi-conscious states (dream,
fatigue, etc.) as a single state of mind (a form of trance) that is
super-conscious, rather than disparate forms of muddled, delusional,
less-than-fully-consciousness.

In Severian's narrative, the corridors of time are pretty much Dreamland.
Sure, the place is also the (closest) other dimension, too; but the logic
and the reality of the corridors is about as dreamy as anything Little
Nemo deals with. And things look different in the corridors, showing
either their true natures, or, if the corridor is purely subjective
to Severian's point of view (as I believe Peter Wright argues--and
maybe somebody around here has said the same), then this dream form
is only a "true" form in the sense that it represents what Severian's
unconscious mind thinks.  So Dorcas looks like Dorcas, but the
Cumaean looks like a reptile coiled around a rod, Hildegrin looks
like a monster (I think), and the Old Autarch looks like a Bull or a
Minotaur.  At the sorceror's duel, Severian tried to make light of it
all until, what do you know, the magic works!

(In the Soldier series, ghosts remain invisible, i.e., essentially
eidolons, until Latro touches them, at which point they become
visible, i.e. aquastors.  But since those books are sword and sandal
fantasies we don't apply the same rules to them.)

Likewise, I'm saying, on the Whorl.  When Auk or Mint get fatigued,
they really =do= manage to telepath with each other.  And so on.  Mucor
is ghostgirl, Quetzal is inhumu, Silk is something special, aquastors
and eidolons caper and cavort around for the Deus Ex Machina
puppetmasters that create them, BUT Auk and Mint are two normal human
beings for all we can tell.  (Oh shoot--did Auk only start
telepathing =after= meeting Bustard and Tartaros?  And Mint, only
after being possessed?  Argh.)

Re: Bustard not an aquastor, right--I should have written he was an
eidolon.  Same difference, though, in that both are computer
genrated--just that one requires 1.5 and the other 9 volts. <g>

Re: possessing sleeping soldiers.  There is that curious observation
by Horn that Hy was strongly flirting with the chem soldiers whenever
Silk wasn't around.  Spooky thought, huh--Kypris (or whichever goddess
is riding Hy) possessing a war machine!  Maybe she was thwarted by
hardwiring that makes them open only to Pas?  Well, IMHO, she was
still trying it out!

=mantis=