XaiJu
Rereading Wolfe
Rereading Wolfe

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Cyriaca's Story, a breakdown

Added 2021-05-10 16:53:27 +0000 UTC

I wrote the attached document, in hope that this historical backdrop related in Cyriaca's story would help me understand the up-coming Play, chapter 8 of The Claw, the Tale of the Student and His Son, and the Spring Wind story, I broke down Cyriaca’s story in Sword of the Lictor and applied interpretations as best I can. 

Ultimately it didn't elucidate any of those other stories for me at this time -- for me they didn't.

The parts in RED signal a sentence I cannot, to my satisfaction, interpret.

If you have a better end-to-end interpretation, or an interpretation of the sentences I’m struggling with, I’d really like to hear them.

- James



Comments

I have some ideas on parts of this: firstly, I’m taking the individual companions mentioned in the middle of the story to be being like the aquastors Malrubius and Triskele. I personally assumed this was confirmed right before they leave Severian on the beach of Ocean when Malrubius talks about how they are maintained by “the machine”: “I am Master Malrubius, and Triskele is Triskele. The machine looked among your memories and found us. Our lives in your mind are not so complete as those of Thecla and the old Autarch, but we are there nevertheless, and live while you live. But we are maintained in the physical world by the energies of the machine, and its range is but a few thousand years.” Also, because of the empiric designs of the Autarch-before-there-were-Autarch I had pinned that on Typhon. Based on what I’ve picked up on my current reading, the Citadel was built by tyrannical leader(s) before the institution of the Autarchy. Note the broad history of Nessus and its Walls Jonas gives at the end of Shadow. One thing that is a sticking point for me is that I WANT the ebony case at the center of the library to have actually been built at the direction of and for the never-to-happen retirement of Typhon. Also, when Cyriaca says that the unnamed-but-I-assume-to-be-leader-Typhon couldn’t mimic the earlier empire of the original race because the metaphysical cycle hadn’t been completed, I’m taking that to be an intimation of the Divine Year that is spoken about late in the series. The point being that (1) Typhon couldn’t just recreate the galactic empire by recreating the cultural circumstances and (2) there is a larger metaphysical cycle that is more deeply directing history. I’ve got some other thoughts, but will suffice with these for now

2021-10-12 20:30:12 +0000 UTC

I’ll offer, perhaps not the most astute take, on the sentences in question; that they’re referring to the fact that the ruler, knowing that if he was unsuccessful in the play for reinstating his cold, artless regime to the former power level of his predecessors, (censure and suppression of art and literature is routinely used to control a populace) that he could diminish into his valuable private collection and spend his days enjoying the forbidden books and art that he had stashed away. When that time came though, he found that he had over time, through his striving to remove the wild from humanity, destroyed the last of his own love for things of beauty and creativity. He no longer had the ability to appreciate these things in the collection. He had gambled and lost his humanity (wildness) and now would never be able to recapture it again. Perhaps too simple a take but it’s what I got from it.

2021-05-16 21:45:35 +0000 UTC

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