From: raster@highfiber.com (Charles Dye)
Subject: (urth) Old now is Urth, and none may count her days
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:06:49 


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


CRCulver@aol.com asks:

>>Charles Dye said:
>>Severian's careless hint in chapter 1 that the universe no longer expands.
>>File this one in the tens-of-gigayears-to-never range.
>
>That's news to me. Would you mind typing that sentence or paragraph in?

A more useful reference wouldn't hurt either, huh?  That's chapter 1 of
"Urth."  Severian, recalling his determination to launch his manuscript
entirely out of his universe, ponders:

   ... And I marveled to recall that all this had seemed too small for
   my ambition, and wondered whether it had grown (thought the mystes
   declare it no longer grows) or I had.

At first I figured that this is what comes of receiving your "scientific"
education from leeches.  But Severian credits "the mystes" for this tidbit,
not Mal & Pal.  He's either picked this up from a book, or during his years
at the House Absolute.  (Still can't be right, though.  Can it?)

raster@highfiber.com