From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Old now is Urth, and none may count her days
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 22:18:40 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

	Surely it is rather obvious that Wolfe's reference to 1 or 2 thousand
years is not from "our" time to Severians, but from Typhon's.
	Now, how old is it? Mantis says not as old as often thought, because of
the black hole in the sun. I've asked him for evidence that this black hole
was artifically introduced.
	In Dr. Talos's play, Gabriel tells Nod that he has arrived 50 million
years too late. So, when did human beings appear on earth/urth? You get
human culture not much farther back than 6000 BC, being generous. I think
the idea that human beings lived before then -- humans as we know them --
is pretty fantastic. People are builders, and also create generations. But,
let's nod to ideas that Wolfe himself probably does not believe, and say
that "Adam and Eve and Nod and Cain" lived a million years ago! We still
have 49 million years to go to get to the time of Severian -- no matter how
the black hole got into the sun. (Assuming Talos is correct, of course.)
	Nope. Until convinced otherwise, I'm assuming a Vancean "Dying Earth" in
both scenario AND chronology.

Contentiously, nay, outright viciously,

Nutria