From: Scott Dalrymple <ScottD@wycol.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) beating a dead horse
Date: Fri, 09 May 1997 14:13:59 


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


At 10:08 AM 5/9/97 EDT, you wrote:
>
>Thanks for the great and thorough answers in response to my
>Pas/Typhon questions. Now that the connection between the two
>series has been nailed down, I have a slightly stickier question:
>why? What is served by the two series being connected? 


For me, the fact that Typhon launched the Whorl gave me a greater
appreciation of the immensity of both his vision and his supreme arrogance
(especially given the fact that he fashions Pas after himself).  The image
of the Whorl seems to me an extension of the huge statue of Typhon: a
testament to his awesomely-scaled monomaniacal streak.  Is this link
between the series necessary?  Does it offer any particularly important
insights into the _Long Sun_ series?  Probably not.  But it cost Wolfe
nothing to link the two, and it does make me read the Typhon section of the
_Urth_ series differently now.  I think it's a delicious bonus to have the
two linked.

On a somewhat practical level, one might contend that the very strong
similarities between the religion in _Long Sun_ and Catholicism argues for
a somewhat shorter time span than we generally imagine between today's time
and Typhon's; remnants of Catholicism certainly still exist even in
Severian's present, but seem more removed than what Silk practices.