Citadel of the Autarch, chapters 16 to 19
Severian goes on his errand for the Pelerine priestess, meeting a hermit, who dwells in a house where the top stories are in the future - and it's an icy future for Urth, where no New Sun comes. So much for prophecy.
Trying to take the hermit out of his dwelling, Severian finds that he evaporates, coming from only a possible future rather than the future. So much for prophecy again.
Getting back, Severian finds the Pelerine camp and lazeret destroyed, with only Foila there, dying. He promises to share the stories told. Severian then runs into a mercenary unit and takes part in an initiation challenge, which he wins or subverts. The next chapter will reveal which.
There's a lot for me to think about in these chapters, but I'll let others talk first.
Comments
What was the purpose of the Hermit interlude, in the end. It's got to be a journey, rather than a quest. He fails to bring back the hermit, and in the end the person who sent him on the mission is dead or gone, and nobody cares that he went, or even came back.
One piece of information tucked away in here is that Severian reveals that he think he might have resurrected his dog Triskele from the pile of fighting animal corpses. This was long before he had the claw. I always imagined Triskele to be a little yappy dog, but it had a head as big as a bear's - not so little, afterall.
Severian professes his belated love for Dorcas.
I wonder where this new mercenary gig will take him.
I think the reason for the trip to the Last House, in the narrative, is for Severian to understand more about prophecy and time travel, and for us to be reminded that such things are possible. The reason in-fiction? I'm not so sure. But how did the Pelerine know of the Last House, and what was her motive for wanting to rescue the hermit? He very clearly didn't need rescuing.
I also think that, at the end of the book, Severian will expound that the stories people tell are more important than events themselves. A reasonable for Wolfe (an author) to suppose, but I've never been convinced by the argument.
Triskele, in my mind, was always a big dog, something like a mastiff. Speaking of animals, we discover that destriers not only have fangs, they also have three-clawed toes and protruding spines on their backs.
Did anyone else think the mercenary recruiter was extremely trusting, just offering a ride to a random armed stranger?
Makes you wonder again about Mannea sending Severian away. Did she know that the Pelerine camp was doomed, and was ensuring his survival? Did she know what the Anchorite's house was really like? Did she know that the Anchorite could quite likely not be rescued, and probably didn't need rescuing anyway?
But most of all I loved the passage about how Severian's upbringing shaped the metaphors he uses for the world "I had conceived of time as a river... you came from a city built around a river... you would do better to think of time as a sea. The waves ebb and flow, and currents run beneath them." And then this emerges in practical form when the Anchorite has no reality in Severian's time - presumably because the probability of his existence there vanishes to zero - while S is solid in the Anchorite's time. He is solid there, perhaps because his wave function has collapsed into a single state rather than a smeared probability of many states. Great stuff.
Clear as mud! :-)
I did like the idea of the house with different floors located in different eras. Sounds perfect for a Call of Cthulhu scenario set-up! Maybe the basement is in the future - look out the basement window to see a wasteland. Crawl out the basement window and look back to see a demolished house with only the basement intact. On the second floor, look out and see the past. Want to visit the past, then jump out the window. Look back and what do you see? The single floor of a house hovering above you with no top and bottom? Or maybe the whole house, but all of it apart from the second floor exist in only in this time zone.
> (Quote)
> Clear as mud! :-)
>
Hoho yes! I'll try again...
So going with the time-like-a-river metaphor, and looking forward, the future becomes more and more blurry. The same set of starting conditions might lead to a huge range of possible futures, with greater or lesser probabilities. That's Severian's perspective. In quantum mechanical terms you would say that there is a probability wave function across that huge range of futures, where the total probability is of course 1, and each future could be assigned a larger or smaller fraction of the whole.
The Anchorite is looking back in time. He sees a known present, which might have come from any of a huge range of possible pasts, with greater or lesser probabilities. This gives us a wave function across all those possible pasts.
Then try to put the Anchorite into Severian's present. Rather than seeing all this smear of possible options, you pick one, and force that wave function to collapse to a single choice. In that choice, maybe the Anchorite exists - ie it is a real past for his present - or, as in fact happens in the book, he does not exist.
Now take the alternate metaphor of time-as-a-sea. This means that instead of taking either point of view as definitive, we try to hold both together at once, one each going forward and backward... the waves ebb and flow. The two men can meet on some virtual space, but not in the real space of Severian's world.
Or something like that, anyway
First section I have unreservedly enjoyed. Nice time ideas. @Richard Abbot gives a solid explanation!
LEXICON
Maniple: Easy - a sub-unit of a Roman legion consisting of 120 or 60 men.
Ile: This one is trickier - obsolete word for an 'aisle' or an 'ear of corn' or Latin for 'intestines', but the latin etymology reveals a Greek root meaning 'I throng, press', which is interesting. Lexicon Urthus simply gives 'Greek squadron of cavalry'. p.281
Anchorite: One who lives in isolation - a hermit.
Ascian: Latin - Ascius is literally 'without shadow. An Ascian is 1. a person or thing without a shadow, or 2.
person or thing found close to the Equator.
Arsinotherium: This thing:
Xenagie: In the Lexicon Urthus, a Xenagie is a unit of 500 cavalry, lead by a hipparch. p.293
Chary: Cautiously or suspiciously reluctant to do something.
Apeiron: Another word for the Increate - from Apeiron (/əˈpaɪrɒn/; ἄπειρον) is a Greek word meaning "(that which is) unlimited," "boundless", "infinite", or "indefinite"
Estafette: A dispatch rider, from the Italian for 'stirrup'.
Haubergeon: A short, sleeveless hauberk.
Schiavoni: Referring to the Slavs of the Doge's bodyguard, or more generally a Slavonian.
Bacele: According to the Lexicon Urthus this is a unit of 50 or 60 horsemen, led by a lancer.
Contarii: A unit of contus (pike) bearing men.
Arcione: A saddlebow - from French/Latin roots.
Calambac: A fragrant wood - 'agarwood' (or similar).
An Ile would be a row or column of soldiers, by extension from an ear of corn (wheat, rye or barley), which has parallel rows of kernels, or an aisle, which is long, straight, and narrow.