I'm also fascinated by Severian's selective (at this point kind of nonexistent) ability to tell reality from non-reality. There's a bizarre naivete in his inability to tell the real Thecla from the prostitute dressed as her, at first. It doesn't feel like just the way any child raised in the Matachin Tower would be sheltered, because Rotte is right there playing the counterexample. I'm going to throw out there that Severian believes his eyes, and only his eyes, most of the time. There is so much visual description in this part of the book I only understood later, when an image came back or got re-explained.
By the way, I did manage to make my wife answer my questions about the Latin - it is correct, just very idiomatically translated. Which is cool!
BOY, I am fascinated by the gender of it all.
I'm also fascinated by Severian's selective (at this point kind of nonexistent) ability to tell reality from non-reality. There's a bizarre naivete in his inability to tell the real Thecla from the prostitute dressed as her, at first. It doesn't feel like just the way any child raised in the Matachin Tower would be sheltered, because Rotte is right there playing the counterexample. I'm going to throw out there that Severian believes his eyes, and only his eyes, most of the time. There is so much visual description in this part of the book I only understood later, when an image came back or got re-explained.
By the way, I did manage to make my wife answer my questions about the Latin - it is correct, just very idiomatically translated. Which is cool!