Overview
Aurelia (1982) is Lafferty’s philosophical novel about adolescent authority and absurdist martyrdom. A fourteen-year-old girl from the Shining People must govern another world as a school assignment. She crash-lands after forgetting essential navigational instruments. Her weeklong visit culminates in a three-day walking journey of judgments, sermons on happiness, blood-drinking gamblers, and murderous yo-yos, ending in a deliberately anticlimactic death.
Premise
On the “Shining World,” fourteen-year-old children complete their tenth-form education by traveling to an assigned planet and governing it for several months. This “World Government” course is a rite of passage: students build their own starships, program their own navigation, and arrive on worlds that need “even a bit of second-class or immature governing.” The assignment tests not just competence but character; those who fail typically die, and those who cannot return become “Children of the Penumbra,” exiles loyal to their homeworld but never again part of it.
Aurelia is the weakest student in her seven-member cohort. She forgets to build a Monitory Chronometer, a Compensating Contingency Grid, and a third device whose very name she has forgotten. Her ship cannot be guided. She doesn’t know which of the seventy-six approved target planets she will reach. Her instructors have repeatedly noted that “If it were possible for one of you to fail, Aurelia would be the one,” while insisting that failure is, of course, impossible for the Shining People.
Publication History
Published by The Donning Company/Publishers (Norfolk, Virginia) in 1982. ISBN 0-89865-194-8.
Structural Innovation
The novel is organized around Aurelia’s three-day walking ministry of Earth, with each day divided into four “corners” named after the Roman daily meals: Ientaculum (breakfast), Prandium (lunch), Merenda (afternoon refreshment), and Cena (supper). This twelve-part structure (preceded by the “Kickoff Night” departure and crash-landing sequences) creates a liturgical rhythm befitting Aurelia’s role as an itinerant judge and preacher. Each meal-stop becomes an occasion for Aurelia to hold court, deliver teachings, and encounter the bizarre inhabitants of Earth’s “floating world.”
Conflicts
Throughout the novel, Aurelia struggles to identify the world she is governing. Gaea, called Telluris or Earth by its inhabitants, is one of seventy-six possible destinations. The familiar Earth setting does not settle the naming game: a sibyl and a mentor give her names that are withheld from the reader, and the mentor revises his answer on the final night. Meanwhile, Cousin Clootie claims to come from the dark companion of Shining World, whose existence Aurelia denies. Their parallel ministries draw competing crowds, and both die on the third night of the walking journey.
Kickoff Night
Seven students perch on their ships like “scared crows,” singing vaunt-songs before launching into the unknown. Aurelia, lacking essential instruments, flies on “sudden impulse.”
The Landing
Aurelia crashes in mountain country, horns blaring, and immediately strikes an escaped convict in self-defense; the morning newspaper reports him dead. Millennialists hail her as a “Messianic Angel”; the media calls it an April Fool’s hoax.
Three Days
Aurelia’s governorship unfolds across twelve “corners” as she walks the lakeshore with five thousand followers, hears legal cases, delivers homilies, and evades assassination attempts.
The Ending
A yin-yang yo-yo, deflected by a protective shaft, accidentally skewers both Cousin Clootie and Aurelia. “Oh this is silly!” she says, dying. An ailanthus tree grows from her grave.
Synopsis
A narrative overview of the novel’s events
Kickoff Night
Seven fourteen-year-old students of the “Shining People” gather on their launching needles for the most important night of their lives. Perched atop the oblate spheres they have built as personal starships, they sing vaunt-songs and prayers before departing on their “World Government” assignments. Each must travel to an approved planet and govern it for several months as partial fulfillment of their tenth-form coursework.
Aurelia is the weakest of the seven. Her friends (Rex, Lavender, Pandolfo, Adrian, Patmo, and Audry) try to support her, but the rules forbid direct assistance. When Patmo reminds her to set her Compensating Contingency Grid, Aurelia confesses she forgot to make one. She has also forgotten to build a Monitory Chronometer (essential for navigation) and a third device whose name she cannot remember. Her ship, she admits, “isn’t really very much smarter than I am.”
The others launch at their precisely calculated moments. Aurelia, with no way to know her proper launch time, flies on “sudden impulse.” Her ship selects a target from among seventy-six approved planets, and she descends through a rough, random flight (bleeding from nose, mouth, and ears) toward an unknown world.
The Crash Landing
Aurelia crashes in a region of small mountains around a lake, all seven of her ship’s horns blaring discordantly. The noise attracts diverse witnesses: horse-herders on a night watch, millennialist sectarians in a summer camp, a “multi-media ‘with-it’ group” in a nearby community, passengers on a River Boat, a tycoon in his luxury cabin, and two young men with a tow truck.
Her first encounter is violent. An escaped convict (“dark and shambling,” probably insane) attempts to assault her. Aurelia takes the defensive counteraction she was taught and strikes him down, dismayed by how easily Earth-people break. The millennialists arrive and hail her as a “Messianic Angel” and “Governess of the World.” They speak a 6A45D-type language that Aurelia can understand and fake, and they tell her that a “devil” has also landed: her “Dark Counterpart.”
The River Boat
Aurelia’s early hours on Earth are spent on the River Boat, a floating gambling establishment populated by strange and symbolic characters. She meets Helen Staircase, “the biggest cheesecake doll in the world”; Blaise Genet, a young man haunted by constant knocking at doors and windows; Karl Talion, a large man wearing a mask; Julio Cordovan, “the man of a thousand faces”; and the blind card-player Michael Strogoff. She watches Blaise win a game of “brag” in which the stakes are four quarts of blood; blood is literally drained from the loser’s throat.
Several people inject Aurelia with mysterious needles, each claiming their injection will counteract the others. She is disoriented, her memory wiped and restored, and she keeps asking what world she is on. No one gives her a straight answer. The “floating world” of the River Boat, Helen explains, exists to “confound” her; its people are “trolls who live under the bridges.”
The Luxury Cabin
Rex Golightly, a tycoon who “talks to fish,” brings Aurelia to his luxury cabin. Here she reads the morning newspapers and discovers that her arrival is worldwide news, treated by some as an April Fool’s hoax, by others as genuine visitation. The Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor reports that sophisticated tele-scan has measured her abilities and found her “slightly retarded” by Shining People standards, evidence of “overlap” between the two civilizations.
The “Kill Aurelia Now League” forms within hours, attracting millions of members who simply want someone to kill. Rex introduces Aurelia to “Marshal Straightstreet,” supposedly the world’s best bodyguard, but Aurelia recognizes him as Julio Cordovan in disguise. She says nothing, watching events unfold with the detached observation her instructors taught her.
Cousin Clootie
Aurelia’s “Dark Counterpart” calls himself Cousin Clootie. He is “ratty and grubby,” takes “a dark and gloomy look at things,” and has been “wrapped in a hasty mantle of evil.” He claims to come from the anti-world of Shining World, a companion planet that Aurelia insists doesn’t exist. “I know you have one,” Clootie tells her. “I come from there.”
Clootie gathers his own retinue of followers, camping a quarter-mile from Aurelia’s cavalcade. He covers the ground she leaves uncovered, picking up the bones she drops and “gnawing them.” He serves, in his words, as her “truth squad.” Aurelia will not speak against him but has “a graded series of frowns” for whenever he is mentioned.
The Three-Day Journey
Aurelia’s governorship takes the form of a walking pilgrimage around the mountain lakes, stopping four times daily for the Roman meals. Her retinue swells to five thousand people who sit in a single intimate circle on the grass. Herr Boch (whose growths prove to be antlers) and the Prince of Nysa serve as commissary and master of ceremonies, grafting ancient Earth festivals (the Agrionia, Dionysia, Lenaea, Anthesteria) onto a “Shining World Mystery Play.”
At each stop, Aurelia hears legal cases “with incomparable wisdom,” though the specifics are obscured by “a sort of privacy and impediment.” She delivers teachings drawn from “Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds,” expounding on the Law of Happiness: that happiness is “both the key and the goal,” that all physical and moral laws are “aspects of the universal Law of Happiness,” and that the universe has obeyed the command “Be Happy!” since the Big Bang, “with a few local exceptions.”
Fortune tellers predict her death on the third night. The yin-yang cultists paint images of a “worm with a pistol” on their double-dart yo-yos, consonant with a rumor that Aurelia could be killed only by a worm with a pistol. Various assassination groups (the Kill Aurelia Now League, the Citizens’ Execution League, the Media Extinction Arm, the horned people of the cornutus covens) circle closer as the days pass.
The Death
On the third night, events accelerate into farce. The newly formed “Kill Cousin Clootie Now and Aurelia in Just a Minute” society attacks Clootie with grapple, pike, and axe, but his ship’s protective shafts intercept every blow. The horned people encircle him and appear to kill him, but succeed only in cutting his hair on one side, ripping his clothes, and smearing him with paint. The Citizens’ Execution League shoots him point-blank with a .45, but the protective shaft diverts the bullet.
Then, five seconds later, accident intervenes. A yin-yang yo-yo strikes the bottom of a retracting protective shaft (not made of any “earthly material”) and is deflected downward into Cousin Clootie’s chest. Aurelia runs to him. The yo-yo’s manipulator, seeing trouble, whistles for the dart to return. It withdraws from Clootie and skewers into Aurelia, who is bending over him in the path of both ships’ protective shafts. The dart “panicked or got mad” and killed them both.
“Oh this is silly!” Aurelia says as she dies. “Clumsy,” Clootie agrees. “Is there no sense of drama on this world? Bad show. Ridiculous.”
Aftermath
Cousin Clootie’s ship retrieves his body, but Aurelia forgot to program hers for retrieval. She is buried without a gravestone, her only monument “certain unfading words on water”: Preserve her Name. Her Name is Aurelia. But hardly once a year does a fisherman row over those words, and he wonders only about the technology of “Monumental Water Company.”
A year later, an ailanthus tree grows from her grave; it smells odd but is pretty. A set of branched antlers (swallowed from Herr Boch) also grows from the ground. People stop to look at the antlers. The tree goes unremarked. The morning after her death, media people are already asking, “What kind of pure nuttiness will this new week have?”
Story
The three-day framework and Roman meal divisions
Lafferty organizes the novel into a prologue sequence (Kickoff Night and the Landing) followed by twelve numbered “corners,” four per day, corresponding to the Roman daily meals. This structure transforms Aurelia’s governorship into a kind of walking liturgy, each stop an occasion for teaching, judgment, and festival. The cavalcade moves around the mountain lakes, stopping to eat and hear cases, while five thousand followers sit in a single “intimate circle” on the grass.
The Roman Meals
| Meal | Latin Name | Time | Character in Novel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Ientaculum | Dawn / Early morning | Cock-crow insights; “judgment day morning”; legal cases heard; horn-blowing to start the day |
| Lunch | Prandium | Midday | Noon teachings; carnival accretions; the sun “gets in the eyes”; continuation of morning themes |
| Snack | Merenda | Mid-afternoon | Lighter fare; “shadier time” for deeper reflections; prodigies and encounters |
| Dinner | Cena | Evening | The “fourth corner”; something like the Greater Dionysia at nightfall; Magi erect great pavilions |
Prologue: Before the Three Days
Kickoff Night through the start of the walking journey
Before the three-day walking journey, Aurelia departs from Shining World, lands, spends a night on the River Boat, and becomes Rex Golightly’s guest at Potlatch. The intervening days include interviews, disguises, a confrontation between two apparent Marshal Straightstreets, and Albert Derby’s review of ten books about her. These episodes establish the cast and the hostility that will converge on the final night. The whole visit lasts about a week.
Kickoff Night
Seven fourteen-year-old students of the “Shining People” gather on their launching needles for the culminating event of their tenth-form education: departure on the “World Government Course,” a several-month governorship of an approved planet. Perched atop the oblate spheres they have personally constructed as starships, they sing vaunt-songs and prayers in “operatic-conversevole” voices that carry between needles. The narrator emphasizes their absurdity (“like big birds,” “ungainly, roosting crows”) even as they proclaim themselves “the quanta” and “the wave,” “the bravest of the brave.”
Aurelia emerges as the weakest of the seven, “the most awkward . . . by far,” yet paradoxically the most loved. Her friends (Rex, Lavender, Pandolfo, Adrian, Patmo, and Audry) attempt to support her within the rules that forbid direct assistance. Her specific deficiencies accumulate: she has forgotten to construct a Compensating Contingency Grid, a Monitory Chronometer (essential for navigation), and a third device whose very name she cannot recall. Her ship, she confesses, “isn’t really very much smarter than I am.”
The instructors’ speeches establish the theological and pedagogical framework: this flight is a “purging,” the sifting of wheat from chaff. Those who fail will be “dead to your own world” whether literally dead or not, though a merciful afterthought offers the category of “Children of the Penumbra” for those who survive but cannot return. The six companions depart at their precisely calculated “trajectory-seconds.” Aurelia, lacking a Monitory Chronometer to know her proper moment, flies “on sudden impulse” into a rough, random flight that leaves her bleeding from nose, mouth, and ears.
Key Scenes
The Crow Simile
“Were they crows or were they people? They perched up on the spheres like crows. They sang like scared crows, and singing was supposed to be one of their accomplishments.” The comparison punctures the students’ vaunting confidence and emphasizes their vulnerability before departure.
The Sifting Metaphor
“By these flights, we sift you like wheat. Those of you who are too small and too ungenuine will fall through the sieve.” This echoes Luke 22:31, where Satan asks to sift Peter “like wheat,” a warning before Peter’s denial.
The Seventy-Six Planets
Aurelia’s ship selects from seventy-six approved worlds. The known destinations have different faults: Bandicoot is wildly dangerous, Kleptis dishonest, and Gaea gross in its behavior. Other destinations remain largely unexplored. Her missing instruments leave the choice to chance.
The Crash
Aurelia’s ship descends toward an unknown world “wrapped in craggy night,” all seven of its horns blaring discordantly. The instructor had advised secret arrival; Aurelia had installed horns because she wanted “things to get out of my way.” The crash itself is “something between an extreme jolt and a mild annihilation.” Ship and pilot are damaged but not destroyed.
Aurelia emerges into a region of “delightful small mountains” around a lake, where diverse witnesses converge: horse-herders on night watch, millennialist sectarians from a nearby cave, a “multi-media ‘with-it’ group,” a tycoon with his menage from a luxury cabin, and two young men with a tow truck. Her first encounter is violent: an escaped convict, “dark and shambling,” attempts to assault her. Aurelia applies “counter-action” taught to every nine-year-old of the Shining People and strikes him down, dismayed by how easily Earth-people “break.”
The millennialists arrive and hail her as “Messianic Angel, bright Vision from Heaven, and Governess of the World.” They inform her that a “devil” has also landed (her “Dark Counterpart”) who came down “in a flame of darkness when you came down in a flame of light.” What follows is carnivalesque: a “with-it” person dies trying to blow the ship’s horns and becomes a ghost who continues playing; a fuzzy-minded woman offers a “contract” that is actually a pandanus leaf and a shish-kebab skewer; a young man identifies the tycoon as “one of the Magi” who saw Aurelia’s “lightning some days before it happened.”
Key Scenes
The Ghost Musician
When a “with-it” person blows the forbidden horns, the ship kills him instantly, but he continues playing as a ghost: “For him, the lines between the life and death states had already been eroded.” He adds “strikingly original elements to the discords.”
The First Magus
The tycoon is identified as “one of the Magi, the first one to appear.” He saw Aurelia’s arrival “some days before it happened” and came to wait. There will be “either three or six or nine or twelve” Magi total; the number shifting, never fixed.
Clootie’s Parenthetical Arrival
A parenthetical passage announces that Aurelia’s “counterpart and adversary came down like black lightning, secretly and yet arrogantly.” Its placement makes Clootie’s arrival seem incidental before his parallel mission becomes central.
River Boat Night
Aurelia enters the River Boat on the lake, a floating gambling establishment that Helen Staircase calls “the floating world,” populated by “masked people” and “impostors.” Here she witnesses the moral economy of Earth in concentrated form: a card game called “brag” in which Blaise Genet and Karl Talion stake life, soul, and four quarts of blood. Blaise wins; Blaise cuts Karl’s throat, and servitors channel the blood into crystal flasks and distribute it among the players as a “commercial drink.”
The River Boat’s denizens are archetypal: Karl Talion, a huge man whose pleasant face is a mask; Julio Cordovan, “the man with a thousand faces”; Helen Staircase, “the biggest cheesecake doll in the world”; Michael Strogoff, blind, playing solitaire with blank cards. Blaise Genet is tormented by “terrible knocking” at doors and windows, a voice demanding to “come in” and share his body. Aurelia advises: “It is either a person or an aspect trying to be born. Allow it to be.”
Aurelia is repeatedly injected with needles by various parties, each claiming their injection will counteract the others. The needles prepare her to be shot at something as an arrow. Helen explains the River Boat’s immunity: “We are the trolls who live under the bridges.” They have “extraterritoriality”; they do not count in the count of land people. “We may die every day or, more usually, every night. But later, we are often able to scrub our deaths.”
Key Scenes
The Game of Brag
Blaise Genet looks into Aurelia’s eyes and sees his own reflection “large and complete, and in more than full detail”; she is a “kaleidoscope.” Karl stakes blood; Karl loses; his throat is opened. The blood is salted, sulphured, and drunk. “What was the word for the iron taste? Ironic, yes.”
The Lodging Voice
Blaise explains his torment: “You have a whole lodging to yourself. That is not allowed.” Something (spirit, aspect, unborn twin) demands entry. Aurelia’s advice to “allow it to be” suggests birth, not exorcism.
Shabby Lightning
Aurelia and Clootie face each other; both seem about to speak. Neither has governorship over the other. Clootie “shuffled off like shabby lightning,” the Satanic reduced to the shambling.
Rex’s Cabin & Morning Papers
Morning arrives. Rex Golightly brings Aurelia to his luxury cabin “Potlatch,” a structure of staggering opulence that has existed “less than a week” and is “really a tent.” On a sideboard lie the morning newspapers of “all the great cities of the world,” and Aurelia discovers she is already worldwide news. The Kansas City Star dismisses her as an April Fool’s hoax; the New Shansi Old Journal urges devotion; the Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor (largest circulation daily in the world) reports her abilities are “slightly retarded” by Shining People standards; evidence of “overlap” between civilizations.
Potlatch itself is a monument to conspicuous consumption: one hundred rooms, Spartan dining halls, chapel, library, arsenal, moat (filled with carp), tarn (filled with crappie), game park. The guests are “ambassadors of different sorts, from cartels, from countries . . . from the structured satanisms, from the privileged corn and porn groups.” Uncle Simon (or Silas), a “befuddled youth” on “medication or trip-facient,” becomes Aurelia’s favorite; he tells rambling stories about invading “Bandicoot” but will not name the world.
Uncle Gifford Redwing attempts to assault Aurelia; she ties an “Instrumental Knot” in his anatomy, a topological impasse requiring the whole universe to be pulled through the loop to untie. That night, Uncle Silas volunteers to sleep across Aurelia’s doorway. At dawn, he is found decapitated. Cousin Clootie lurks in the corridors, gazing at the body with “a fire-blackened iron face.” Rex brings in a bodyguard: “Marshal Straightstreet.” Aurelia recognizes him immediately as Julio Cordovan from the River Boat. “Aye, and we’ve drunk blood together.”
Key Scenes
The Quick-Media World
Aurelia absorbs fifty newspapers while Rex begins one sentence. The Kill Aurelia Now League forms before she has been on Earth a full day; it has more than ten million members within its first hour. Media moves faster than reality.
The Instrumental Knot
A painful knot Aurelia ties in Uncle Gifford Redwing’s anatomy after he assaults her. The proposed remedy requires pulling the universe through the knot; Aurelia says it will come untied after she leaves the world (46–47).
The Decapitation
Uncle Silas is found decapitated across Aurelia’s doorway. When attendants carry his body away without the head, she follows and places the head “in his own arms.” Clootie watches without visible emotion; the narrator describes his “fire-blackened iron face.”
Cousin Clootie Introduced
Cousin Clootie (the “Dark Counterpart,” “Dark Antagonist,” “nemesis,” “adversary”) enters as parenthetical afterthought and grows into the novel’s shadow twin. He trails Aurelia through the River Boat (where he “shuffled off like shabby lightning”), lurks at Potlatch (where Aurelia catches his “unclear whiff”), and gazes upon Uncle Silas’s body. By the Three Days, he has made extraordinary claims: that he comes from the “Dark Companion” world to Shining World, that he and his kind “do the meaningful governing” while Shining People provide “a bright cover,” and that the universe operates by a “Zero Equation.”
Clootie is a grubby teenager whose demeanor contrasts with Aurelia’s brightness. His name recalls the Scots name for the Devil, Auld Clootie, associated with the cloven hoof. Yet his own explanation stresses work neglected by the Shining People: “We slip in under the bright distraction of the ‘Shining People’ and do the work that they think they are doing.”
When someone suggests Aurelia should have him “followed around by a truth squad,” she answers: “He says that he’s the truth squad for me.” By Day Two, Clootie will reveal the novel’s central reversal: “This world does not have a ‘dark companion’ because this world is a ‘dark companion.’ You are standing on an anti-earth and denying that there is an anti-earth.”
Clootie’s Claims
| Claim | Context | Status |
|---|---|---|
| “Dark Companion” origin | He comes from a shadow-world that parallels Shining World | Unverified but consistent with cosmology |
| “Meaningful governing” | His kind do the real work; Shining People are “bright cover” | Self-serving but plausible |
| “Zero Equation” | Everything begins at zero and returns to zero | Nihilistic philosophy vs. Aurelia’s teleology |
| Did not kill Silas | Suggests mistaken identity: two strange young visitors | Later contradicted: Clootie gave Silas “release” |
| Earth is “dark companion” | “You are standing on an anti-earth” | The novel’s central reversal |
Allusive Matrix: Prologue
| Reference | Source | Function in Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Sifting like wheat | Luke 22:31 | The World Government Course as Satanic trial |
| Crow imagery | The opening bird comparison | Comic vulnerability beneath the students’ self-proclamation |
| Potlatch | Northwest Coast gift economy | Competitive generosity; wealth as burden |
| Ukiyo (floating world) | Japanese pleasure quarters | River Boat as space of illusion and mortality |
| Trolls under bridges | Scandinavian folklore | River Boat people as liminal guardians |
| Auld Clootie | Scottish Devil (from Scots cloot, meaning a hoof) | Clootie’s name telegraphs his role |
| Black lightning | Oxymoron; anti-light | Clootie’s energy inverts Aurelia’s radiance |
| Magi | Matthew 2:1–12 | Wealthy figures who foresaw Aurelia’s arrival |
| Instrumental Knot | Topology; Gordian knot | Topological torture from advanced pedagogy |
| 6A45D-type language | Linguistic taxonomy (invented) | Aurelia classifies and readily imitates a local language |
Thematic Threads: Prologue
The Sifting / Wheat and Chaff
The World Government Course is explicitly framed as a “purging”: those who fail “fall through the sieve” and become “dead to your own world.” This connects to Luke 22:31 (Satan sifting Peter) and establishes Aurelia’s flight as a kind of trial by ordeal. The “Children of the Penumbra” category (survivors who cannot return) creates a middle ground between death and triumphant return.
Mask and Face
Karl Talion’s literal mask (with gaps where it fits imperfectly), Julio Cordovan’s “thousand faces,” the River Boat as a “floating world” of impostors: the Prologue establishes Earth as a place where identity is performative and truth is obscured. Even the newspapers present contradictory accounts: Aurelia is hoax, messiah, retarded child, and mortal danger simultaneously.
Death as Commutable
On the River Boat, people “may die every day. . . . But later, we are often able to scrub our deaths.” Karl Talion loses his blood but somehow survives to reappear. The “with-it” person dies but continues playing as a ghost. Uncle Silas is decapitated but will return as an apparition. Death on Earth is negotiable, reversible, a social position rather than an absolute boundary.
The Quick-Media World
The Kill Aurelia Now League has ten million members within an hour. Newspapers from “all the great cities of the world” cover her arrival before she has been on Earth a full day. George Clavicle files his story about her death before it happens. Media moves faster than events, shaping reality rather than recording it.
Bright Cover / Dark Work
Clootie claims that the Shining People provide “a bright cover” while his people do the governing that the brighter visitors believe they perform. His account introduces a tension between visible authority and hidden labor. Aurelia’s acknowledgment of him as her truth squad supports a complementary reading without settling all his claims.
Characters Introduced: Prologue
The Seven Students
Rex: Speaks in basso-parlante and urges Aurelia not to be stuffy; he is distinct from Rex Golightly, the Earth tycoon. Lavender: Asserts that Shining People cannot be lacking. Pandolfo: Offers the candle-and-pumpkin metaphor. Adrian: Departs heavily laden for an important, distant flight. Patmo: Explains the sevenfold backup system. Audry: Offers to cheat and lie to help Aurelia. Aurelia: The protagonist, weakest and most loved.
The River Boat Circle
Karl Talion: The masked man; loses blood at brag. Blaise Genet: Tormented by “terrible knocking”; wins the blood game; dies Day Three of blood pressure. Helen Staircase: “The biggest cheesecake doll”; explains the River Boat as “floating world.” Julio Cordovan / Marshal Straightstreet: “Man of a thousand faces”; becomes Aurelia’s bodyguard. Michael Strogoff: Blind; plays solitaire with blank cards; named for Jules Verne’s courier.
The Golightly Household
Rex Golightly: Tycoon; first Magus; host of Potlatch. Redfire: Rex’s wife. Burnt Umber: “Morganatic wife.” Uncle Simon/Silas: “Befuddled youth”; tells Bandicoot stories; decapitated. Uncle Gifford Redwing: “Funny uncle”; receives the Instrumental Knot.
Media Figures
Jimmy Candor: Reporter for Morning Ponder; later attacks Aurelia for “Forbidden Phrase.” Susan Pishcala: Newswoman; murdered Day Two when Aurelia uses her face as disguise. George Clavicle: Forensic reporter, World International Press; files death story before events occur.
Cross-References
Forward connections:
- First Ientaculum: Three Days begin
- First Prandium: Fortune-tellers confirm death prophecy
- Second Merenda: Clootie’s major revelation about Earth
- Second Cena: Rex’s words on water
- Third Prandium: Uncle Silas explains his decapitation
- Third Cena: The death fulfills all prophecies
Glossary entries:
Day One Overview
The Three Days proper begin with the formation of Aurelia’s cavalcade, a moving court of approximately five thousand people who travel, eat, and receive instruction together. The day is structured around four meals, “the Four Corners of the Day”: Ientaculum (breakfast, cock-crow), Prandium (noon), Merenda (late afternoon), and Cena (supper, night). At each meal, Aurelia delivers a portion of her “Insight-of-the-Day,” a homily drawn from “Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds” developing a coherent philosophical argument.
Day One establishes patterns: the circle of five thousand on the grass, elaborate menus mixing Roman and medieval elements, carnival hangers-on with booths and fortune-tellers, the parallel emergence of Cousin Clootie’s retinue camping “a quarter of a mile or so off.” The Three Magi (Rex Golightly, Melchior Rixthaler, Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter) provide nightly “magus-pavilions.” Fortune-tellers predict Aurelia’s death “in the dark hours after cena of the third night.”
First Ientaculum (Cock-Crow Breakfast)
The cock must be made to crow; it is “stubborn.” The Prince of Nysa approaches it threateningly; “The terrified cock crew for the early Ientaculum breakfast.” Five thousand eat in a circle on the grass with livestock present. This is also “judgment day morning”: Aurelia hears “impossibly many” cases with “incomparable wisdom as well as with joy and verve.”
Menu: Salt-bread dipped in wine or honey, dates, olives, goat-milk, eggs, cheese, grapes, roast duck, white wine, melon, oat-cakes, roast pork, walnuts, ram roast, cider, frumenty, apples, barley-bread, wood-cock, morning bread, red wine.
Notable events: A “joker execution” where a man sentenced in jest believes himself dead. A surly woman asks about yin-yang; Aurelia dismisses it as an “asymmetrical yo-yo.” George Clavicle challenges: “What we have here is a little girl playing at Courts- and-Governments.” Aurelia defends minimal governance: “The best government is that which has to govern hardly at all.”
Happiness is both the key and the goal. Every human action must have a goal, or it will not be a human action. . . . The goal is happiness, which is the true object of desire, and this goal can only be attained by ordered and deliberate will.
Homily source: “Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds” (Thomas Aquinas). Key claims: Goal-directedness is essential to human action; “internal and external seducers” distract from the rational goal; final happiness “cannot be had by natural powers alone”; grace is necessary.
First Prandium (Noon Meal)
Clootie’s retinue has formed: about half of five thousand followers, camping a quarter-mile off, “so that the fringes of the two encampments mingled a little bit.” Aurelia acknowledges Clootie as her “truth squad”: “I get carried away sometimes. And I drop bones, and he picks them up and gnaws them.” Carnival types join with “show vans.” Aurelia buys a Hyperborean wristwatch that runs only when the north wind blows.
The Fortune-Tellers: Aurelia visits three sibyls. First two predict her death “after cena of the third night” but lie about everything else. The third tells true things (names of her six companions, her parents, her unsteerable horse) and whispers the world’s name into her ear. The reader is not told what name. Later, the sibyl summons her back: the crystal ball shows Aurelia dead, killed by “an ugly sort of double dart.”
Menu: Bread, fish, fowl, meat, hot wine-and-water, and mulsum, honey-wine “of a special honey, the same as we used in ambrosia.” The Prince of Nysa: “The Olympians used it. . . . Sort of a Road-Show version of them.”
It is unnatural or supernatural that we should exist at all. In all reason, we should not be. . . . Let us never forget that existence itself is the longest shot that was ever booted home.
Key claims: “The will of itself is blind but it has aptitudes”; “Most declared revolts against authority are really revolts against authenticity”; “Morality is the directing of an act towards a natural object. Immorality is misdirecting an act.”
First Merenda (Late Afternoon Snack)
The afternoon is full of prodigies: constellations visible in daylight, birds barking, fish talking to Rex Golightly “by private device,” horn music from invisible horns. Aurelia’s monkey (a “mechano-organo” she made herself) runs up and down an invisible ladder from her spaceship, bringing “data and assurances.”
Marco Rixthaler: Son of the magus Melchior, rides up on a speckled mule that made itself spotted on command to prove it is a mechanism rather than an organism. Marco longs to make living things; Aurelia promises to teach him “if there is a fourth day.” He buys a hundred carnival tickets to kiss her; he uses fifty, and she tells him to save the rest.
The Magi Consult: Rex Golightly, Melchior Rixthaler, and Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter discuss whether Aurelia is “a programmed and mind-stuffed arrow or bomb” or “some sort of moral infection.” They decide to “love her (that is automatic for us of the inner group who have our distinct superiority), and . . . give her gifts.” Aurelia commands a magus-pavilion be raised for Clootie.
Menu: Hot and cold duck, amber wine, Macedonian pickles, fallow-deer, apples and crab-apples, five whole steers spitted, cider, millet bread, hazel nuts, imperial whiskey.
Passion is the opposite of action. Yes, of course it is. . . . The passive is the opposite of the active. When a thing becomes passionate enough it will die of sensual as well as intellectual inaction.
Key claims: “The unbridled is always the unhuman”; “It isn’t the question of the ‘Risen Beast’ in you. It’s the beast that can hardly be roused even to wakefulness”; this world’s problem is insufficient life; “Strong passions are more easily governed than are weak passions, just as a three-foot-long steel sword can be more deftly and swordfully manipulated than can be a three-foot-long piece of spaghetti.”
First Cena (Supper/Night)
Marshal-Julio tells Aurelia her murderer is “surely in our company.” They infiltrate Clootie’s camp in masquerade, Julio as “the Man with a Thousand Faces,” Aurelia as “a girl of dozens of faces.” Aurelia teaches Julio about odor-signatures: “Don’t you know enough to give every character you play a different odor-signature?” She is astonished that Earth people are “so smell-less”; “It’s coming into a blind world or a deaf world”
Clootie’s Preaching: “Repent, repent! . . . Evil people, you have become ugly in your outrages!” Aurelia admits: “The teen-aged curmudgeon is right.”
Julio’s Confession: He was once bodyguard for “whole realms,” but the officials he protected disappeared one by one. He assumed their faces, eventually playing twenty-three roles simultaneously (“President, Premier, Prime Minister, First Marshal”) until he “broke and ran.” The dual identity of Julio Cordovan (foreign) and Marshal Straightstreet (domestic) is deliberate cover.
Menu: Cold fare, shell-fish, olives, mushrooms, eggs (first wine); kids, beans, chicken, ham (second wine); pastry, fruits, hare, nuts (third wine). “A little music and poetry then, and much talk.” The Magi erect great tent-mansions; Clootie reaches for his pavilion’s doorknob and finds it ready.
Be you unrushed, and let the night come over you. I give you a darkness insight now. . . . What we come up against with the particular passions is non-authenticity or unreality. But our life-goal, our final happiness, is real.
Key claims: “Joy is a bit higher than pleasure”; “For sorrow to be present, there must also be evil present”; “To some extent, any sorrow in a governorship is charged against the governor. I am responsible, at least slightly, for all the sorrow in this world while I am governor here.”
Allusive Matrix: Day One
| Reference | Source | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Roman meal structure | Latin ientaculum, prandium, merenda, cena | Classical frame; the cavalcade as Roman iter |
| Fat Tom the Sage | Thomas Aquinas (“the dumb ox”) | Source of the daily insights; scholastic ethics |
| Object of Desire | Summa theologiae I–II, qq. 1-5 | Core philosophical vocabulary of homilies |
| Terrified cock | Peter’s denial (Matthew 26:74) | Governance begins with coerced proclamation |
| Mulsum / Ambrosia | Roman honey-wine; Greek divine food | The Olympians’ “Road-Show” once lived here |
| Three Magi | Matthew 2:1–12 | Gift-givers; traditional names Melchior, Gaspar |
| Hyperborean | Greek land beyond the North Wind | Watch runs on north wind; mythic technology |
| Spaghetti-sword | Original metaphor | Strong passions easier to govern than weak |
Thematic Threads: Day One
The Homiletic Arc
The four homilies build a coherent argument: (1) Ientaculum establishes happiness as the true goal, attainable only through ordered will and grace; (2) Prandium grounds existence in contingency and distinguishes authority from authenticity; (3) Merenda redefines passion as passivity and laments this world’s lack of vital energy; (4) Cena connects sorrow to evil and makes the governor responsible for the world’s suffering. The progression moves from metaphysics through anthropology to ethics to theodicy.
The Parallel Cavalcades
Clootie’s retinue forms as a shadow-court to Aurelia’s. Aurelia acknowledges him as her “truth squad,” sends him honey-wine, commands a magus-pavilion for him. Their relationship is complementary rather than antagonistic: she drops bones, he gnaws them; she preaches happiness, he preaches repentance. The dual governorship is becoming visible.
The Death Foretold
Multiple fortune-tellers predict Aurelia’s death “in the dark hours after cena of the third night.” The crystal ball shows her killed by “an ugly sort of double dart.” The prediction is consistent across sources. Aurelia accepts it without apparent distress.
Governance and Smell
Aurelia is astonished that Earth people cannot identify persons by smell: “It’s coming into a blind world or a deaf world” Odor-signatures are a truth-sense Earth has neglected. The Shining People’s governance depends on senses Earth has not developed.
Characters in Focus: Day One
Marco Rixthaler
Son of Melchior, rides a speckled mule that made itself spotted on command. Longs to make living things; Aurelia promises to teach him “if there is a fourth day.” Buys a hundred carnival tickets to kiss her; uses fifty. His bashfulness is “often seen in young boys on the boondocks-type worlds.” Represents the best of Earth’s youth.
The Three Magi
Rex Golightly: Magus of hospitality; talks to fish “by private device.” Melchior Rixthaler: Marco’s father; hosts Aurelia tonight; worried about “moral infection.” Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter: (“Great Landowner”); must provide Clootie’s pavilion. They constitute Earth’s inner circle of power, deciding to “love” Aurelia and “give her gifts.”
The Prince of Nysa
Once “horned” millennia ago before leaving evil’s company and having himself “dehorned.” Has saved his two horns; gives one to Clootie, one to Aurelia. Nysa was the mythic mountain where Dionysus was raised; the Prince is a reformed Dionysian figure.
Julio/Marshal
The bodyguard confesses he guarded “whole realms” until officials disappeared one by one. He assumed their faces, playing twenty-three roles simultaneously until he “broke and ran.” The dual identity of Julio Cordovan (foreign) and Marshal Straightstreet (domestic) is deliberate cover.
Day Two Overview
The second day brings intensification: the press grows hostile (Jimmy Candor demands Aurelia’s execution for using “Father of Lights”); Marco Rixthaler despairs of reaching Aurelia; Herr Boch opens an artifact shop with treasures from her ship. Key figures defect from Aurelia’s cavalcade to Clootie’s: Karl Talion, Blaise Genet, Helen Staircase, even the blind Michael Strogoff. They explain: “Grubby Cousin Clootie is more our kind of people.”
Clootie delivers his major speech, claiming this world is itself a “dark companion” planet: “You are standing on an anti-earth and denying that there is an anti-earth.” Meanwhile, Rex Golightly converses with a fish (an ego-fragment projection) and tries to trap God with a verbal riddle to save Aurelia’s life. The Kill Aurelia Now League gains members; one defector explains: “Killing is really the only fun.”
Second Ientaculum (Cock-Crow Breakfast)
Aurelia blows the Prince of Nysa’s horn, and creatures pour out of it: “fanged birds,” flying-dragons, sea-serpents, behemoths, leviathans, “the ancient three-humped camels of Arabia Felix,” “elephant-sized insects.” The Prince explains: “All horns are much larger on the inside than on the outside. . . . You know that the whole universe swarmed out of a horn that was blown quite by accident. Astronomers know it as the ‘Big Blow.’” Aurelia denies this cosmology.
Menu: Unsalted Jew-Bread, figs, morning-manna, mare’s-milk, roast goose, perry, prairie-cock; “one breakfast as day-opening is very like another, so long as both of them are blessed.”
Herr Boch’s Antikenladen: Artifacts from Aurelia’s ship have multiplied miraculously; the monkey brought “only one double handful of small treasures,” but Boch now has “six pavilions filled with them.”
The yin-yang woman returns: Aurelia responds: “It is all a false compensation and a false balance. . . . I do not believe that every time we light a light we must also light a darkness for balance.”
Happiness is a habit that can be acquired. . . . Routine means “on the route,” on the high road, not down in the gutters. And it is better to be clean and dry and clear-eyed on the road than to be wet and dirty and red-eyed in the gutter.
Key claims: “The building of a good habit is the building of a good road through a swamp or jungle”; the road “takes us to the edge of the world and off it to ‘Final Happiness’ and to ‘The Father of Lights,’” the phrase that will enrage Jimmy Candor.
Second Prandium (Noon Meal)
Jimmy Candor’s attack: The Morning Ponder claims Aurelia has broken the “Forbidden Phrase Law” (h.r. 752,996,669) and the “Freedom from Harassment Law” (h.r. 752,996,670) by using “Father of Lights.” Candor threatens “Citizens’ Execution” if authorities don’t act. Marshal-Julio advises Aurelia to adopt Susan Pishcala’s appearance if threatened.
Marco’s despair: “It just seems that you’re a different sort of person entirely.” Aurelia suggests comparing “Cogency Scans”; Marco doesn’t know what that is. She asks how many chromosomes he has; he doesn’t know. “Count them!” she explodes. His inability marks “an intellectual impediment whether there is a physical one or not.”
The manna ignored: With so much else to eat, only breakfast-food companies gather it for adjectives (“fruity, nutty, honey-like”).
You don’t speak plainly on this world, and I want that failing corrected. . . . Please understand the difference between pleasure and happiness. There can be good pleasure and evil pleasure; but there can be only good happiness.
Key claims: Distinguish “ordered” from “organized,” “freedom” from “liberty,” “authority” from “rule”; “‘Rule’ of itself cannot author anything”; “A living and bodied person is a sort of arc of a circle. . . . There is more of each of us somewhere else.”
Second Merenda (Late Afternoon Snack)
Susan Pishcala murdered: She was killed “while traveling with the slowly-moving Cousin Clootie Cavalcade,” a case of “unmistaken identity,” since it was known Aurelia used her face. The bodyguard reveals Aurelia’s one vulnerability: a shot originating so low that only a worm could fire it, requiring her to “bend low over the worm” and block her ship’s protection with her own body.
The Defections: Karl Talion, Blaise Genet, Helen Staircase, and Michael Strogoff have defected. Helen explains: “Cousin Clootie is from ‘Dark Companion SHOK-994’ where everything goes wrong. And we also belong to an everything-goes-wrong people.” Karl adds: “We shop for salvation. . . . Your way is a little too easy. We’d rather come to salvation over mountains and obstructions and through walls of fire.”
Clootie’s major speech: “On my world, we are an unoriginal and imitative people. In particular we imitate the talented people of what Aurelia calls ‘Shining World.’” He claims his people “complement more than we imitate,” possessing “the ninety-nine depth layers that are always below the bright surface layer.” Most strikingly:
This world does not have a “dark companion” because this world is a “dark companion.” You are standing on an anti-earth and denying that there is an anti-earth.
The defectors buy sackcloth and ashes; Aurelia protests: “This is the time for joy-songs and for aromatic oil and nard to smear on your heads.”
Each one of us must become extraordinary, unless we are one of the rare ones who are extraordinary from birth. There will be a great change in us, but it will not be a change without preparation and splendid will.
Key claims: “There are not virtues. There is only virtue,” the unity of virtue; “Technology is a mere trifle. . . . There are fetish-magic technologies that are superior to our own technology”; wind is both anemos and anima; “The spirit blows new every day. . . . He’s knocking at every door and window of you. Oh, that’s what’s bugging Blaise Genet!”
Second Cena (Supper/Night)
Rex and the Fish: Rex Golightly stands by the river, talking to a fish (“the fluvial and oceanic components of himself”), an ego-fragment projection. The Magus Balthasar Doppiocroce joins him. Rex tries to trap fate with a riddle: the fish prophesied Aurelia would “live forever, or for three days, whichever came first.” Rex argues “forever comes before three days, since forever goes back to the beginnings of things.” He commands: “Write this on the water! Preserve her name.” The fish writes; the words do not fade. Rex weeps.
There is no fate, Bait. . . . There is only El-Allah-God. An esoteric passage that I read lately maintains that God has a secret love for riddles and catch-phrases. Well, I have caught him by a verbalism, by a riddle, by a catch-phrase. If he enjoys it, he may let her live forever.
The Kill League defector: A man explains he has joined the Kill Cousin Clootie Now Group instead: “Killing is really the only fun.” Aurelia: “It would be an evil pleasure to kill me.”
The Night Homily: Aurelia attacks “cheap-shotting, the besetting offense of this world,” and the “hatred-is-fun” life-statement. A politician told her: “Give the people something they can really hate, and they will follow you forever, though they are shoeless and starving.” She demands: “As governor of this world, I say that it will have to stop right now.”
The Barrel: For the worst offenders: “Cut out your tongues and cut off your ears. . . . I have a big barrel right here.” About one hundred kilos of ears and tongues go in: one-fifth full, and many are “cow and pig tongues and ears” from mockers.
The Hootenanny: The two camps hold a joint celebration with the River Boat, but “other things crept into it. The words of some of the lyrics were raunchy. . . . The hatred-is-a-way-of-life faction was out in force.”
Allusive Matrix: Day Two
| Reference | Source | Function |
|---|---|---|
| “Father of Lights” | James 1:17 | The forbidden phrase; deity-term that triggers Candor’s threats |
| Horn cosmology (“Big Blow”) | Cornucopia; Big Bang parody | Universe from a horn blown “by accident” |
| Morning manna | Exodus 16 | Falls copiously but ignored; “fruity, nutty, honey-like” |
| Dark Companion SHOK-994 | Astronomical notation | Clootie’s world of origin; “where everything goes wrong” |
| Sackcloth and ashes | Biblical penitence (Jonah 3:6) | Defectors buy them; Aurelia prefers “nard” |
| Wind / anemos / anima | Greek/Latin; John 3:8 | Wind = spirit = breath; Blaise hears the knocking |
| Words on water | Keats’s epitaph reversed | Rex writes “Aurelia” on water; it does not fade |
| El-Allah-God | Syncretic theology | Rex’s God who loves riddles |
Thematic Threads: Day Two
The Defections
Key figures defect from Aurelia to Clootie. Their explanation reveals a theology of shadow: “We’re full of shadows. And he is also. And you’re not.” They prefer salvation “over mountains and obstructions and through walls of fire” rather than Aurelia’s “easy” way. This is not rejection but preference for a harder path, the via negativa, the way of those who have “trafficked with the dead.”
This World as Dark Companion
Clootie’s major claim: “This world does not have a ‘dark companion’ because this world is a ‘dark companion.’” The world Aurelia governs is itself the shadow, “the donkey-counterpart world of a horse world.” This explains why Clootie can govern here; he comes from a dark companion to a dark companion. If this world is shadow, what is its bright primary?
Hatred as Commodity
The Second Cena homily identifies “cheap-shotting” and “hatred-is-fun” as this world’s “besetting offense.” The politician’s formula (“Give the people something they can really hate, and they will follow you forever”) is the operating principle of media and politics. Aurelia’s barrel for tongues and ears fills only one-fifth, padded with animal parts from mockers.
Rex’s Riddle
Rex attempts to save Aurelia by trapping God in paradox: “forever” comes before “three days” because “forever goes back to the beginnings of things.” This is theological wordplay as magic: the belief that “God has a secret love for riddles.” The fish writes Aurelia’s name on water, reversing Keats’s epitaph of oblivion. Rex weeps; the riddle’s success remains uncertain.
Characters in Focus: Day Two
Jimmy Candor
“The obdurate reporter” whose Morning Ponder pieces demand Aurelia’s execution for using “Father of Lights.” His name ironically suggests honest speech, but he weaponizes free speech against itself, using “Freedom from Harassment Law” to silence religious language. He embodies the “quick-media world” where “the more he thought about Aurelia the madder he got.”
Balthasar Doppiocroce
Another of the Magi. His name means “double-cross” in Italian. He once projected a butterfly ego-fragment; fined 100,000 ducats for eating a royal butterfly (reabsorbing his projection); inherited the throne the next day when his father died. He recognizes Rex’s fish-projection as advanced illusionism.
The Defectors
Helen Staircase: “We’re full of shadows. And he is also.” She is “from a cometary family.” Karl Talion: “We shop for salvation. . . . Your way is a little too easy.” The odds against his finding salvation are 800-1. Blaise Genet: Still tormented by knocking, which Aurelia has associated with the spirit. Dies Day Three of “steep blood-pressure.” Michael Strogoff: Blind; provides Aurelia the newspaper calling her a “bolide.”
Susan Pishcala
News-woman murdered in Clootie’s cavalcade: “unmistaken identity” because Aurelia had used her face as disguise. She “did not have a sweet disposition,” so her death is not mourned. Her murder demonstrates the danger of proximity to Aurelia.
Day Three Overview
The final day fulfills all prophecies. Blaise Genet dies of “steep blood-pressure” before breakfast. Uncle Silas appears as a vague apparition (“ninety percent dead”) and explains that Clootie cut off his head to give him “release.” Herr Boch offers athanatos bark (immortality drug) but Aurelia refuses, noting “painful contradictions” if taken when “it is my time to die.” The yin-yang woman returns with her “double-dart yo-yo.”
The day “fragments” and “disintegrates.” Aurelia’s magic goes awry; she breaks her staff against a rock, and the pieces become serpents gushing water, but backwards. On the River Boat, she discovers wax replicas of all international personages, including herself. Aurelia tells Marco, “I really wanted to leave a child of mine on this world.”
At Third Cena, a yin-yang yo-yo, deflected by retracting shields, skewers Clootie. Aurelia bends over him; the manipulator whistles for the dart’s return; it passes through Clootie into Aurelia. “Oh this is silly!” she says. “Clumsy,” Clootie answers. “Bad show. Ridiculous.” Both governors die criticizing the aesthetics of their murders.
Third Ientaculum (Cock-Crow Breakfast)
People are “very kind to Aurelia”: families of all the Magi, thousands of commoners. “How does it feel on the last day of your life?” is the question asked most often. Aurelia resists: “This is one of the ‘spooking worlds.’ . . . You people here are trying to spook me into believing that I will die tonight.”
Blaise’s Death: He comes to say farewell: “This is the last time I will ever see you in life.” Then he falls dead. Aurelia realizes: “It wasn’t particularly the spirit trying to get in. . . . It was just his steep blood-pressure that made him hear knocking. But a good governor wouldn’t have let it kill him.”
Seven-Day Sickness: Philosopher Aldous Spencer-Trencher diagnoses Aurelia’s illness: the world’s allergic response to her as “intruder.” “Either you must die of the contact, or the local race must. It is simpler for you, having fewer moving parts than the aggregate of the local race, to die.”
The Multiplying Snails: The new bowl of Slowpoke Snails multiplies miraculously: Aurelia serves all five thousand people and still has half a bowl left. “The tenth helping of Slowpoke Snails is not nearly as good as the first.”
We have an intrinsic claim to light. We have an intrinsic claim to component peace. We have an intrinsic claim to happiness. We have these claims and rights because we are human creatures. We belong to the privileged and magic species.
Key claims: Humanity inherits a crippling that predates individual lives. The recurring house called the Mystery of Iniquity sends those who open it back to Swampy Junction. Machines advertise “Accidental Stumbling Arranged Cheap,” exposing the supposedly accidental nature of moral failure.
Third Prandium (Noon Meal)
Athanatos Bark: Herr Boch offers immortality drug ($30,000/ounce). The Prince of Nysa has used it “for many centuries”; Uncle Silas started “a few decades ago” but was “already pretty well gone.” The Prince doesn’t recommend it unreservedly: “It’s just a question of how much tedium you can take.” Aurelia declines.
Uncle Silas’s Apparition: He appears “ninety percent dead and decayed,” “vague of outline”; Aurelia throws pebbles through him. He explains Clootie cut off his head to give him “release”: “In some cultures somewhere, the cutting-off-of-the-head had something to do with dispatching the ‘walking dead’ and giving them release. . . . He thought he could release me . . . and he did release a lot of me. There’s less of me here than there was before.”
Magic Misfires: Aurelia breaks her staff against a rock; the pieces become serpents gushing water, but scrambled, backward from intention. “Oh damn, damn. . . . This is one of those days when everything goes wrong.” She is “dying of this-world sickness.”
Our behavior is influenced at least as much by our future as by our past. A man with a certificate of surety in hand will behave in a different manner from a man who has it not. I have a certificate of surety in my hand even though I die in a strange place.
Key claims: “Institutions are better than the people who inhabit them. That is why all ‘enemies of the people’ attack institutions first”; “Crowds are worse than the people who make them up. . . . To regress you must seek the homogeneity of a crowd”; “People go to their damnation in crowds or in endless files, holding onto their neighbors’ tails.”
Third Merenda (Late Afternoon Snack)
Marco’s Farewell: “If things had been a little bit different—” Aurelia admits: “If you hadn’t been so bashful, something might have come from our meeting. About the possible chromosome differences, I was joking.” She confesses: “I really wanted to leave a child of mine on this world. That would prove that I was more than an erratic bolide.”
The Wax Figures: On the River Boat, Aurelia discovers replicas of all international personages, including herself. An attendant: “It is believed that if you injure them, their primaries will receive the same injury.” Aurelia wonders whether she was herself or her replica on the first night: “I thought it was myself. But now I remember that I smelled waxy then.”
External Fever: Her “fever is rising dangerously, but it’s all outside of my body.” The horned people appear, invisible but perceptible to other senses. George Clavicle files his death story before the events happen.
Aurelia blows for merenda “very early, while there was still quite a bit of afternoon left. ‘I don’t want to be rushed at the end of it,’ she said.”
Physical and moral and civil laws are all mere aspects of the universal Law of Happiness. There was one law given at the physical beginning of the universe, at the “big-bang” moment—the Law “Be Happy!”
Key claims: “We should never ask of a law of any sort whether it is good or bad. We should ask whether it is true or false”; “If it breaks even one corollary of one law, not only does it come apart, but the whole world comes apart a little bit also”; “There is no way that I myself can be hurt. I am beyond that. I can be killed, but I cannot be hurt. I have a ‘Home Free’ certificate.”
Third Cena (Supper/Night): The Death
Killing Methods Cataloged: The horned people encircle their victims; the Kill Aurelia Now League boasts “a whole bloody repertoire”; the Citizens’ Execution League acts “horribly, clumsily, revoltingly”; and the Media Extinction Arm works “by slow poison mostly.” The narrator speculates about poisoned cells in the Slowpoke Snails without identifying who supplied the bowl.
Clootie’s Farewell: “The beautiful, sinful, rational road is not all that easy, not for everyone. . . . I do not have a certificate that says ‘Home Free.’ I have an unsigned certificate that says ‘Home, maybe, against long odds, and through a thousand perils.’ I am the governor of hard cases. I am an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people.”
The Kisses: Aurelia kisses Clootie, then Jimmy Candor (wearing Susan Pishcala’s face; he reels back in fear), then the yin-yang woman, then “more than a hundred other people some of them morally malodorous.” “They were all weaving a garment for me.”
If we are well enough disposed, the passage from life through death to fuller life would be no more noteworthy than the passage from one day to another. . . . True, death should have all the excitement of the beginning of a stupendous journey, but our passage point is not a main part of it.
Key claims: The “Nocastian Nights” Stories (“whales that talk, horses that fly”) are “the things that happen and exist every day in the real world”; “The right key that opens the door in the wall is called on one side of it ‘Grace’ and on the other side of it ‘Love a-burning’”; “In one hour I will go from one room of this incredibly fair land to a larger room of it.”
Failed Assassinations: Multiple attempts on Clootie are deflected by his ship’s shielding: grapple, pike, axe, .45 handgun. The horned people encircle him but can only humiliate, not kill. Then a yin-yang yo-yo, deflected by a retracting protective shaft, skewers Clootie’s chest.
The Death: Aurelia bends over Clootie. The manipulator whistles for the dart’s return. It passes through Clootie into Aurelia’s breast. The prophecy of “the worm with the pistol” is fulfilled by metonymy: the dart has a picture of a worm with a gun painted on it. She “cooperates” with her death by positioning herself in the dart’s path.
“Oh this is silly!” Aurelia said in her last words.
“Clumsy,” Cousin Clootie said as he died. “Is there no sense of drama on this world? Bad show. Ridiculous.”
Helen Kills Julio: Helen Staircase kills Marshal-Julio with a knife, fulfilling a three-day-old card draw: “She still didn’t believe that he was Julio Cordovan, but she was exploring inside him with strong hands to see whether she could find anything of Julio in there.”
Aftermath
Doctor Thorgrimsson’s Analysis: The deaths were “accidental . . . as are all deaths by chronic allergy.” The world classified the children “anaphylaxically as ‘intruders’” and secreted “a murderous toxin against them.” He proposes that the world, considered “as a responding mucous membrane,” might be taught to modify its responses.
The Waking: The people wake “at the same time” and say: “What strange daze have we been in anyhow? . . . That little dead girl seems to have something to do with our daze, and that little dead boy also. Oh, it’s been a silly week!” The ballad-makers compose “Silly Week.”
Aurelia’s Monuments: Rex’s words on water (“Preserve her Name. Her Name is Aurelia”) pass unnoticed; fishermen think it’s a “Monumental Water Company” product. An ailanthus tree grows from her grave after one year; it “did smell funny, but it was pretty.” Herr Boch’s antlers also grow there. “People do stop to look at them,” but “there was no memory of her left to be revived.”
Clootie’s Retrieval: His ship retrieves his body; Aurelia “had forgotten to program her ship for retrieval.” She is buried without a gravestone.
Media persons the next morning: “Something new every week. Something a little different every week. Well, what kind of pure nuttiness will this new week have?”
Allusive Matrix: Day Three
| Reference | Source | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Athanatos bark | Greek athanatos (deathless) | Immortality drug Aurelia refuses |
| Mystery of Iniquity | 2 Thessalonians 2:7 | House on the road sending us to “Swampy Junction” |
| Staff into serpent | Exodus 7:10–12 | Magic misfires: serpents and water scrambled |
| Slowpoke Snails (multiplied) | Feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6) | Miracle undercut by tedium |
| Walking dead / release | Zombie lore; coup de grâce | Clootie’s decapitation of Silas as mercy |
| Nocastian Nights | Arabian Nights | Stories of wonders that are “the real world” |
| Grace / Love a-burning | Pauline theology | Key that opens the door “even upside down” |
| Ailanthus tree | “Tree of Heaven” | Grows from grave; Smells odd but is pretty |
Thematic Threads: Day Three
Death as Anticlimactic
Three attempted assassinations, each deflected, establish expectation; the actual death comes by accident (deflected yo-yo). The final words (“silly,” “clumsy,” “bad show,” “ridiculous”) criticize aesthetics, not morality. Both governors die annoyed at the execution’s artlessness, not afraid of death itself.
Spooking and Self-Fulfillment
Aurelia recognizes this as “one of the ‘spooking worlds,’” a world that kills by collective belief. The condolences (“How does it feel on the last day of your life?”) participate in the murder. The prophecy becomes self-fulfilling through social pressure that arranges circumstances.
The Certificate
Aurelia has a “Home Free” certificate; Clootie has an unsigned one promising only “Home, maybe, against long odds.” Their difference is one of assurance. Both die, but the narrative does not disclose Clootie’s ultimate destination. His ship retrieves his body; Aurelia’s leaves hers behind.
Monuments and Memory
Three monuments: Rex’s words on water (mistaken for advertisement), an ailanthus tree that smells odd but is pretty, and Herr Boch’s antlers. None function as memorials; “there was no memory of her left to be revived.” Media persons ask “what kind of pure nuttiness will this new week have?”
The Unified Law
The Third Merenda teaching: “Physical and moral and civil laws are all mere aspects of the universal Law of Happiness”; the one law given at the Big Bang was “Be Happy!” The universe is structured for joy; unhappiness is violation of cosmic law.
Characters in Focus: Day Three
Uncle Silas (Apparition)
Appears “ninety percent dead and decayed,” “vague of outline”; pebbles pass through him. Clootie’s decapitation was mercy: “He thought he could release me . . . and he did release a lot of me. There’s less of me here than there was before . . . more of me in the pleasant place on the other side.”
Aldous Spencer-Trencher
“The great philosopher” who diagnoses “seven-day sickness,” the world’s allergic response to an intruder. The world is “that very large microbe, the lion, that slays you.” His analysis is confirmed by Doctor Thorgrimsson’s next-day report.
Clootie (Final)
“I am the governor of hard cases. I am an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people.” He lacks Aurelia’s assurance: “Home, maybe, against long odds.” His ship retrieves his body; Aurelia’s doesn’t. His last words end with “Bad show. Ridiculous”: aesthetic criticism of his own death.
Helen Staircase (Killer)
Kills Marshal-Julio immediately after the double death, fulfilling a three-day-old card draw. “She still didn’t believe that he was Julio Cordovan, but she was exploring inside him with strong hands to see whether she could find anything of Julio in there.”
Structural Significance
The twelve-corner structure serves multiple purposes. It imposes liturgical order on what might otherwise be picaresque chaos; each meal becomes a station of Aurelia’s passion. The Roman terminology (rather than, say, “breakfast,” “lunch,” “snack,” “dinner”) distances the reader from mundane associations, suggesting both antiquity and ritual. And the repetition of the cycle (three times through the same four stations) creates a drumbeat toward the prophesied death, each iteration bringing Aurelia closer to “the dark hours after cena of the third night.”
The structure also allows Lafferty to modulate tone across each day. Morning teachings tend toward clarity and confidence; afternoon brings prodigies and unsettling encounters; evening darkens toward violence and conspiracy. By the third day, even the morning has become elegiac, and the structure itself seems to fragment as Aurelia’s “strange world sickness” advances.
Characters
The governors, students, and denizens of Earth
Aurelia
Protagonist · Governor of Earth · One of the Shining People
A fourteen-year-old student of the Shining People, Aurelia is the weakest member of her seven-student cohort. She has “slept through most of celestial navigation,” forgotten to build essential instruments (the Monitory Chronometer, the Compensating Contingency Grid, and a third device whose name she has also forgotten), and crash-landed on an unknown planet with all seven horns blaring discordantly. Yet she is also the most loved of the seven (“the object of the most affection and the most loyalty”) because she needs support the most.
Throughout her three-day walking ministry, Aurelia displays a curious mixture of divine authority and comic incompetence. She delivers profound teachings on the Law of Happiness while constantly asking which planet she’s on. She judges legal cases “with incomparable wisdom” but cannot remember basic flash-card navigation data. She is recognized worldwide as a “Shining Person” but appears “slightly retarded” by her own civilization’s standards; the Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor notes a “clear overlap” between Shining and Earth intelligence, suggesting Aurelia represents the lower end of her people’s range.
Cipher’s study describes Aurelia’s hollow bird bones, aerated flesh, and electric skin, while still identifying her with the broad human race. She can reshape her visible aura into disguises, including Susan Pishcala’s appearance. Her hovering ship projects protective shafts, but cannot stop an attack from below if Aurelia blocks their path with her own body.
Her death (by accidental yo-yo deflected off a protective shaft) is deliberately anticlimactic. “Oh this is silly!” she says, dying. She forgot to program her ship for body retrieval, so she is buried without a gravestone, her only monument being words Rex Golightly had written on water: Preserve her Name. Her Name is Aurelia.
Cousin Clootie
The Dark Counterpart · Dark Antagonist · Co-Governor
Origin and Nature
Cousin Clootie arrives on Earth simultaneously with Aurelia, descending “like black lightning, secretly and yet arrogantly.” He claims to come from “Dark Companion SHOK-994,” the anti-world of Shining World, a companion planet that Aurelia insists doesn’t exist. “I know you have one,” Clootie tells her. “I come from there.” His name evokes “Auld Clootie,” a Scottish name for the Devil, yet the novel resists easy identification of him with evil.
Clootie views himself not as Aurelia’s enemy but as her complement. “There is a division of mission between us,” he explains. “Maybe I cannot see as high as she can. Maybe she cannot see as low as I can. She does things easy. I do them hard.” While Aurelia governs the surface, Clootie attends to “the ninety-nine depth layers” below: “Sometimes my cousin misses things that are trampled in the mud. It isn’t that she is fastidious or prideful; it is just that she doesn’t see low or dark things. I pull them out of the mud.”
Physical Appearance
Clootie’s visual presence is defined by darkness and raw power. He has a “fire-blackened iron face,” and the veins of his temples “throbbed and crawled as if black lightning were flickering about him.” He appears as a “grubby teenager” or “ratty” youth with an “awkward shamble.” Despite this unsettling appearance, “there was nothing at all that anyone could say against him, and he had given them no grounds for suspicion.”
Equipment and Cavalcade
Like Aurelia, Clootie has a ship and a retinue, but his are shadow-versions of hers. While “Aurelia’s ship was sharp and dark against the bright sky, the underside of Cousin Clootie’s ship was blue-white against the blue-white afternoon firmament, and you could lose it just while you were looking at it.” Instead of a monkey, he has “a black tarsier-like mechanism with bright eyes that went up to his ship and back on errands. It didn’t fool around and it didn’t pull monkey-shines.”
The daytime constellations visible over Aurelia’s cavalcade cannot be seen over Clootie’s camp. Like Aurelia, he receives a horn from the Prince of Nysa, one of two ancient horns that release clouds of creatures when blown.
His Followers
Clootie attracts the international criminals and shadowy figures who initially followed Aurelia: Karl Talion, Blaise Genet, Helen Staircase, and the blind Michael Strogoff all defect to his camp. Helen explains: “You are Aurelia from ‘Shining World’ where everything goes right. Cousin Clootie is from ‘Dark Companion SHOK-994’ where everything goes wrong. And we also belong to an everything-goes-wrong people. . . . Grubby Cousin Clootie is more our kind of people. We’re full of shadows. And he is also. And you’re not.”
His followers buy sackcloth and ashes from a vendor (traditional garments of repentance) while Aurelia protests that she is “still with” them.
His Teachings
Clootie’s governance operates through repentance and harsh truths. He calls himself “the governor of hard cases” and “an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people,” an allusion to Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and Philippians 2:12. He arrives “at the very last possible time to call you to repentance. This is one thing that a good governor must do continually.”
He preaches that people must repent of their “fiscal outrages, or your aesthetic, or your intellectual, or your practical, or your moral.” His teachings on money are forceful: “Don’t you people know what money is for? It is for the corporate communion of all the people in the world. . . . There is no absolute or personal ownership of money, not ever. Money is like office. It may be occupied and administered, but it may not be owned.” He calls the misuse of money “gluttony or obesity”: “Taking into oneself more money than one needs is as bad as taking into oneself more food than one needs.”
Aurelia acknowledges his necessity: “The teen-aged curmudgeon is right.” When the bodyguard observes that “you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar,” Aurelia defends Clootie: “Look at the difference in the caught-flies though. The sugar-fed flies are always sickly. . . . But the vinegar-fed flies at least give you something to work with. They seem strong and hard.”
The Uncle Silas Beheading
Clootie decapitates Uncle Silas, an act that initially appears murderous. But the ghost of Uncle Silas later explains: “I was probably ninety percent dead and decayed. In some cultures somewhere, the cutting-off-of-the-head had something to do with dispatching the ‘walking dead’ and giving them release. That was the case in the world where Cousin Clootie came from. He believes it is part of his governing to do things that are too distasteful for other persons to do, cutting off the heads of such unfortunates, for instance. He thought he could release me by cutting off my head, and he did release a lot of me.”
Assassination Attempts
Clootie is attacked by the “Kill Cousin Clootie Now and Aurelia in Just a Minute” society, the horned people, and the Citizens’ Execution League. The narrator first presents apparently successful killings, then retracts them: the ship intercepts the grapple, red-hot pike, axe, and gunshot. The horned people understand its defenses and inflict humiliation instead of fatal wounds.
The “horned people” (a coven sensed rather than seen) also encircle him with “horrid screams,” but he survives their assault as well.
Death
Clootie’s death is an absurdist accident. One of the yin-yang yo-yos (double-dart weapons that crowds had been playing with throughout the novel) strikes the bottom of a protective shaft as it retracts into his ship. The shaft deflects the yo-yo downward into Clootie’s chest. The yo-yos had been “safety-approved, of course, ‘-so that they might not be damagingly deflected by any earthly material to do damage to any earthly person.’ Yes, but that protective shaft that the yo-yo had hit was not of any earthly material, and Cousin Clootie was not an earthly person.”
The fatal dart bears a painting of the worm with the gun. When its manipulator whistles for its return, it withdraws from Clootie’s chest into Aurelia’s breast. Bending over him, she blocks the protective shafts from both ships.
Clootie condemns the death scene’s theatrical ineptitude: “Clumsy,” he says, followed by “Is there no sense of drama on this world? Bad show. Ridiculous.” His ship retrieves his body; Aurelia has forgotten to program hers for retrieval.
Theological Significance
Clootie develops a recurring question in the novel: how darkness relates to light. He contrasts the Shining People’s bright surface with the depth layers in which his own people work. She works at the visible surface; he claims to do the hidden work among those she misses. His claim that Earth itself is a “dark companion” helps explain his affinity with its inhabitants, though Aurelia disputes his account of their home worlds.
The Seven Students
Aurelia’s Cohort · Shining People
Aurelia’s six fellow students appear in the Kickoff Night sequence. They perch on their launching needles “like scared crows,” singing vaunt-songs and prayers before departing on their World Government assignments. Each departs for a different approved planet, and we do not see them again. They share “one ‘romantic episode’ soul between them,” the emotional intensity of adolescence, which they will leave behind after this year.
Rex: Speaks in “basso-parlante” (strong bass). Tells Aurelia not to be “stuffy.” (Not to be confused with Rex Golightly, the Earth tycoon.)
Lavender: Speaks in “easy contralto.” Claims “None of us is lacking, nor can be!”; a doctrine Aurelia’s example will test.
Pandolfo: Reassures Aurelia that she will be “the light of that world” wherever she goes, illuminating it “from its east unto its west.”
Adrian: His ship is “heavily laden, for it would have an important and far flight.” Amazed that Aurelia doesn’t know which world she’s going to govern.
Patmo: Reminds Aurelia to set her Compensating Contingency Grid “just as you feel yourself going into the grasp of the flight.” The last to warn her before she confesses she forgot to make it.
Audry: Offers to cheat, lie, and slip Aurelia answers, though direct assistance is forbidden.
Earth Characters
Rex Golightly
Tycoon · Nomad King · Magus · Aurelia’s Host
The “tall tycoon” who brings Aurelia to his luxury cabin “Potlatch” after her crash landing. Rex is “a man of high talent and taste that went well with the spacious vulgarity that he had first adopted for notice and gain and later had adopted for itself alone.” He is both a tycoon and a “nomad king” from the date-palm circuit, and he talks to fish, literally, through “ego-fragment” projections in the water.
Rex treats Aurelia as his “ward” and deploys elaborate security. He genuinely cares for her: when the fish prophesies she will “live forever, or for three days, whichever comes first,” Rex tries to trap the prophecy by arguing that “forever comes before three days.” He commands the fish to write on the water: “Preserve her name. Her name is Aurelia,” and weeps deeply as the words appear.
Fate: No death is reported for Rex. His wife and morganatic wife visit Aurelia on the morning of her final day. The words his fish writes remain her only explicit memorial, although later fishermen mistake them for a commercial effect.
Marshal-Julio (Julio Cordovan / Marshal Straightstreet)
Bodyguard · Man of a Thousand Faces
The “best bodyguard in the world,” or possibly two men, or neither. Rex introduces him as “Marshal Straightstreet,” but Aurelia recognizes him as Julio Cordovan from the River Boat. “Possibly I’m both,” he admits, “and most likely both of them are false names and false faces.” Despite his duplicity, he is genuinely devoted to Aurelia’s protection, accompanying her on undercover expeditions and analyzing her ship’s defenses.
Fate: Killed. Moments after Aurelia’s death, Helen Staircase “came there and killed the bodyguard Marshal-Julio by splitting him open with a powerful knife.” Three days earlier she had drawn low card to kill him. “She still didn’t believe that he was Julio Cordovan, but she was exploring inside him with strong hands to see whether she could find anything of Julio in there.”
Helen Staircase
International Gambler · “Biggest Cheesecake Doll in the World” · Murderer
A “large and buxom beauty” who claims her name means “strong cheese” in German. She explains the “floating world” of the River Boat to Aurelia: its people are “trolls who live under the bridges,” with “extraterritoriality.” She claims to be “from a cometary family.” She defects to Cousin Clootie’s camp: “We’re full of shadows. And he is also. And you’re not.”
Fate: Survives as a killer. Moments after Aurelia’s death, Helen murders Marshal-Julio “by splitting him open with a powerful knife,” fulfilling a blood-stakes draw from three days earlier. “She still didn’t believe that he was Julio Cordovan, but she was exploring inside him with strong hands to see whether she could find anything of Julio in there.”
Karl Talion
International Gambler · Masked Man · Defector
A powerful man whose pleasant face is a mask. After he loses at brag, four quarts of blood are drawn from his throat. The face beneath the mask remains uncertain. He works on “The Nine Thousand Names of the World” and later prefers Clootie’s difficult path to salvation.
Fate: Survives, disillusioned. On the final day he reports to his country: “There’s nothing in it for us in Aurelia. ‘A light breeze, a smell of sunshine, no more.’” He dismisses Blaise Genet’s theory that Aurelia traveled only from a bright companion to a dark companion on opposite sides of the same sun: “It was all that knocking in his head that gave Blaise those funny ideas.”
Blaise Genet
International Gambler · Haunted Man
Tormented by constant knocking at doors and windows, knocking that seems to come from outside his head and breast. A voice says, “I want to come in.” Aurelia recognizes it as “a person or an aspect trying to be born.” He wins the blood-stakes game against Karl Talion. He believed that Aurelia “traveled only a very short distance” from a “bright companion” to a “dark companion” on opposite sides of the same sun.
Fate: Dies on the third morning of the walking journey. His farewell initially sounds like a prediction of Aurelia’s death, but he falls dead himself. Aurelia abandons her earlier spiritual explanation of the knocking: “It wasn’t anything trying to get out. It was just his steep blood-pressure that made him hear knocking” (158).
Herr Boch
Antique Dealer · Antlered Man
Proprietor of the Antikenladen, which he calls “the most exclusive and the most expensive” shop in the world. Initially described as formerly horned, he later develops growths that Aurelia identifies as antlers. The epigraph to Second Ientaculum associates antlers with excellence and achievement. He sells athanatos bark at thirty thousand dollars an ounce and sets up shop during the cavalcade with treasures from Aurelia’s ship.
Fate: Survives, transformed. On the final day, his antlers fall off; “so now he would not be an antlered man after all.” They are “still quite small, about the length of the end joint of a little finger.” Aurelia, “not knowing how else to keep them, swallowed them.”
The Prince of Nysa
Ancient Being · Master of Ceremonies · Dionysus Reformed
An ancient figure who says he left the horned people’s company millennia ago and had himself dehorned. He has used athanatos bark for centuries. His recollections of Ariadne, Carya, Erigone, and Leucippe associate him with Dionysus. During the walking journey he organizes ceremonial festivities and gives his saved horns to Aurelia and Clootie; blowing them releases swarms of creatures.
Fate: Survives. On Aurelia’s final day, he observes that “young girls see and hear vividly on the last day of their lives. They sometimes see and hear things that aren’t there,” a gentle warning that she is terminal.
Marco Rixthaler
Son of Melchior · Aurelia’s Suitor
A “handsome and neatly-bearded young man” who rides a speckled mule that believes Marco created it. Though comparable in ability to young people of Shining World he is too bashful to pursue Aurelia. “I would like to touch you,” he says. “If only I could touch you.” Aurelia offers to teach him how to make living creatures, “if only there is time.”
Fate: Survives, but tragically. On the final day, Aurelia confesses: “I really wanted to leave a child of mine on this world. . . . As late as last night it could still have been done.” She tells him: “The next time you meet a star-girl, don’t be so bashful.”
Jimmy Candor
Reporter · Antagonist · Murderer
A “scarifying reporter” credited with phrases like “dynamic apathy,” “constructive defamation,” and “compassionate hatred.” He keeps exotic pets (a “hyper-flatulent python, a circumcised chimpanzee”) and writes angry pieces accusing Aurelia of breaking “Forbidden Phrase Laws.” His book All That Glitters Is Not Gold documents her “Underworld and Floating-World Connections.” He arrives with news-female Susan Pishcala to “examine” Aurelia on her first night.
Fate: Survives, exposed as a murderer. At her final leave-taking, Aurelia kisses him while wearing “the face of dead Susan Pishcala,” whom Candor killed “by his own hand.” He “reeled back in fear even though he knew that Susan was safely dead.”
Uncle Silas
Ghost · “World’s Oldest Teenager”
A muddled boy with pin-whiskers who is actually “ninety percent dead and decayed,” kept partially alive by athanatos bark. Cousin Clootie cuts off his head to dispatch the walking dead. His ghost appears later with a red line around his neck, explaining there’s now “more of me in the pleasant place on the other side.”
Michael Strogoff
Blind Gambler · Defector
A blind man who plays solitaire “with blank cards and with one Aurelia-value card” at the international gamblers’ table on the River Boat. He sits with Karl Talion, Helen Staircase, Blaise Genet, and Julio Cordovan, though whether any of them are “real” or wax replicas is never certain.
Fate: No death is reported. He joins Clootie’s followers with the other gamblers. His wax replica continues playing on the River Boat during Aurelia’s final visit. His name alludes to Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff (1876), whose hero survives an attempted blinding.
The Magi
Wealthy Patrons · Providers of Hospitality
The Magi are wealthy, powerful men who take turns providing hospitality, erecting pavilion-houses and funding the elaborate meals. They are “either three or six or nine or twelve,” rotating the role of “magus of hospitality.” The allusion to the Three Wise Men is deliberate: they come bearing gifts to Aurelia’s “epiphany.”
Melchior Rixthaler: Father of Marco; suspects Aurelia might be “a programmed and mind-stuffed arrow or bomb” or “moral infection.”
Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter: Finds it hard to take Aurelia seriously but agrees to “love her” because “gift-giving is what we do best.”
Balthasar Doppiocroce: Marvels at Rex Golightly’s fish-projection illusionism.
Antagonist Factions
The Kill Aurelia Now League
Mass Movement · Assassination Cult
The league appears during Aurelia’s first morning on the world and acquires more than ten million members in less than an hour. Its adherents resent her apparent superiority, but their appetite for killing precedes their reading of the anti-Aurelia literature.
The Horned People
Cult · Cornutus Covens
People with horns invisible except “corner-of-the-eye visible.” They kill by encircling victims, closing in with “horrid screams,” then drawing back; weapon unfound. When they attack Clootie, his protective shafts block them; they succeed only in humiliating him.
The Yin-Yang Manipulators
Cult · Yo-Yo Assassins
Operators of “double-dart yin-yang yo-yos” that embed in targets and return on whistled command. They paint their darts with “the worm with the pistol.” The yo-yos are “safety-approved” not to harm earthly persons, but Clootie and Aurelia are not earthly persons. A deflected dart kills them both.
The Citizens’ Execution League
Vigilante Group
“Horrible and clumsy amateurs” who make “twiddly little speeches” before striking. They shoot Clootie point-blank with a .45, but the protective shaft diverts the bullet.
The Media Extinction Arm
Assassination Network
The narrator says the Media Extinction Arm kills “by slow poison mostly” and identifies Slowpoke Snails as a dish its Jimmy Candor Cell may recently have poisoned. A thousand kilos of snails reach the Third Prandium, but the narrative does not identify their donors as that cell.
Cosmology
Origin theories, planetary architecture, and the metaphysics of being
Origin Theories
The novel presents competing accounts of cosmic origins: the Prince of Nysa’s “Big Blow,” Charles Greenpasture’s speculation about a cosmic intelligence, Clootie’s Zero Equation, and Aurelia’s account of a universe ordered toward happiness. The characters dispute these accounts without producing a single agreed cosmology.
The Big Blow
“You know that the whole universe swarmed out of a horn that was blown quite by accident,” the Prince of Nysa tells Aurelia. “Astronomers know it as the ‘Big Blow.’ Were that not so, we simply would not be.” The theory parodies Big Bang cosmology while invoking the cornucopia myth, the horn of plenty from which abundance pours endlessly.
The Prince’s cosmogony gains weight from the novel’s repeated demonstrations that horns are genuinely strange objects. “All horns are much larger on the inside than on the outside,” he explains, “having channels and hidden space that can house almost anything.” When Aurelia blows the Prince’s goat-horn to summon the cavalcade to breakfast, “a cloud and a fog of multitudinous small creatures” pours out: fanged birds, flying dragons, sky-flying fish, winged spiders and hydras, sea-stallions and deep-sea tigers. The horn contains multitudes, literally. “Many persons can’t see them at all,” the Prince notes, “but we know they’re there, coming out of every horn always.”
Aurelia rejects the Prince’s claim with “No, that is not true.” Her later teaching offers a different account: at the universe’s beginning, the governing command was “Be Happy!” The contrast sets accidental abundance beside purposeful order.
The Prince of Nysa and the Horns
The source of the Big Blow theory is himself a cosmological artifact. The Prince of Nysa takes his name from the mythic mountain where Dionysus was raised by nymphs, and his backstory confirms the identification. He speaks of past lovers including Ariadne (“already dead before I first had her”), Carya (“always turning into a walnut tree”), and Erigone of the “Lesser Dog Star Clan.” These are Dionysian consorts from Greek myth.
The Prince was once literally horned. He describes whole legions of horned men devoted to evil and destruction, then explains: “But I left their company several millennia ago, and it was then that I had myself polled or dehorned.” This is Dionysus reformed, the god of madness and ecstasy who renounced his destructive aspect to become a Magus. He saved his two horns, and “the evil has gone out of them by now.” He gives one to Cousin Clootie and one to Aurelia: the instruments of the Big Blow, domesticated and redistributed.
When the horns are blown, the creatures that emerge are “not evil things, since evil had gone out of these horns as it had gone out of the Prince those millennia back when he had become a magus. But there was a cloud and a fog of multitudinous small creatures. . . . Many of them were red-eyed and glowering. If not evil, they were at least neutral or compromised.” Creation itself, in this vision, is morally ambiguous, neither good nor evil but “neutral or compromised,” a universe that swarmed by accident rather than by design.
Herr Boch and the Horned Legions
Herr Boch also uses Blue Caustic to suppress growths he calls horns. During the journey Aurelia identifies them as antlers, signs of unusual discovery rather than the horned people’s evil. The distinction matters: his apparent resemblance to the Prince does not establish an identical history.
The horned people form a persistent threat throughout the novel, culminating in the “coven or cornutus” that attempts to kill Cousin Clootie on Day Three. Their horns are “invisible to the eyes, but they were sensed by every other sense.” If the universe swarmed from a horn, then horns themselves are instruments of primal power, creative and destructive, the source of everything and the weapon that can end it.
The Shining People
The “Shining People” (also called the “Golden People” or “Golden World Cultus”) are an advanced humanoid civilization whose children undergo rigorous multi-form education. By age fourteen, students have completed courses in starship building, celestial navigation, dozens of language types, and “Luxury as a Fine Art.” Their tenth-form curriculum culminates in the “World Government” assignment: each student must travel to an approved planet and govern it for several equivalent months, then return to compose a thesis.
The Shining People operate under a doctrine of inherent superiority. “You belong to the ‘Golden People,’” an instructor tells them, “and the ‘Golden People’ cannot fail in routine things, nor in special things.” Their ships follow the instructions of their unconscious minds if unconscious, and their “death-minds” if dead. “No one of the ‘Shining People’ can ever make a wrong choice, not when only lesser people are in the vicinity.”
Yet Aurelia’s example suggests the doctrine is aspirational rather than descriptive. The instructor himself admits: “If it were possible for one of you to fail, Aurelia would be the one.” The Law of Planetary Constancy, which Aurelia affirms, states that “all planets are approximately equal in their potential,” and that “the people on the grubby worlds are just as smart as those on the bright worlds, though sometimes they have poor ways of showing it.” The Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor notes a “clear overlap” between Shining and Earth intelligence ranges.
The World Government Course
The World Government assignment is the capstone of Shining People education. Students spend “the hours before kick-off in prayer on their solitary launching needles,” though they pray corporately, singing vaunt-songs and ballads. At the appointed moment, each student “melts into” their oblate sphere and takes off “smartly without unnecessary fire or fume.”
Not all students return. The narrator notes that some fail to come home, and later identifies strange world sickness as the cause of roughly one death in every seven students taking the course. Aldous Spencer-Trencher explains Aurelia’s case as a destructive response of the local world to an alien visitor (158, 164).
The purpose of governorship is happiness: “It will be the same as the purpose and goal of yourself. If you don’t have it, you can’t give it. If you are aimless, so will your governorship and administration be aimless.”
Clootie describes a “division of mission” between the two visitors: Aurelia sees what is high and bright, while he attends to people and needs she misses in the depths. His account extends his claim that his people imitate and supplement the Shining People’s World Government Course.
The Architecture of Worlds
The characters describe bright worlds and their dark companions, including paired planets on opposite sides of a shared orbit. Their claims about these pairs complicate the astronomical and moral identities of both Aurelia’s home and the world she visits.
Bright Primaries and Dark Companions
When humans “nibbled at space,” they discovered that “very many worlds did have anti-worlds exactly opposite them in their orbit around their sun.” This seemed to be “the normal case.” But crucially, people “could never see the anti-worlds of their own world, though persons from other worlds could see them.”
Aurelia insists that Shining World has no dark companion. “So the citizens of every world say,” an observer notes. The dark companions are described variously as “donkey-counterparts” to “horse worlds,” “goat worlds” to “sheep worlds,” “left-handed” to “right-handed” worlds. The pairing suggests not opposition but complementarity; each world incomplete without its shadow.
The Seventy-Six Planets
Aurelia’s approved target list includes seventy-six planets within “the primary dimension-sphere,” all judged “in need of even a bit of second-class or immature governing.” These form an “integrated space-net” from which her ship cannot escape; it will be captured and land on one of them. But without a Monitory Chronometer, she cannot select which one; the ship must choose at random.
Named Planets
| Planet | Also Known As | Distinctive Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Skokumchuck | The Shelni Planet | One of Aurelia’s possible destinations; also proposed by an Earth observer as a possible name for Shining World. |
| Kleptis | Not specified | A “Trader planet”; inhabitants known for “dishonesty” |
| Gaea | Telluris, Earth | “a grossness that really amounted to an enormity of behavior” |
| Yellow Dog | Not specified | “Perversity” |
| Bandicoot | Not specified | “a wildness that is worse than horror” |
| Sireneca | Not specified | Distant; barely within range |
| Hellpepper Planet | Not specified | “Outright horror” |
| Dobson’s World | Not specified | “Insulting elegance” |
| Hokey Planet | Not specified | “Disgust”; “any decent person will feel disgust” |
| Aphthonica | World Abounding | “Impudent artiness” |
| Horner’s Corner | Not specified | “Intolerable raunchiness” |
| Sad Dog Planet | Not specified | Not specified |
| Lotophage | Not specified | Lotus-eaters (allusion) |
| Lamos | Not specified | Not specified |
| Paravata | Not specified | Not specified |
| Analos | Not specified | Not specified |
| Gelotopolia | Not specified | “Juvenile clownishness” |
| Beggars’ Choice | Not specified | Not specified |
| Ragsdale | Not specified | “Juvenile clownishness” |
| New Shensi | Not specified | “Dishonesty” |
| Groll’s Planet | Not specified | “Grossness” |
| Hound Dog Hulk | Not specified | Mentioned in vaunt-song |
The setting is recognizable as Earth, but the narrative keeps the naming question open. Karl Talion compiles “The Nine Thousand Names of the World,” while an earlier identification whispered to Aurelia is revised on the final night. The two names are left blank for the reader (178).
Earth’s Special Status
The visited world has a paradoxical place in the characters’ accounts. Clootie calls it a dark companion; Herr Boch calls it the unique World of the Compensation. Spiritual significance and grubby conduct coexist, while even the world’s name remains unstable.
Earth as Dark Companion
Clootie’s most startling claim: Earth “does not have a ‘dark companion’ because this world is a ‘dark companion.’” It is “the donkey-counterpart world of a horse world, it is the goat world to a sheep world, it is a left-handed world to a right-handed world.” Earth does have a “bright primary,” but its people are “so dim-eyed” they cannot see it. Aurelia saw Earth’s anti-world clearly as she came in and “was afraid that I would come down there.”
This explains a puzzle: why can Earth’s inhabitants not see their dark companion? Because they are standing on it. The “dark companion” they seek is beneath their feet.
The World of the Compensation
Aurelia asks Herr Boch whether the Compensation has occurred. He identifies this as its unique world, while she notes that five or six other worlds claim the same distinction. In the novel’s Christian vocabulary, the Compensation suggests the Incarnation and redemption (131).
Aurelia asks whether Rome has fallen. Herr Boch places the fall two millennia earlier and predicts Rome’s return a millennium later; he also says Rome has fallen on almost every world. These recurring Romes unsettle any simple identification of the story’s chronology with present-day Earth.
The Spooking World
On Day Three, when everyone assumes her death is imminent, Aurelia protests: “This is one of the ‘spooking worlds.’ Did you know that? I remember now that it is in the planet catalogs as a ‘spooking world.’ You people here are trying to spook me into believing that I will die tonight, and you do kill people by spooking. Now I know that all of you are good people, but ‘spooking’ is an evil habit.”
The classification appears in Shining World’s planetary catalogs; Earth is officially designated as a place where reality responds to belief, where expectation can become fate. The novel demonstrates this repeatedly: the “joker execution” at the first Ientaculum, where “a man who had received a death sentence, but in jest, had thought that he was dead indeed, and was rather angry when it turned out that he was still alive and the object of merriment.” The fortune-tellers who predict Aurelia’s death may not merely foresee it but help create it. The crowds who say “Poor Lamb” and assume her ending may be spooking her toward it.
This gives the novel’s events an unsettling ambiguity. Is Aurelia killed by a yo-yo, or by a world that believed she would die? Is governance real, or a performance that becomes real through collective belief? On a spooking world, the distinction may not hold.
The Sixth Age
“This is the sixth age of the world, as it is of every world, the long final age that may be longer than all the rest of them put together. Or it may end yet this night.” The novel situates Earth’s present moment within a universal eschatology shared across all worlds: we are in the last age before whatever comes after.
The sixth-age passage appears in Charles Sinkman’s reconstruction of Aurelia’s beliefs, quoted in Albert Derby’s review (88). Later Aurelia herself asks Herr Boch whether this world is in its sixth and final age. His answer concerns the completed Compensation and the fall of Rome (131).
Sinkman’s reconstructed teaching makes the sixth age universal: “Because it is the sixth age everywhere there is not much difference between the worlds.” This extends the Christian scheme of world ages across the novel’s planets without supplying a precise shared calendar.
The Father of Lights
Sinkman’s reconstruction places happiness within the sixth age. Aurelia’s own teaching names the road’s destination: “There is nothing easier and more rational than the high habits of the intelligently aimed road that knows its target. And that road takes us to the edge of the world and off it to ‘Final Happiness’ and to ‘The Father of Lights.’”
The phrase comes from James 1:17, which names God as the source of good gifts. Aurelia connects the happiness toward which her road leads with this biblical “Father of Lights.”
But on Earth, naming this goal is dangerous. Jimmy Candor, the hostile reporter, erupts: “The Aurelian creature has clearly broken the ‘Forbidden Phrase Law’ known as h.r. 752,996,669. . . . She has also broken the ‘Freedom from Harassment Law’ known as h.r. 752,996,670.” These bills “have not been enacted into final law, but they have not been rejected either. They are hanging in the deferred area sometimes called the ‘enforce them if you can’ classification.”
The laws are Lafferty’s satire of secularism taken to absurdity: “‘Father of Lights’ is clearly a deity-term and as such it insults almost all of us.” On Earth (which Herr Boch identifies as the World of the Compensation) speaking of God is illegal, or quasi-legal, or at least actionable. The Sinkman column warns that Aurelia’s “four-corners statements” (addressing the Father of Lights at midnight, six, noon, and six) “run counter to what is perhaps the most rampant taboo on Earth. I have too vivid a premonition of the ‘Death of Aurelia’ because of the four-corners statements for there to be any possibility of it not happening.”
The taboo may be part of what makes Earth a spooking world, a place where truth itself is forbidden, where naming the goal is treated as harassment, where the World of the Compensation has forgotten what it was compensated for.
Counter-Cosmologies
Against the Shining People’s orthodoxy, the novel presents alternative cosmological visions, most notably from Cousin Clootie, whose perspective from the dark companion world SHOK-994 inverts or complements Aurelia’s teachings. Where she preaches happiness, he preaches repentance; where she sees surfaces, he sees depths; where she affirms purpose, he posits the Zero Equation.
SHOK-994: The Dark Companion of Shining World
Aurelia insists that Shining World has no dark companion. “But you do have one, Aurelia,” Cousin Clootie says. “I know you have one. I come from there.” Helen Staircase names it directly: “Cousin Clootie is from ‘Dark Companion SHOK-994’ where everything goes wrong.” The designation suggests a catalogued world, one of many dark companions indexed by bureaucratic number rather than name.
Clootie describes his people without shame: “On my world, we are an unoriginal and imitative people. In particular we imitate the talented people of what Aurelia calls ‘Shining World.’ But on their part they deny that we exist.” They copy the Shining People’s curriculum, including the World Government Course, “since it has proved so successful with them.” But the imitation is not slavish: “Actually we imitate it without its ‘Shining World’ errors, so it proves even more successful with us.”
The key difference is depth. “The people of ‘Shining World’ are superficial. They are ‘surface people’ only, bright surface though they have. We are somewhat deeper.” Where Aurelia governs the visible, Clootie governs “exactly in those dark areas where the people of ‘Shining World’ were blind to the need of it.” He possesses “something of all the ninety-nine depth layers that are always below the bright surface layer. From those depth-layers, with clumsy hands and minds, we try to bring out dark riches to bright day.”
The Division of Mission
Clootie and Aurelia are not opponents but complements: a “division of mission” rather than a conflict. “Sometimes my cousin misses things that are trampled in the mud,” Clootie explains. “It isn’t that she is fastidious or prideful; it is just that she doesn’t see low or dark things. I pull them out of the mud. . . . Maybe I cannot see as high as she can. Maybe she cannot see as low as I can. She does things easy. I do them hard.”
Aurelia herself acknowledges this: “He says that he’s the truth squad for me. . . . I get carried away sometimes. And I drop bones, and he picks them up and gnaws them. He says that I leave too much meat on them.” Yet she cannot accept him: “But he isn’t my ‘Dark Counterpart,’ and he can’t be from a ‘Dark Companion’ world to ‘Shining World.’ There isn’t any such.” The denial is doctrine, not observation.
Clootie’s preaching is vinegar to Aurelia’s honey. “Repent, repent!” he calls, banners reading “This Day Shall Thy Soul Be Required of Thee.” He denounces fiscal outrages, aesthetic outrages, intellectual and moral outrages: “Evil people, you have become ugly in your outrages!” Aurelia concedes: “The teen-aged curmudgeon is right.” But she prefers a different emphasis: “Sure I say ‘Repent!’ But I say ‘Repent and Rejoice!’”
Where Aurelia’s followers are drawn to brightness, Clootie’s are drawn to shadow. “We also belong to an everything-goes-wrong people,” Helen Staircase tells Aurelia. “We do care for you, pretty girl, but grubby Cousin Clootie is more our kind of people. We’re full of shadows. And he is also. And you’re not.” Clootie is “the governor of hard cases . . . an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people.”
The Zero Equation
Clootie’s deepest cosmological claim is the Zero Equation, a nihilistic counter to both the Big Blow and the Law of Happiness. When scholars speculate about creation and contingency, Clootie interrupts with his own theory:
The “Zero Equation” was the only equation created at the “Big Bang” moment. It all begins at zero, and it all returns to zero. The apparent activity in between these zero times will obliterate itself. Once time begins to run backwards, extinction and “never-have-been” will appear walking hand-in-claw. They will disappear into the hole, and then it will be found that the phrase “to pull the hole in after one” is more than a metaphor.
This is anti-teleology: where Aurelia’s Law of Happiness posits a universe moving toward “Final Happiness” and the “Father of Lights,” Clootie sees a universe that will unmake itself, time reversing until existence itself is annulled. The “apparent activity” of history (all governance, all happiness, all meaning) is merely noise between two silences.
Charles Greenpasture dismisses him: “Oh, go out and play in the mud, you youngling of whatever species.” But the novel does not resolve the dispute. The competing claims remain: the universe swarmed from a horn blown by accident (Big Blow), tends toward happiness (Law of Happiness), and will collapse back into the zero from which it came (Zero Equation). These may be contradictory, or they may describe the same process from different angles, the bright surface and the ninety-nine depths.
Knowledge of Resurrection
One haunting claim sets Clootie’s people apart: “It may be that we know more about resurrections than do those who have never trafficked with the dead.” The dark companion world, precisely because it dwells in shadow and depth, has knowledge unavailable to the Shining People. This inverts the expected hierarchy: the “imitative,” “unoriginal” people of SHOK-994, despised or denied by Shining World, possess something their bright cousins lack: familiarity with death and what lies beyond it.
“All that Aurelia preaches and talks about is correct,” Clootie admits, “but there are other flocks and swine-herds that she knows not of.” His cosmology does not replace hers but supplements it: the depth beneath the surface, the shadow that proves the light.
Metaphysics of Being
Scattered throughout the novel are claims about the fundamental nature of existence: what beings are made of, how worlds respond to visitors, and the relationship between physical and moral law. These claims are not systematic philosophy but eruptions of ontological strangeness, moments when Lafferty’s cosmology breaks through the surface of the narrative.
Pointillism
“Do you know about pointillism?” asks James Forcedmarch, one of the Pan-Math or Science Boluxes who examine Aurelia. “Of course,” she replies. “Why did it take you people here so long to come to it? Why did you ever believe that there was anything else?”
Forcedmarch describes Aurelia as points of light and color that appear solid at a distance. The exchange follows his distinction between her visible electric outer skin and her material body. Pointillism gives him a language for the gap between appearance and underlying form (66–68).
Forcedmarch says that everyone can be resolved into points, but Aurelia visibly exhibits that discontinuity. Her luminous surface does not mean that she lacks flesh: he has just touched her and distinguished her material body from its electric aura.
The implications ripple outward. If the Shining People are pointillist, what of their world? When asked about the “landscapes of ‘Shining World’” (“Are they well-defined, or are they pointillistic?”) Aurelia cannot easily answer. She warns her Earth interviewers: “You’d miss most of the landscapes anyhow. Your sense of smell isn’t sharp enough.” Perception itself differs between the worlds; what counts as solid, continuous, or real is not universal but local.
World Sickness
Strange world sickness kills roughly one in seven students taking the World Government Course. Aldous Spencer-Trencher explains Aurelia’s condition through the analogy of a lion killing a roebuck: the environment’s destructive response is itself the sickness (158, 164).
For visitors like Aurelia, “it might be called a ‘world sickness,’ for you really do not belong to this world and you cannot live here more than seven days, the period of the infection. This world is that very large microbe, the lion, that slays you.” The planet itself is the pathogen, or rather, the visitor is the pathogen and the planet the immune system rejecting it.
The mechanism is allergic: “An allergy is set up between you and this local or narrow human race. It rejects you out of its blood stream. Either you must die of the contact, or the local race must. It is simpler for you, having fewer moving parts than the aggregate of the local race, to die.”
Doctor Thorgrimsson’s analysis pushes this further: “This world responded to the children by classifying them anaphylaxically as ‘intruders’ and by secreting a murderous toxin against them as ‘intruders.’ The response is so complex as almost to go beyond the province of the medical. This is at the same time a physical, a chemical, a medical, a sociological, and cosmological response-problem.”
He frames the question provocatively: “whether a mucous membrane is responsible for its reaction against an alien pollen or irritant. Yes, as a matter of fact, it should be held responsible.” The world-as-membrane can be taught to modify its responses; “the murder-response is entirely out of order and will not be tolerated.” But his comments appear in the paper the morning after Aurelia’s death, too late to save her, a prescription for the next visit “from the sky.”
This account makes the visitor’s relation to the world a bodily as well as a political encounter. Aurelia’s seven-day visit culminates in the three-day walking journey, during which the surrounding world’s hostility becomes a fever she experiences outside her own body.
The Interconnection of Laws
Aurelia’s most systematic metaphysical claim concerns the unity of all law. “There aren’t any things that are beyond or above the law, not any things that are too casual or too flitting to be included under the law.” Even the seemingly random obeys: “Can you name a thing that obeys as many laws as does a sunbeam? And yet a beam is thought of as somehow random.”
The argument builds through natural examples: “A waterfall obeys a most complex network of laws, all sorts of resolutions of forces, and potentials and momentums and angular velocities, and vapor point and dew point, and multi-surface tension, and the whole catalog of Properties-of-liquids and resonance.” Physical law is not constraint but choreography; the waterfall dances according to countless rules simultaneously.
Then the ontological punch: “If it breaks even one corollary of one law, not only does it come apart, but the whole world comes apart a little bit also. So is it with any broken law.”
This is not metaphor. “Physical and moral and civil laws are all mere aspects of the universal Law of Happiness. There was one law given at the physical beginning of the universe, at the ‘big-bang’ moment—the Law ‘Be Happy!’ And the universe has been following that law ever since then, with a few local exceptions.”
The claim unifies ontology, ethics, and politics: “Pure matter obeys this law. Atoms and galaxies obey this law. Pure spirits obey this law. Then why doesn’t the local cantankerous mixtures of pure matter and pure spirit obey the law just as unwaveringly? Why don’t people obey it always? What’s the matter with people anyhow?”
Aurelia gives the law a spatial image: “You are not driven into a corner by this law. You are driven out of corner after corner by it.” Her homily treats physical, moral, and civil law as interrelated expressions of a single order, challenging her listeners to recognize happiness as its goal.
Cosmological Claims by Character
The novel’s cosmology emerges through competing voices rather than authorial assertion. The following table maps who claims what, allowing readers to trace the dialogic structure of Lafferty’s universe-building.
| Character | Cosmological Claim | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Prince of Nysa | Universe swarmed from a horn blown by accident (“Big Blow”) | Asserted; denied by Aurelia |
| Horns are larger inside than outside, contain multitudes | Demonstrated repeatedly | |
| He was horned millennia ago; left evil, became a Magus | Asserted; consistent with Dionysian identity | |
| Aurelia | Big Blow is “not true” | Rejected by Aurelia; compare her Law of Happiness account. |
| Shining World has no dark companion | Denied by Clootie; doctrinally suspect | |
| Physical/moral/civil laws are unified under Law of Happiness | Central teaching; from “Fat Tom” | |
| Final Happiness leads to the Father of Lights | Theological terminus; legally problematic on Earth | |
| Earth is a “spooking world” (planetary catalog designation) | Aurelia’s recollection of a catalog classification. | |
| Cousin Clootie | SHOK-994 exists as Shining World’s dark companion | Asserted; supported by Helen Staircase |
| Earth is a dark companion (not has one) | Major revelation; explains blindness to anti-world | |
| Zero Equation: all begins and returns to zero | Counter-cosmology; unresolved against Law of Happiness | |
| Ninety-nine depth layers below the bright surface | Metaphor for dark companion’s knowledge | |
| Dark people know more about resurrections | Asserted; inverts expected hierarchy | |
| Herr Boch | Earth is the only World of the Compensation | Asserted by Herr Boch; disputed by rival worlds |
| This is the sixth age of the world | Shared assumption; universal in Sinkman’s reconstruction | |
| Aldous Spencer-Trencher | World sickness is roebuck/lion: environment destroys visitor | Medical explanation; seven-day infection |
| Doctor Thorgrimsson | World is a mucous membrane secreting toxin against intruders | Expansion of immune theory; prescriptive |
| Forcedmarch | Aurelia is “done in pointillism”: small points of light | Forcedmarch’s account of her appearance |
| Helen Staircase | Names “Dark Companion SHOK-994” explicitly | Supports Clootie’s account |
| Charles Sinkman | Sixth age “may be longer than all the rest . . . or may end yet this night” | His reconstruction of Aurelia’s thought in Albert Derby’s review. |
Cross-References to Glossary
The following Glossary entries provide additional detail on cosmological terms and figures. Navigate to the Glossary and search for these terms:
- Big Blow: Origin cosmogony
- Dark Companion: Anti-world structure
- Shining World: Aurelia’s origin
- SHOK-994: Clootie’s origin
- Compensation: Incarnation/Redemption
- Father of Lights: Theological goal
- Law of Happiness: Universal law
- World Sickness: Planetary rejection
- Prince of Nysa: Reformed Dionysus
- Cousin Clootie: Dark counterpart
- Herr Boch: Antlered commissary
- Cornutus: Horned people/coven
Unresolved Tensions
Several cosmological questions remain deliberately unresolved:
- Big Blow and purposeful creation: How does the Prince’s accidental horn-blast compare with Aurelia’s originating command “Be Happy!” and Greenpasture’s cosmic-intelligence hypothesis?
- Zero Equation vs. Law of Happiness: Does the universe tend toward Final Happiness or toward extinction? The novel presents both without adjudication.
- Surface vs. Depth: Are Aurelia’s and Clootie’s missions truly complementary, or is one more fundamental? The “division of mission” may be diplomatic fiction.
- Spooking and causation: Does Earth’s “spooking” nature mean that Aurelia’s death was caused by the yo-yo, by the world’s expectation, or by both simultaneously?
- The Compensation’s scope: How does Herr Boch’s claim to a unique World of the Compensation relate to other worlds’ rival claims and to the redemption Aurelia teaches?
Shining People Technology
The Oblate Sphere Ships
Student-built spacecraft shaped like flattened spheres, balanced atop “launching needles that stabbed into the night sky.” Students perch on them “like scared crows” before departure, then “melt into” them at launch. The ships take off “smartly without unnecessary fire or fume.”
The ships are programmed with multiple layers of intelligence. They follow the student’s conscious instructions normally, their unconscious minds if unconscious, and their “death-minds” if dead. They form an “integrated space-net” with target planets, unable to escape once within range. Aurelia’s ship hovers above her throughout the novel, led “by a rope by one of the tow-truck men,” with boys in balloons ascending to converse with it.
The Monitory Chronometer
“An absolute necessity for navigation.” Without one, a student “might possibly still reach a world of the type selected,” but which specific world becomes “blindman’s guess.” The Chronometer selects “the best world to match up with the talents” of the student. Aurelia forgot to make one, despite the instructor’s explicit warning: “If any of you could possibly have forgotten to make such a thing, it would have been Aurelia.”
The Compensating Contingency Grid
Must be set “just as you feel yourself going into the grasp of the flight.” Patmo reminds Aurelia at the last moment, but she confesses: “I’ve forgotten even to make the grid.” Its exact function is unclear, but its absence contributes to her “random flight,” which is “rough”; she bleeds from nose, mouth, and ears, retches, reels, and swoons.
The Third Device
Aurelia forgot to make three important things. She has also forgotten the third instrument’s name. It remains unnamed throughout the novel, a joke on forgetting so thoroughly that even the name is lost.
Protective Shafts
The ships can project “protective shafts” that intercept attacks on their owners. Cousin Clootie’s ship “smashed the swinging grapple before it could touch” him, “diverted and bent the red-hot pike,” and “vaporized” a swinging axe. Even a point-blank .45 shot is diverted.
However, the shafts have limitations. Aurelia’s ship is “programmed to shield only you”; it won’t protect others. And there is one vulnerability: the monkey advises Marshal-Julio that Aurelia can be killed by a shot originating so low that only a worm could fire it, if she “cooperates” by bending low and blocking the ship’s line of sight with her own body. The fatal yo-yo exploits this vulnerability when it deflects off a retracting shaft.
The Monkey
The monkey is a “mechano-organo” Aurelia made herself. It shuttles between her and the hovering ship, bringing “data and assurances” and carrying messages back. It climbs an “invisible ladder” that is “very rope-like as it blew in the wind.” Marco Rixthaler notes “there’s a lot wrong with this monkey”; Aurelia made it badly, like the steed she once built without a way to steer it.
The Seven Horns
Aurelia installs seven horns so that things will get out of her way. Their discordant blast announces her crash. Later the ship’s horns sound more orderly during the second night’s joint celebration. Their comic music also invites comparison with the Prince of Nysa’s extravagant horn cosmology.
Aurelia’s Teachings
The homilies and pronouncements of the young governor
At each of the twelve “corners” of her journey, Aurelia delivers teachings, drawn, she says, from “Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds.” These range from philosophical discourses on happiness and governance to practical advice on dealing with assassins. The teachings form the theological core of the novel, presenting Lafferty’s characteristic fusion of Thomistic philosophy and cosmic whimsy. Fat Tom is never identified, but the name suggests Thomas Aquinas (nicknamed “the Dumb Ox” for his large frame and quiet manner).
The Law of Happiness
Aurelia’s central teaching is that happiness is “both the key and the goal” of existence. Every human action requires a goal, and the only true goal is happiness, not wealth, power, pleasure, well-being, or even knowledge. This happiness can “only be attained by ordered and deliberate will.” One does not buy a ticket to “It-doesn’t-matter-where.”
The teaching has a cosmic dimension: all physical laws, moral laws, and civil laws are interconnected aspects of the Law of Happiness. “Can you name a thing that obeys as many laws as does a sunbeam?” she asks. “A waterfall obeys a most complex network of laws.” When any law is broken (physical, moral, or civil) “not only does it come apart, but the whole world comes apart a little bit also.”
This is recognizably Thomistic: Aquinas argued that all beings naturally seek the good, and that ultimate happiness (beatitudo) is the vision of God. Lafferty gives this a characteristically playful spin: happiness as a cosmic law like gravity, atoms and galaxies obeying it just as humans should.
On Governance
Aurelia’s philosophy of governance is paradoxically minimal. She advocates for “freedom within wide limits,” circuit courts that must be chased down, and governmental machinery that rusts from disuse. Yet she also insists on keeping “an oil-can and a can of ‘Bust Rust’ at hand always, and also a large hammer to break rusted joints loose.”
The deeper paradox is that Aurelia herself (a governor) preaches against governance. “Over-governing causes care and canker which eat people up,” she warns. “People cannot afford to be careful or there will be time for nothing else in the world.” The only imperative is to “be good and carefree.” Her goal is to make people “govern yourselves more, so I will get by with governing you less. I am lazy in this.”
Teachings by Day and Meal
Day One
First Ientaculum: Happiness as Goal
“Cock-Crow Insight-of-the-Morning from Fat Tom the Sage”
The first formal teaching establishes the core doctrine. Aurelia introduces the distinction between internal and external “seducers” that draw us from the rational goal. The “Final Happiness” is “neither outside nor inside, but outside-and-above,” identified with “The Universal Good.” Once gained, it “can never be lost.” And it is available: though “it cannot be had by natural powers alone,” for the asking “we can be given ‘more-than-natural’ powers.”
First Prandium: Existence, Intellect, and Will
At noon, Aurelia marvels that anything exists at all, then describes the cooperation of intellect and will. She distinguishes morality from mere submission to authority and insists that ordered action need not be solemn. The circuit-court discussion belongs to the First Ientaculum (110); this homily occupies pages 115–16.
First Merenda: Passion and Action
“Third-corner-of-the-day portion of the daily insight”
A deliberately provocative teaching that plays on etymology: “passion” from Latin pati, “to suffer” or “undergo.” Aurelia acknowledges that Earth uses “passion” to mean “emotion” or “unbridled emotion”; she will “play along with that silliness” for “the hardness of your hearts.” The unbridled, she insists, is “always the unhuman.” Love alone is “a powerhouse in the pursuit of happiness, for love is a sort of premonition or paragon of final happiness.”
She concludes: “Strong passions are more easily governed than are weak passions, just as a three-foot-long steel sword can be more deftly and swordfully manipulated than can a three-foot-long piece of spaghetti.”
First Cena: Joy, Sorrow, and Responsibility
The evening homily considers the reality of final happiness amid the instability of particular passions. Aurelia distinguishes joy from pleasure, relates sorrow to evil, and accepts a share of responsibility for the world’s sorrow while she governs it (127–28). Before this teaching she and Marshal-Julio visit Clootie’s camp in disguise.
Day Two
Second Ientaculum: Happiness as Habit
“Cock-crow first-corner-of-the-day insight”
After blowing the Prince of Nysa’s horn and disgorging swarms of miniaturized creatures, Aurelia returns to the theme of rational choice. “It is better to make a rational than an irrational choice, I said, and the very mountains jumped like kids and bleated ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’” She grows impatient with her audience: “People, you are not listening to me hard enough!”
The teaching draws on Aristotelian virtue ethics: habits (hexeis) are built through repeated action, like “building of a good road through a swamp or jungle.” Jagged-flame lightning and rolling thunder are “mere habits that nature has developed.” The alternative to “outstanding habits” is “grubbiness”; the alternative to habits at all is “chaos.”
Second Prandium: The Incompleteness of Persons
After Jimmy Candor’s attack on the phrase “Father of Lights,” Aurelia’s noon homily demands precision of language. She distinguishes happiness from pleasure, ordered from organized, freedom from liberty, and authority from rule. She then describes bodily life as an incomplete arc: “There is more of each of us somewhere else” (139).
Second Merenda: Becoming Extraordinary
“Fat-Tom-Insight-of-the-Third-Corner-of-the-day”
A teaching on moral transformation. The choice between becoming “extraordinary people” and “veritable swine” is “easy”; “please do not stumble over it.” But if some fail, “the rest of us of the kindred cannot become as extraordinary as we would wish.” She adds: “There are not virtues. There is only virtue. We cannot have some of the particular virtues without having them all.”
Second Cena: Against Cheap-Shotting
A fierce denunciation of slander and hatred-mongering. Aurelia quotes a politician: “Give the people something they can really hate, and they will follow you forever, though they are shoeless and starving.” She calls on the worst “slanderers and defamers and hate-em-ails” to “cut out your tongues and cut off your ears,” and provides a barrel to collect them. About a hundred kilos are deposited, including cow and pig tongues and ears in mockery.
Day Three
Third Ientaculum: Last Dawn
The final morning homily affirms humanity’s claim to happiness while acknowledging an inherited crippling. Aurelia describes the recurring “Mystery of Iniquity” and the contrivances that induce moral stumbling. She ends by questioning the certainty that she will never hear another cockcrow (159–61).
Third Prandium: Future and Past
After a thousand kilos of Slowpoke Snails arrive for the meal, Aurelia delivers her “perhaps last noon-time” homily. The “future ploy” is “like throwing a sky-rope upward and beginning to climb it with the assurance that it will not fall back.” She attacks crowd-mentality: “Institutions are better than the people who inhabit them. . . . Crowds are worse than the people who make them up.”
The teaching ends with an image: “Be high eagles then, even as your father was a high eagle. But may not even the eagles congregate? They may, yes, in the cool of the evening sometimes, after the day’s flight is finished with.”
Third Merenda: The Unity of Law
Aurelia’s penultimate teaching addresses the nature of law itself. Physical, moral, and civil laws are not separate categories but aspects of a single lawful order. A sunbeam obeys countless laws; a waterfall obeys “resolutions of forces, and potentials and momentums and angular velocities, and vapor point and dew point.” If it breaks “even one corollary of one law, not only does it come apart, but the whole world comes apart a little bit also.”
The Third Merenda homily gives the Law of Happiness its cosmic scope. Pure matter, atoms, galaxies, and spirits obey it; Aurelia challenges human beings to do likewise (171).
Aurelia’s “easy sayings” are also “true,” and she is impatient with those who demand “something hard.” The Law of Happiness drives people “out of corner after corner”; there is nowhere to hide from it. And the “Home Free” certificate is free for the asking: “If you don’t have such a ‘Home Free’ entitlement, it is only because you didn’t hold out your hand for it.”
Third Cena: Death, Grace, and the Larger Room
The final evening homily presents death as a passage from a smaller room to a larger one. Aurelia evokes the wonders of the “Nocastian Nights” stories and insists that such abundance belongs to the real world, whose anteroom her listeners already inhabit. She expects to enter the larger room within an hour (174–75).
Cousin Clootie’s Teachings
Cousin Clootie also addresses the crowds, offering a “dark companion” perspective that complements Aurelia’s bright teachings.
Where Aurelia has a “Home Free” certificate, Clootie has “an unsigned certificate that says ‘Home, maybe, against long odds, and through a thousand perils.’” He is “the governor of hard cases,” “an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people.” He governs “even with a broken rudder.” “She does things easy. I do them hard. Now she goes out of the door unafraid, and I go out of it afraid. But we both go out of it.”
Aquinas
Aurelia’s Teachings and the Summa theologiae
Lafferty uses Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae as the bedrock of Aurelia. The novel’s philosophical architecture rests on five Thomistic pillars: final causality and beatitude, natural law, intellect and will, the unity of virtue, and the necessity of grace. Aurelia’s homilies often read as creative translations of Aquinas into narrative form, a “science-fiction Scholasticism.”
How to Use This Section
Each theme below presents Aurelia’s teachings alongside the corresponding Summa questions. Links lead to the English translation at New Advent. Page numbers refer to the Donning Company first edition (1982).
Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds
Aurelia attributes her teachings to “Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds,” a transparent alias for Thomas Aquinas. The nickname encodes several allusions:
“Fat Tom”: The familiar name and the teachings on happiness, law, virtue, and grace point toward Thomas Aquinas.
“Sage”: The title presents the source as a teacher of wisdom whose thought travels beyond Earth.
“Middle Worlds”: The phrase relocates scholastic teaching within Lafferty’s interplanetary setting. Its specific geography remains unexplained.
The alias lets the novel make scholastic ideas familiar in an unfamiliar world. The identification with Aquinas is an interpretive connection supported by the homilies’ themes.
Prologue: Existence and Contingency
At the First Prandium, after the breakfast homily on happiness, Aurelia turns to the contingency of existence:
First, to put it all into context, it is unnatural or supernatural that we should exist at all. In all reason, we should not be. The odds against it are terrifying. Nothing should be. All the evidence for us being here contradicts elementary reason. And everything that exists is such evidence. Let us never forget that existence itself is the longest shot that was ever booted home. (115–16)
Aurelia’s wonder at existence invites comparison with Aquinas’s Third Way (ST I, q. 2, a. 3). Aquinas argues from contingent beings to a necessary source of existence. His argument concerns possibility and necessity, not numerical odds; Lafferty’s gambling image dramatizes the wonder rather than reproducing the demonstration.
Read alongside the novel’s teachings on purpose, law, and grace, this passage presents existence as a gift. Its comic language gives metaphysical dependence an immediate emotional force.
Summa Reference
- ST I, q. 2, a. 3: Whether God Exists (Third Way: Contingency)
I. Final End and Beatitude
Aquinas argues that every human action aims at an end, and ultimately at a single last end: perfect happiness (beatitudo) in union with God. Nothing finite (wealth, honor, pleasure, knowledge) can satisfy; only the infinite good suffices. Aurelia proclaims this doctrine almost verbatim.
Summa References
- ST I–II, q. 1: Man’s Last End
- ST I–II, q. 2: Things in Which Happiness Consists
- ST I–II, q. 3: What Is Happiness
- ST I–II, q. 5: Attainment of Happiness
Aurelia’s Teaching and Sinkman’s Reconstruction
Charles Sinkman’s book, as quoted by Albert Derby, reconstructs Aurelia’s beliefs in words she has not yet spoken. Its formulations on happiness, law, grace, and the four-corner prayer belong to this imagined account (87–89).
Happiness is the goal of mankind . . . true happiness is the true goal of mankind. (88)
The goal is not wealth or power or pleasure or well-being or even knowledge. The goal is happiness, which is the true object of desire. (111)
Every human action must have a goal, or it will not be a human action. (111)
That we may see this universal good now only through a glass darkly is not a real objection. That is better than not seeing it at all. (111)
Once gained, it can never be lost. (111)
Parallel Analysis
| Thomistic Concept | Summa Location | Parallel in the Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Every action aims at an end | I–II, q. 1, a. 1 | Every human action must have a goal |
| Finite goods cannot satisfy | I–II, q. 2, aa. 1–8 | Not wealth or power or pleasure |
| No created good fully satisfies the will | I–II, q. 2, a. 8 | The Universal Good (111) |
| Perfect happiness is not attained in this life | I–II, q. 5, a. 3 | Through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12) |
| True beatitude cannot be lost | I–II, q. 5, a. 4 | Once gained, it can never be lost |
Aurelia’s ticket-office image contrasts “It-doesn’t-matter-where” with “It-does-matter-where.” It gives the pursuit of a definite end an everyday form.
Guide Cross-References: First Ientaculum (Object of Desire and Final Happiness), Law of Happiness
II. Law and the Order of the Cosmos
For Aquinas, reaching the final end requires law. The eternal law is God’s plan governing all creation; natural law is the rational creature’s participation in that eternal law: basic moral principles discernible by reason. Aurelia presents law not as arbitrary rules but as the necessary directions for reaching beatitude.
Summa References
- ST I–II, q. 90: The Essence of Law
- ST I–II, q. 91: Various Kinds of Law
- ST I–II, q. 93: The Eternal Law
- ST I–II, q. 94: The Natural Law
Aurelia’s Teaching and Sinkman’s Reconstruction
Law is the Road-Map of Happiness. (88)
There are barely visible lines of the law that inscribe us wherever we are. . . . No one is really ignorant of these lines. (88)
To break the lines is to break the law and to forfeit claim to happiness. (88)
Govern yourselves more, so I will get by with governing you less. (122)
Parallel Analysis
| Thomistic Concept | Summa Location | Parallel in the Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Law orders creatures to their good | I–II, q. 90, a. 1 | Law is the Road-Map of Happiness |
| Natural law imprinted on reason | I–II, q. 91, a. 2 | Lines of the law that inscribe us |
| No one wholly ignorant of primary precepts | I–II, q. 94, a. 4 | No one is really ignorant of these lines |
| Sin turns from the final end | I–II, q. 71, a. 6 | To break the lines is to break the law and to forfeit claim to happiness |
| Law cultivates virtue for self-governance | I–II, q. 95, a. 1 | Govern yourselves more |
Morality and Authority
Aurelia’s sharpest teaching on natural law distinguishes morality from mere authority, a distinction central to Aquinas’s ethics:
Most declared revolts against authority are really revolts against authenticity. It is an error to believe that we can revolt against morality by revolting against authority. Morality is no more based on authority than it is based on the color green. Morality is the directing of an act towards a natural object. Immorality is misdirecting an act. Authority is merely a device under which human affairs are more workable, and it has no necessary connection with morality. Dispute my authority at your peril though!
Aurelia’s formulation invites comparison with Aquinas’s account of moral objects. For Aquinas, an act receives its primary moral character from its object; its circumstances and intended end also matter (ST I–II, q. 18, aa. 2–4). Authority may enforce morality but does not create it. Natural law is discoverable by reason examining human acts and their objects.
Aurelia’s joke “Dispute my authority at your peril though!” leaves a tension between her moral argument and her governing power. Aquinas similarly distinguishes a law’s moral force from the mere fact that someone commands it: just human laws bind in conscience through their relation to the eternal law (ST I–II, q. 96, a. 4).
Sinkman’s imagined Aurelia belongs to “the jot-and-tittle party,” recalling Matthew 5:18. His reconstruction also gives her the prayer “Make us good. Make us happy. Keep us so,” addressed to the Father of Lights at midnight, six in the morning, noon, and six in the evening (88). Those prayer times differ from the four meals of the later walking journey.
Sinkman’s reconstruction extends the sixth age across all worlds (88). This offers a cosmic setting for the moral order Aurelia’s later homilies describe.
Guide Cross-References: Second Ientaculum (Father of Lights incident), Third Merenda (Unified Law homily), Father of Lights, Mystery of Iniquity
III. Intellect and Will
Aquinas’s anthropology gives primacy to reason: the intellect apprehends truth and the good; the will chooses based on what intellect presents. Happiness consists in an act of intellect (vision of God), with the will’s delight as consequent joy. Aurelia calls upon both faculties, illuminating minds and motivating wills.
Summa References
- ST I, q. 82, aa. 3–4: Comparison of Will and Intellect
- ST I–II, q. 6, a. 1: The Voluntary and Involuntary
- ST I–II, q. 22, a. 1: Whether Any Passion Is in the Soul
- ST I–II, q. 3, a. 4: Whether Happiness Is an Act of Intellect or Will
- ST I–II, q. 4, a. 4: Rectitude of Will Required for Happiness
- ST I–II, q. 76: Causes of Sin: Ignorance
- ST I–II, q. 77: Causes of Sin: Passion
Aurelia’s Teaching
this goal can only be attained by ordered and deliberate will. (111)
There are both internal and external seducers to draw us from the rational goal of happiness. (111)
Your words on this world are like sticks that break . . . incredibly stiff. (111)
Love . . . is the cause of almost everything we do. (122)
Parallel Analysis
| Thomistic Concept | Summa Location | Parallel in the Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Ordered will (ordinata voluntas) | I–II, q. 4, a. 4 | Ordered and deliberate will |
| Passion can distract reason and will | I–II, q. 77, aa. 1–2 | Internal and external seducers |
| Ignorance as cause of sin | I–II, q. 76, a. 1 | Repulsiveness of ignorance |
| Verbal imprecision obstructs understanding | Interpretive parallel | Stiff words blocking true concepts |
| Love as motive force | I–II, q. 28, a. 6 | Love is the cause of almost everything |
Aurelia’s insistence on “ordered and deliberate will” connects rational direction with action. Her fuller teaching on the two faculties develops that connection:
The will of itself is blind but it has aptitudes and powers. The intellect is powerless. The two of them together are able to give orderly movement, which is human movement. To the extent that we ever indulge in disorderly movement, we are not human. But “orderly” does not mean what some of you think it means, and it surely is not the same thing as “serious.” We should not be always, or ever, serious. What a wobbly word “serious” is anyhow! But we must be ordered, whether seriously or unseriously, in whatever we do. (116)
There are half-lies which deny either intellect or will to men. There are total lies which deny them both. On many worlds, today is the day of the total lie. There are many very smart people who deny both will and intellect to themselves and who swear that they get along better without them. But they are not ordered people, and so they leave off being human. To be human is to have both will and intellect. And to have them is to be a component of the Reign of Law. (116)
Aquinas describes intellect and will as moving one another in different respects: the intellect presents the good as an end, while the will directs the exercise of intellectual activity (ST I, q. 82, a. 4). Aurelia’s deliberately stark formulation emphasizes their cooperation. Her distinction between order and seriousness gives that account a comic turn.
The “total lie” that denies both faculties (determinism, behaviorism, eliminative materialism) removes the basis for human action. Aurelia names this as the characteristic error of “many worlds,” suggesting that Earth is not unique in its philosophical confusions.
Passion and the Passive
Aurelia offers a pointed correction of Earth’s vocabulary:
The passive is the opposite of the active. When a thing becomes passionate enough it will die of sensual as well as intellectual inaction. However, because there is on this world a tendency to use “passion” to mean the opposite of itself, to mean “motion” or even “emotion,” I will play along with that silliness. So when I say “passion” I will mean “emotion” or even “unbridled emotion.” It is for the hardness of your hearts that I do this. (121)
But the unbridled is always the unhuman, and it always denotes less rather than more virility. (121)
The word passion comes from Latin passio, related to pati, to suffer or undergo. Aquinas discusses passions as movements of the sensitive appetite. Aurelia’s opposition between passion and action is a provocative verbal exercise; scholastic passivity does not simply mean inactivity.
Her concession (“I will play along with that silliness”) echoes Christ’s accommodation to human weakness (“for the hardness of your hearts,” Mark 10:5). But she insists on the underlying point: the “unbridled” passion that Earth celebrates as freedom is a loss of human agency, not its fulfillment. True virility lies in the will’s governance of passion, not in passion’s overthrow of will.
The Precision of Distinctions
Aurelia repeatedly insists that Earth’s philosophical errors stem from verbal imprecision:
Please see the difference between things that sound alike, between “ordered” and “organized,” between “freedom” and “liberty,” between “authority” and “rule.” (“Rule” of itself cannot author anything. “Authority” can.) Oh, why don’t you have intuitive words and statements in the languages of this world? (139)
Your words on this world are like sticks that break and will not bend, that are incredibly stiff. Please try to correct this in your words. (111)
The demand for distinctions recalls scholastic argument, which separates senses of terms before judging a proposition. Aurelia names contrasts she wants her listeners to recognize, but she does not provide a full technical definition of each pair.
The complaint that Earth’s words are “stiff” and “break” suggests that Earthly language lacks the suppleness to track reality’s contours. Scholastic Latin, by contrast, developed precise technical vocabulary to avoid such breakage. Aurelia’s frustration is that of a philosopher forced to work with blunt instruments.
Earth’s factions who boast “We love dementia. . . . We can live together only in a brawling and violent delirium” represent the will fallen into irrational vices, chasing apparent goods that aren’t truly good, due to defect in reason or perversion of appetite.
Guide Cross-References: First Merenda (spaghetti-sword metaphor), Second Prandium (verbal precision homily), Aurelia’s Teachings
IV. Virtue and Vice
Aquinas treats virtues as dispositions that perfect human powers. Perfect moral virtues are connected through prudence, while imperfect inclinations toward particular good acts can occur separately (ST I–II, q. 65, a. 1). Aurelia’s cube analogy gives the connectedness of virtue a compact visual form.
Summa References
- ST I–II, q. 65: Connection of Virtues
- ST II–II, q. 23: Charity as Form of Virtues
- ST I–II, q. 71: Vice and Sin
- ST II–II, q. 136: Patience
Aurelia’s Teaching
There are not virtues. There is only virtue. We cannot have some of the particular virtues without having them all. To lack even one of the six particular virtues is like having a geometrical cube lacking one of its six sides. Without one of its sides, it wouldn’t be a cube at all. (149)
happiness and goodness do make a fair fit together. (134)
There can be good pleasure and evil pleasure; but there can be only good happiness. (139)
Parallel Analysis
| Thomistic Concept | Summa Location | Parallel in the Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Unity/connection of virtues | I–II, q. 65, a. 1 | There is only virtue (cube analogy) |
| Perfect moral virtues require one another | I–II, q. 65, aa. 1–2 | Cannot have some without all |
| Happiness inseparable from goodness | I–II, q. 4, a. 4; q. 5, a. 1 | Goodness and happiness fit together |
| Pleasure vs. happiness distinction | I–II, q. 2, a. 6 | Good/evil pleasure; only good happiness |
| Charity as form of virtues | II–II, q. 23, a. 8 | Love is a premonition of final happiness |
Pleasure and Happiness
Aurelia’s teaching on pleasure deserves fuller attention, as it counters the common misreading of Thomism as asceticism:
Please understand the difference between pleasure and happiness. There can be good pleasure and evil pleasure; but there can be only good happiness. Good pleasure is not less exuberant than evil pleasure. It can be much more exuberant. It can be rowdy-dow. It can be words that you don’t have at all. It need not be quiet. And bad pleasure can be of a deadly quiet sort. (139)
There is nothing worse than the tedious drudgery of disordered pleasure, but your imprecision of thought leads you to believe that deadly tedium may crop up almost anywhere. It may not. It is confined to a small area. (139)
This is not Puritanism. Aquinas held that pleasure (delectatio) naturally accompanies good action and is itself good when ordered (ST I–II, q. 34, a. 1). Pleasure’s moral character depends on its object and its agreement with reason. Exuberance alone does not make pleasure evil, and quietness does not make it good. Earth’s error, Aurelia suggests, is confusing exuberance with disorder, and assuming that restraint equals virtue.
The “tedious drudgery of disordered pleasure” describes the exhaustion of misdirected desire. Aurelia contrasts that narrow tedium with the freedom and exuberance of good pleasure.
The discrepancy between Aurelia’s “six virtues” and Earth’s “seven” (prompting her joke about needing a seven-sided figure) suggests cultural variation, but the core principle stands: virtue is integral. Her cube analogy conveys that lacking one cardinal virtue destabilizes the whole moral character.
Earth’s vice is dramatized through factions who “love to hate”: the Kill Aurelia Now League and others taking perverse delight in cruelty. Aquinas would classify this as amor perversus: the will turned from God, rationalizing sin under passion’s influence. Aurelia’s presence exposes these vices; her response is virtuous, showing fortitude (surviving deadly threats), patience, and mercy.
Guide Cross-References: Second Merenda (unity of virtue homily), Antagonist Factions, Cheap-Shotting
V. Grace and the Supernatural Destiny
For Aquinas, perfect happiness in the vision of God exceeds natural human powers. Grace heals fallen nature and raises it toward this supernatural end. Aurelia’s language of “more-than-natural” powers closely parallels this distinction.
Summa References
- ST I–II, q. 5, a. 5: Man Cannot Attain Happiness by Natural Powers
- ST I–II, q. 109: Necessity of Grace
- ST I–II, q. 110: Essence of Grace
- ST I–II, q. 114: Merit
Aurelia’s Teaching and Sinkman’s Reconstruction
Grace is the Gift of Happiness. (88)
It is said, “It cannot be had by natural powers alone.” That does not matter since, for the asking, we can be given “more-than-natural” powers. (111)
The name of it is “Present or Imperfect Happiness.” (111)
Make us good. Make us happy. Keep us so. (88)
Parallel Analysis
| Thomistic Concept | Summa Location | Parallel in the Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Beatitude requires God’s gift | I–II, q. 5, a. 5 | Grace is the Gift of Happiness |
| Natural powers insufficient | I–II, q. 5, a. 5 | Cannot be had by natural powers alone |
| Supernatural assistance (gratia) | I–II, q. 109, a. 2 | More-than-natural powers |
| Grace available through prayer | II–II, q. 83, a. 15 | For the asking |
| Imperfect happiness in this life | I–II, q. 5, a. 3 | Present or Imperfect Happiness |
“More-than-natural powers” is a plain-language expression for supernatural aid. Aurelia says such powers are available “for the asking.” Sinkman’s reconstruction develops the parallel through its imagined four-corner prayer regimen. Aquinas also treats prayer as a means of asking God for help.
Aurelia can be read as a figure of grace: her arrival brings a presence and a possibility of transformation as well as instruction. Balthasar assures Rex that she will live forever “on the other side” (152); Aurelia’s final homily imagines death as entry into a larger room (174–75).
Guide Cross-References: Third Cena (Grace/Love key), Aftermath (eternal life), Home Free Certificate, Grace / Love a-burning
Synthesis: Aurelia as Thomistic Narrative
The parallels with the Summa give a coherent framework for reading Aurelia’s teachings. Her homilies place happiness, rational action, law, virtue, and grace in close relation, while the surrounding narrative tests these ideas through contrary voices, comic failures, and the violence of her reception.
The Five Pillars in Aurelia’s Arc
| Thomistic Pillar | Novel Function | Key Moments |
|---|---|---|
| Final End | Aurelia’s mission: reorient Earth to true happiness | First Ientaculum homily; ticket-office analogy |
| Natural Law | The lines of law Earth has forgotten | Road-Map teaching; Father of Lights prayer |
| Intellect/Will | Aurelia illuminates minds, motivates wills | Confronting stiff words; spaghetti-sword |
| Virtue | The integrated goodness Earth’s factions lack | Cube analogy; defectors choosing via negativa |
| Grace | What Aurelia brings and embodies | More-than-natural powers; her survival; death/afterlife |
The result is science-fiction Scholasticism: Aquinas’s perennial questions (What is our ultimate end? How do law and virtue guide us? What must we receive from God?) asked across the stars. Lafferty’s answer, through Aurelia, is Thomistic: our final cause is Godlike happiness; moral cosmos under divine law points the way; the rational soul must choose good and foster virtue; only by grace can we attain light eternal.
The Greenpasture Dialogue: Cosmology and Divine Attributes
Beyond Aurelia’s formal homilies, the novel contains a sustained philosophical dialogue between Aurelia and Charles Greenpasture, “a speculative theologian,” on the nature of God and the universe (55–57). Greenpasture proposes a cosmological hypothesis:
Let us consider the Birth of God as instantaneous with the “Big Bang.” Consider that the physical and mathematical laws may have been different in that quasi-instant before physics and mathematics were created. Consider that opportunities may have been more open at the beginning, or just before the beginning. (56)
That intellectual giantism, that might have been called “The Mind of God” if it wanted itself to be called such, might have been the sum as well as the counterpoint of all the energy in the Universe. (57)
This is not Aquinas but engages Thomistic questions: whether God is identical to the universe (pantheism, which Aquinas rejects in ST I, q. 3, a. 8); whether omnipotence and omnibenevolence are necessarily linked; whether divine intellect could emerge from or be identified with cosmic process. Aurelia, described as “a blessed person of easy and comfortable reverence,” engages these speculations temperately.
The dialogue shows Lafferty’s range: the novel contains both Aurelia’s catechetical homilies (translating Aquinas directly) and open-ended metaphysical speculation (exploring questions Aquinas raised but did not settle identically). The Greenpasture conversation models philosophical inquiry as complementary to revealed teaching: reason exploring what faith proposes.
Summa References
- ST I, q. 3, a. 8: Whether God Enters into Composition with Other Things
- ST I, q. 25, a. 3: Whether God Is Omnipotent
Quick Reference: Summa Questions
| Topic | Summa Location | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Man’s Last End | ST I–II, q. 1 | View → |
| What Happiness Consists In | ST I–II, q. 2 | View → |
| What Is Happiness | ST I–II, q. 3 | View → |
| Attainment of Happiness | ST I–II, q. 5 | View → |
| Essence of Law | ST I–II, q. 90 | View → |
| Various Kinds of Law | ST I–II, q. 91 | View → |
| Eternal Law | ST I–II, q. 93 | View → |
| Natural Law | ST I–II, q. 94 | View → |
| Connection of Virtues | ST I–II, q. 65 | View → |
| Vice and Sin | ST I–II, q. 71 | View → |
| Causes of Sin: Ignorance | ST I–II, q. 76 | View → |
| Causes of Sin: Passion | ST I–II, q. 77 | View → |
| Necessity of Grace | ST I–II, q. 109 | View → |
| Essence of Grace | ST I–II, q. 110 | View → |
| Charity | ST II–II, q. 23 | View → |
Page Concordance
| Teaching | Page | Summa Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Existence is the longest shot | 115–16 | ST I, q. 2, a. 3 (Third Way) |
| Happiness is the goal of mankind | 88 | ST I–II, q. 1, a. 1 |
| Law is the Road-Map of Happiness | 88 | ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1 |
| Grace is the Gift of Happiness | 88 | ST I–II, q. 5, a. 5 |
| Object of Desire homily | 111 | ST I–II, q. 2, aa. 1–8 |
| Ordered and deliberate will | 111 | ST I–II, q. 4, a. 4 |
| Through a glass darkly | 111 | ST I–II, q. 5, a. 3 |
| More-than-natural powers | 111 | ST I–II, q. 109, a. 2 |
| Will is blind / intellect powerless | 116 | ST I, q. 82, aa. 3–4 |
| Total lie (denial of faculties) | 116 | ST I–II, q. 6, a. 1 |
| Passion is the passive | 121 | ST I–II, q. 22, a. 1 |
| Morality vs. authority | 116 | ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2 |
| Govern yourselves more | 122 | ST I–II, q. 95, a. 1 |
| Love is the cause | 122 | ST I–II, q. 28, a. 6 |
| Cube analogy (unity of virtue) | 149 | ST I–II, q. 65, a. 1 |
| Goodness and happiness fit | 134 | ST I–II, q. 4, a. 4 |
| Good pleasure / evil pleasure | 139 | ST I–II, q. 34, a. 1 |
| Ordered vs. organized distinctions | 139 | General framework (scholastic method) |
| Greenpasture cosmological dialogue | 55–57 | ST I, q. 3, a. 8; q. 25, a. 3 |
Glossary
Terminology, neologisms, and allusions
Categories: SP Shining People · NE Name Etymology · ET Earth Terms · CA Classical · RA Religious · PM Publications · LR Literary · RM Roman Meals · LN Neologism
A
- Adrian NE
- Latin Hadrianus, “from Hadria.” One of Aurelia’s six fellow students at departure. His ship is heavily laden for an important, distant flight (7). See also: Seven Students.
- Adrian Alte-Jung NE
- The literary psychologist who writes Aurelia as Little Eva and Goldilocks: A Study of the Golden Doll Archetype. Albert Derby criticizes his fragmentary archetypal theories and hostility to the golden-doll figure (85–86). The surname plays on old and young and recalls C. G. Jung. See also: Books about Aurelia.
- Aerated Flesh SP
- Aurelia’s flesh contains air, and her bones are hollow. These observations appear in Cipher’s study of her physiology, which also describes her control of body temperature and her electric outer skin (92–93). See also: Bird Bones, Electric Skin, Cipher.
- Agrionia CA
- Greek: a festival of Dionysus celebrated at Orchomenus, involving ritual pursuit of women. Among the ancient festivals the Prince of Nysa grafts onto Aurelia’s cavalcade: “They had old elements of the Agrionia, of the Dionysia, of the Lenaea or new-wine feast, of the Anthesteria or flower festival.” The Agrionia commemorated the daughters of Minyas, who were driven mad for refusing to worship Dionysus. → See also: Dionysia, Lenaea, Anthesteria, Prince of Nysa
- Ailanthus Tree ET
- Ailanthus altissima, commonly called tree of heaven. On the final night, a woman gives Aurelia seeds to swallow so that a tree will grow from her body. A year after her burial, the tree appears. Its smell and beauty recall Aurelia, but the people have forgotten her (178, 182). See also: Words on Water, Antlers.
- Albert Derby NE
- The reviewer whose survey of ten books about Aurelia appears in the Morning Review on her third morning on the world. His review occupies pages 81–98, before the three-day walking journey begins. See also: Books about Aurelia, Morning Review.
- Aldous Spencer-Trencher NE
- The philosopher who brings Aurelia a bowl of Slowpoke Snails at the Third Ientaculum. He explains her seven-day sickness as the local world’s destructive response to an alien visitor (158). His name suggests Aldous Huxley and Herbert Spencer; a trencher is a plate or serving board. See also: Strange World Sickness, Doctor Thorgrimsson, Slowpoke Snails.
- Ambrosia / Honey Wine CA
- Greek ambrosia, the food of the gods. The Prince of Nysa identifies the mulsum served at the First Prandium as wine made with the special honey once used in ambrosia. He initially refuses it to Clootie’s unroyal camp; Aurelia commands him to send a jug (115). See also: Mulsum, Olympians, Prince of Nysa.
- Anthesteria CA
- Greek: the “flower festival” celebrating Dionysus in Athens during the month Anthesterion (February-March). Among the ancient festivals grafted onto Aurelia’s cavalcade. The Anthesteria celebrated the opening of new wine and included rituals for the dead, appropriate for a visit that will end in death. → See also: Agrionia, Dionysia, Lenaea
- Anti-world SP
- A companion planet on the opposite side of a world’s orbit. The novel describes such worlds as difficult for their own counterparts to see. Clootie claims to come from Shining World’s dark companion and later calls the visited world itself an anti-earth (53–54, 147). See also: Dark Companion, Cousin Clootie.
- Antikenladen ET
- German, “antiques shop.” Herr Boch’s expensive antique business. During the Second Ientaculum, a double handful of artifacts brought down by Aurelia’s monkey expands into enough merchandise to fill six pavilions (102, 133). See also: Herr Boch, Monkey.
- Antlers SP
- Herr Boch’s returning growths turn out to be antlers, which Aurelia distinguishes from horns associated with evil. They signify unusual intellectual achievement. He had suppressed the growths with Blue Caustic. On the final night they fall off; Aurelia swallows them, and branched antlers later grow at her burial place (130–31, 179–80, 182). See also: Herr Boch, Blue Caustic, Ailanthus Tree.
- Aphthonica SP
- Greek aphthonos: “without envy, abundant.” Called “World Abounding,” one of the seventy-six planets approved for Aurelia’s World Government assignment. Characterized by “an impudent artiness.” The name suggests excessive plenty that has curdled into artistic pretension. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- April Fool ET
- The Kansas City Star places the arrival just after midnight on April Fool’s Day and treats it as a recurring visitation hoax. Its account also reports an escaped convict found dead at the landing site (39–40). See also: Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor.
- Ariadne CA
- Greek mythology: daughter of King Minos, helped Theseus escape the labyrinth. One of the Prince of Nysa’s past lovers. He boasts: “Ariadne was already dead before I first had her. It was a good, but creepy, relationship that we had.” This allusion connects the Prince to Dionysus, who in myth married Ariadne after Theseus abandoned her, and in some versions, after her death. The Prince’s necrophilic confession marks him as genuinely ancient and morally compromised, even as he serves Aurelia. → See also: Prince of Nysa, Carya, Leucippe
- Arthur Airim NE
- Author of The Mathematics of the Aurelian Curve, reviewed by Albert Derby. His analytical geometry purports to read character and fate, and his account emphasizes the sudden termination of Aurelia’s curve (90–91). See also: Books about Aurelia.
- Athanatos Bark ET
- Greek athanatos, “deathless.” A substance Herr Boch sells for thirty thousand dollars an ounce. The Prince of Nysa has used it for centuries; it also sustains a fragment of Uncle Silas. Aurelia declines it after hearing about the tedium and painful contradictions of a life prolonged beyond its proper end (161–62). See also: Prince of Nysa, Uncle Silas.
- Audry NE
- One of Aurelia’s six fellow students from Shining World. She “took flight” before Aurelia during Kickoff Night. The name is a variant of Audrey, from Old English æðelþryð meaning “noble strength.” → See also: Seven Students
- Aunt Caladium ET
- Caladium: a tropical plant with colorful leaves. One of Aurelia’s disguises. “Aurelia slipped, in an Aunt Caladium disguise, back into the luxury cabin, and then she left off the disguise and was herself.” The botanical name suggests decorative camouflage: bright leaves hiding her true identity. → See also: Roxie, Potlatch
- Aurelia NE
- A feminine Latin name associated with aureus, “golden.” A fourteen-year-old student from Shining World. Her week on the visited world culminates in a three-day walking ministry organized around twelve meals. Beloved but technically forgetful, she preaches happiness and dies alongside Cousin Clootie. See also: Shining People, World Government Course.
- Aurelian NE
- Adjective form of Aurelia, used in book titles: Machiavelli and the Aurelian Ethos, The Mathematics of the Aurelian Curve, The Aurelian Revival. Also references Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, Roman Emperor AD 270–75, who restored the empire after crisis, suggesting Aurelia’s role as restorer. → See also: Books About Aurelia
B
- Bad Music League ET
- An organization that publishes Is Aurelia Saint Cecelia?, a book arguing she is the patron saint of music incarnate. “The Bad Music League is not a tongue-in-cheek group. It is a genuine tongue-in-the-bugle-mouthpiece organization.” They appreciate Aurelia’s discordant horn music, which others find cacophonous. → See also: Saint Cecelia, Books About Aurelia
- Balthasar Doppiocroce NE
- The surname suggests Italian doppia croce, “double cross.” A magus who joins Rex Golightly beside the river during the Second Cena. As a young prince, he projected a butterfly ego-fragment and was fined for apparently eating it. He inherited the throne the next morning and pardoned his own debt (151–53). See also: Magi, Ego-Fragment Projection, Rex Golightly.
- Bandicoot SP
- One of the seventy-six planets approved for Aurelia’s World Government assignment. Uncle Silas claims to have served in “the second invasion of Bandicoot.” Characterized by “a wildness that is worse than horror.” A bandicoot is a small marsupial; the mundane animal name deflates cosmic grandeur. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets, Uncle Silas
- Basso-parlante SP
- Italian: “speaking bass.” Rex’s voice type: a deep, resonant speaking voice. Distinguished from singing voice; suggests operatic classification applied to everyday speech. The Shining People have developed specialized voice registers for their “operatic-conversevole” mode of discourse. → See also: Contralto, Operatic-conversevole
- Bearded Like a Pard LR
- An allusion to the soldier in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, act 2, scene 7. A pard is a leopard. The phrase describes Uncle Simon, also called Silas, on Aurelia’s first morning at Potlatch (43). See also: Uncle Silas.
- Big Bang RA
- The cosmological origin point that Aurelia connects to the Law of Happiness. Charles Greenpasture asks: “Was the ‘Big Bang’ the birth of both God and the Universe?” Aurelia’s teaching holds that “There was one law given at the physical beginning of the universe, at the ‘big-bang’ moment—the Law ‘Be Happy!’” → See also: Law of Happiness, Charles Greenpasture
- Big Blow RA
- The Prince of Nysa’s cosmology: “The whole universe swarmed out of a horn that was blown quite by accident. Astronomers know it as the ‘Big Blow.’” A parody of Big Bang cosmology merged with horn-of-plenty mythology. Aurelia denies this account. → See also: Prince of Nysa, Horn
- Bird Bones SP
- Cipher’s study reports that Aurelia’s bones are hollow and full of air, as observed through a Jefferson’s Fluoroscope (92). The report ultimately identifies her with the broad human race despite physiological differences. See also: Aerated Flesh, Jefferson’s Fluoroscope, Cipher.
- Black Tarsier Mechanism SP
- Cousin Clootie’s mechanical servant, the dark counterpart to Aurelia’s monkey. “Cousin Clootie had a black tarsier-like mechanism with bright eyes that went up to his ship and back on errands. It didn’t fool around and it didn’t pull monkey-shines.” A tarsier is a nocturnal primate with enormous eyes; Clootie’s version is mechanical, efficient, and humorless, unlike Aurelia’s playful monkey that “steals” artifacts and pulls pranks. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Monkey
- Blaise Genet NE
- French: Blaise (from Latin Blasius, “lisping”); Genet (a small carnivore, or French for “broom plant”). A young man on the River Boat who wins a game of brag against Karl Talion, claiming four quarts of blood. He is “made nervous by the constant knocking at doors and windows,” a man of uncertain identity. His surname may also allude to Jean Genet, French author of transgressive literature. → See also: Brag, River Boat, Karl Talion
- Blue Caustic ET
- A powder “used on cattle after they are dehorned. It prevents new growth of core-matter.” Herr Boch used it for years to suppress his horn growth but stops during Aurelia’s peripateticus, allowing antlers to sprout. The substance connects animal husbandry to human transformation. → See also: Antlers, Herr Boch, Horned People
- Bolide ET
- Greek bolis: “missile,” from ballein “to throw.” A bright meteor or fireball. Aurelia is repeatedly called a “bolide” in the newspapers, both a celestial phenomenon and something thrown at Earth. The Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor warns of “contagious bolides that have struck our world.” Aurelia herself announces: “I’m a bolide.” The ballad-makers ultimately sing “She was a Bolide” with horn accompaniment as she dies, reducing her cosmic significance to astronomical trivia. → See also: Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor, Worm with the Pistol
- Books about Aurelia PM
- Ten books reviewed by Albert Derby on Aurelia’s third morning, before the walking journey (81–98):
- Aurelia Is from Iowa: The Waterloo Revelations, by Hawk-Eye the Reporter.
- Is Aurelia Saint Cecelia?, by the Board of Presidents of the Bad Music League.
- Aurelia as Little Eva and Goldilocks: A Study of the Golden Doll Archetype, by Adrian Alte-Jung.
- How Well Does She Govern? The Crux of the Matter, by Charles Sinkman.
- Machiavelli and the Aurelian Ethos, by Kirol Grabman.
- The Mathematics of the Aurelian Curve, by Arthur Airim.
- All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Underworld and Floating-World Connections of Aurelia, by Jimmy Candor.
- How Human Is Aurelia? Bird Bones and Basal Metabolism, by Cipher.
- Will It Ever Be Fun Again? The Aurelian Revival, by the Board of Governors of Romp Publications.
- How Square Must We Be? The Implications of Acceptance and Humility, by the Free Spirit Daily.
- Brag ET
- A card game played on the River Boat with blood as stakes. “The card game they were playing was ‘brag,’ and a man named Blaise Genet had been winning the hand.” Brag is a real British card game similar to poker, involving bluffing. The blood-stakes transform social gaming into ritual sacrifice. → See also: River Boat, Blaise Genet, Karl Talion
- Bust Rust LN
- The rust-removing product in Aurelia’s account of minimal government. Governmental machinery may grow rusty through disuse, but an oilcan, Bust Rust, and a hammer should remain available when action is needed (110). See also: Circuit-Court.
C
- Carya CA
- One of the Prince of Nysa’s former lovers, remembered as turning into a walnut tree: “Carya, she was always turning into a walnut tree, and indeed she had a walnut tree in her lineage. Talk about a woman with wooden responses!” The recollection reinforces the Prince’s association with Dionysus (102). → See also: Prince of Nysa, Ariadne, Leucippe
- Cavalcade ET
- Italian cavalcata: a procession on horseback. Aurelia’s traveling court, combining elements of Roman triumph, Dionysian procession, and medieval progress. “It was a parade. It doesn’t take much to start a parade.” The cavalcade includes five thousand persons, musicians with discordant horns, Long-Horn cattle, and participants in ancient festival costumes. → See also: Peripateticus, Dionysia
- Cena RM
- Latin, the principal Roman meal. The fourth meal of each day in Aurelia’s walking journey. At the Third Cena she speaks about death as passage into a larger room and grace as the key to that passage (174–75). Her cosmic Law of Happiness homily belongs to the preceding Third Merenda. See also: Ientaculum, Prandium, Merenda.
- Charles Greenpasture NE
- A speculative theologian who asks Aurelia about God’s relation to the universe, divine goodness and power, and the Big Bang. Clootie interrupts with his Zero Equation. Aurelia challenges Greenpasture’s bilateral model and proposes a billion-lateral one (55–57). The name recalls the green pastures of Psalm 23. See also: Big Bang, Zero Equation.
- Charles Sinkman NE
- Author of How Well Does She Govern? The Crux of the Matter. He gives Aurelia thirteen points out of a hundred, against an average of eight for the governments he surveys. His book reconstructs beliefs he thinks she would express, including the road-map, gift-of-happiness, and four-corner-prayer formulations (86–90). See also: Books about Aurelia, Law of Happiness.
- Cheap-Shotting LN
- Aurelia calls this “the besetting offense of this world” in her Second Cena homily. She attacks slander, defamation, and the sale of hatred as pleasure, then demands the tongues and ears of the worst offenders. The resulting barrel includes animal parts supplied in mockery (153–55). See also: Hate-Em-Ails, Jimmy Candor.
- Children of the Penumbra SP
- Failed Shining World students who “do not come back, and yet live somewhere for many years. They form a sort of penumbra that is always partisan to the golden world. If you cannot be true ‘Children of Light,’ perhaps the next best is that you should be ‘Children of the Penumbra.’” The penumbra is the partial shadow zone around an eclipse; these are beings of partial illumination. → See also: Golden People, Strange World Sickness
- Chthonic Movement ET
- Greek chthonios, “of the earth.” The supposed inexorable process invoked by a spectator to excuse the children’s impending deaths. He calls them accidents and says experts are present to study them (178). The phrase shifts responsibility from human actors to an allegedly unstoppable force. See also: Strange World Sickness.
- Cipher NE
- The pseudonymous author of How Human Is Aurelia? Bird Bones and Basal Metabolism. The study describes her bones, aerated flesh, electric aura, and variable temperature. It also reports variation in recordings of her speech (92–94). See also: Books about Aurelia, Electric Skin.
- Circuit-Court ET
- One of the many names for Aurelia’s traveling governance: “a circuit-court, an ambling assize.” The term evokes both American frontier justice (judges riding circuit) and electrical circuits: governance as current flowing through the land. → See also: Peripateticus, Cavalcade
- Citizens’ Execution League ET
- An assassination group distinct from the Kill Aurelia Now League. Its members make speeches and attempt to kill Clootie, including with a point-blank .45 shot, but his ship intercepts the attacks. Jimmy Candor earlier threatens a “Citizens’ Execution” in his press campaign (136, 172, 180). See also: Forbidden Phrase Law, Jimmy Candor.
- Cock-Crow LN
- The morning signal for Ientaculum. The Prince of Nysa threatens a reluctant rooster into crowing: “The terrified cock crew for the early Ientaculum breakfast.” The cock-crow connects to Peter’s denial of Christ and signals the boundary between night and day, sleep and waking. → See also: Ientaculum, Prince of Nysa
- Cogency Scan SP
- A diagnostic Aurelia proposes comparing with Marco’s when he worries that they are different kinds of people. He does not know what it is. She next asks him to count his chromosomes (137). See also: Marco Rixthaler, Shining People.
- Compensating Contingency Grid SP
- A navigational device Aurelia forgets to construct. Patmo reminds her to set it at departure, prompting her confession that she never made it. It is one of three omitted instruments, alongside the Monitory Chronometer and an unnamed third device (7, 9). See also: Monitory Chronometer, Kickoff Night.
- Compensation, The RA
- The completed event whose unique world Herr Boch claims this is. Aurelia counters that several other worlds claim the same status. In the novel’s Christian framework, it suggests the Incarnation and redemption (131). See also: World of the Compensation, Rome.
- Constancy, Law of Planetary SP
- A doctrine holding “that all planets are approximately equal in their potential, all of them from ‘Shining World’ to Skokumchuck. It states that the people on the grubby worlds are just as smart as those on the bright worlds, though sometimes they have poor ways of showing it.” The law challenges Shining World superiority while excusing earthly failures. → See also: Grubby, Shining World
- Constructive Defamation LN
- One of Jimmy Candor’s oxymoronic phrases, along with “dynamic apathy,” “creative loitering,” “dark-sides advocacy,” “precursor reporting,” “macho cookery,” and “compassionate hatred.” The terms expose his bad faith through self-contradiction. → See also: Jimmy Candor, Cheap-Shotting
- Contralto SP
- Italian: the lowest female singing voice. Lavender’s voice type: she speaks “in her easy contralto.” Applied here to speaking voice rather than singing, part of the Shining People’s operatic-conversevole discourse. → See also: Basso-parlante, Operatic-conversevole
- Cornutus Covens ET
- Latin cornutus: “horned.” The ritual circles of the Horned People. “The ‘horned people’ of a coven or cornutus encircle a victim and then they close in. There are horrid screams. Then the ‘horned people’ draw back again, and the victim is dead in the middle of their old stamped and trampled circle.” → See also: Horned People, Blue Caustic
- Corporate Communion RA
- Cousin Clootie’s teaching on the purpose of money: “Don’t you people know what money is for? It is for the corporate communion of all the people in the world. . . . There is no absolute or personal ownership of money, not ever. Money is like office. It may be occupied and administered, but it may not be owned.” Misuse of money is “gluttony or obesity”: “Taking into oneself more money than one needs is as bad as taking into oneself more food than one needs. Corporations of persons demanding more money than they need are corporations of persons demanding damnation for themselves and deprivation for others.” The term “corporate communion” connects economic justice to eucharistic theology. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Division of Mission
- Counter-action SP
- A Shining People defensive technique. When three men try to throw Aurelia off the River Boat, “Aurelia took quick reprisal and counteraction, and Helen was also involved. One of the men himself went into the churning water and was drowned. One of them lay on the deck in a broken posture.” → See also: Instrumental Knot
- Cousin Clootie NE
- Auld Clootie is a Scots name for the Devil, associated with the cloven hoof. Aurelia’s dark counterpart and fellow governor, fifteen years old to her fourteen. He claims to come from Shining World’s dark companion and serves people she overlooks. Both die when a deflected yin-yang dart lodges in him and then strikes Aurelia as she bends over him (147, 173–74, 180–82). See also: Dark Companion, Division of Mission.
- Cube of Virtues RA
- Aurelia’s analogy for the unity of virtue: “There are not virtues. There is only virtue. We cannot have some of the particular virtues without having them all. To lack even one of the six particular virtues is like having a geometrical cube lacking one of its six sides. Without one of its sides, it wouldn’t be a cube at all.” When told Earth counts seven virtues, she exclaims: “Aw blacksnake blood! How am I going to come up with a regular seven-sided figure to use for analogy?” The cube image derives from Aquinas’s teaching on the unity of the cardinal virtues (ST I–II, q. 65). → See also: Aquinas, Law of Happiness
D
- Dark Antagonist SP
- A term for Cousin Clootie in his adversarial aspect, opposing Aurelia while serving a parallel governing function. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Dark Counterpart
- Dark Companion SP
- A shadow planet paired with a bright primary on the opposite side of a shared orbit. Clootie says he comes from Shining World’s dark companion; Helen calls it SHOK-994. He also says the visited world is itself a dark companion whose people cannot perceive their bright primary (53–54, 143, 147). See also: Anti-world, Dark Companion SHOK-994.
- Dark Companion SHOK-994 SP
- Clootie’s claimed world of origin. “Cousin Clootie is from ‘Dark Companion SHOK-994’ where everything goes wrong.” The catalog-style name (astronomical notation) gives scientific credibility to the shadow-world concept. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Dark Companion
- Dark Counterpart SP
- The formal designation for Cousin Clootie’s relationship to Aurelia. Every bright governor may have a dark counterpart; the pairing suggests Manichean cosmology. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Anti-world
- Daytime Constellations SP
- Constellations appear by daylight during Aurelia’s cavalcade. Later the narrator contrasts their visibility above her camp with their absence above Clootie’s, although the two camps are only half a mile apart (108, 148). See also: Cavalcade, Cousin Clootie.
- Death-banter ET
- The mixture of joking and mortal stakes in the River Boat’s game of brag. The narrator observes that nobody wants to waste a life every night, though the game contains much death-banter (27). See also: Brag, River Boat.
- Death-mind SP
- The final stage of a Shining People ship’s guidance. Ships follow pilots’ conscious minds, then unconscious minds, then “death-minds” if dead, serving even posthumously. → See also: Oblate Sphere
- Dionysia (Greater and Lesser) CA
- Greek: festivals honoring Dionysus. The Greater (March) featured dramatic competitions; the Lesser (December) was rural. “At nightfall would come something very like the Greater Dionysia.” → See also: Agrionia, Lenaea, Anthesteria, Prince of Nysa
- Division of Mission RA
- Clootie’s phrase for his complementary work with Aurelia. She sees higher; he sees lower. He retrieves people and needs she overlooks in the mud, and both acknowledge his harder ministry of repentance (173–74). See also: Cousin Clootie, Governor of Hard Cases.
- Dobson City Telegraph PM
- A newspaper covering Aurelia’s arrival. → See also: Dobson’s World
- Dobson’s World SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. Characterized by “an insulting elegance.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Doctor Thorgrimsson NE
- Old Norse Þórgrímr: “Thor’s mask.” Medical commentator who writes in Wide Awake, the Morning Medical Journal: “The best thing about this curious encounter is that we may be able to learn something from it.” His measured scientific tone contrasts with the hysteria elsewhere. → See also: Wide Awake
- Donkey-Counterpart World SP
- Clootie’s revelation about Earth’s cosmic status: “This world does not have a ‘dark companion’ because this world is a ‘dark companion.’ You are standing on an anti-earth and denying that there is an anti-earth. . . . It is the donkey-counterpart world of a horse world, it is the goat world to a sheep world, it is a left-handed world to a right-handed world.” The animal pairings (donkey/horse, goat/sheep) invoke biblical distinctions between the blessed and cursed, the chosen and rejected. Earth’s grubby inhabitants resist this diagnosis. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Dark Companion, Anti-world
E
- Ego-Fragment Projection SP
- Advanced illusionism technique. Rex projects a fish (“the fluvial and oceanic components of himself”) to write Aurelia’s name on water. Balthasar once projected a butterfly. The skill is “not easy”; Balthasar recognizes Rex’s mastery. The projection can be reabsorbed (“eating” it). → See also: Rex Golightly, Balthasar Doppiocroce
- El-Allah-God RA
- Rex’s compound name for God in his attempt to save Aurelia through a riddle: “There is no fate, Bait,” Rex says. “There is only El-Allah-God. An esoteric passage that I read lately maintains that God has a secret love for riddles and catch-phrases” (152). → See also: Rex Golightly, Words on Water
- Electric Skin SP
- A Shining People physical characteristic. People try to determine “what the ‘electric feel’ of her was.” Her surface carries a charge. → See also: Aerated Flesh, Bird Bones
- Erigone CA
- The Prince of Nysa names Erigone among his past lovers and identifies her with a planet of the Lesser Dog Star (102). The name also belongs to the daughter of Icarius in Greek mythology, linking the Prince’s reminiscence to Dionysian stories. See also: Prince of Nysa, Leucippe, Ariadne.
- Eva, Little LR
- Reference to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One book is titled Aurelia as Little Eva and Goldilocks. Little Eva is an angelic child who dies young, like Aurelia. → See also: Books About Aurelia
F
- Fat Tom the Sage of the Middle Worlds RA
- Aurelia’s named source for her daily insights. The nickname and the teachings on happiness, law, virtue, and grace point toward Thomas Aquinas. The novel relocates this scholastic teaching within its interplanetary setting. See also: Law of Happiness, Final Happiness.
- Father of Lights RA
- The biblical title for God in James 1:17. It appears in Sinkman’s imagined four-corner prayer and in Aurelia’s Second Ientaculum homily. Jimmy Candor uses her utterance as grounds for demanding legal action and threatening execution (88, 135–36). See also: Forbidden Phrase Law, Charles Sinkman.
- Fawney Men ET
- Thieves’ cant: sellers of fake jewelry. Merchants selling dubious goods to Aurelia’s cavalcade. She buys a Hyperborean watch that later marks her death-hour. → See also: Hyperborean
- Fear and Trembling LR
- Allusion to Kierkegaard and Philippians 2:12. Cousin Clootie declares: “I am an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people,” contrasting with Aurelia’s assured salvation. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Home Free Certificate
- Final Happiness RA
- The ultimate goal in Aurelia’s teachings, distinguished from passing pleasure and present, imperfect happiness. She names its object the Universal Good and connects it with the Father of Lights (111, 135). See also: Law of Happiness, Father of Lights, Universal Good.
- Fire-blackened Iron Face NE
- Cousin Clootie’s defining physical characteristic. “His was a fire-blackened iron face,” and “the veins of his temples throbbed and crawled as if black lightning were flickering about him, but he showed no emotion.” The image combines industrial forge-work with volcanic darkness, a face hardened by suffering and perhaps by proximity to hellfire. Despite this menacing appearance, “there was nothing at all that anyone could say against him, and he had given them no grounds for suspicion.” → See also: Cousin Clootie, Black Tarsier Mechanism
- Floating World ET
- The River Boat’s society of gamblers, impostors, and shifting identities. Helen invites Aurelia into this floating world, whose inhabitants claim extraterritoriality and sometimes survive or undo their deaths (24, 33–34). The phrase recalls Japanese ukiyo, the world of transient pleasures. See also: River Boat, Helen Staircase.
- Flying Stogies ET
- A comic term for cigar-shaped flying objects and the visitation myths associated with them. Newspapers place Aurelia in the “Flying Stogie” category (39, 41). See also: Bolide, Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor.
- Forbidden Phrase Law ET
- The proposed H.R. 752,996,669, invoked by Jimmy Candor against the phrase “Father of Lights.” He also cites H.R. 752,996,670, the Freedom from Harassment Law. Neither has been finally enacted; both occupy the novel’s absurd deferred category of enforcement if possible (136). See also: Jimmy Candor, Father of Lights.
- Forcedmarch, James NE
- The “Pan-Math and Science Boluxus” who meets with Aurelia. His surname suggests military urgency toward knowledge. → See also: Pan-Math and Science Boluxus
- Four Corners of the Day SP
- The four Roman meals structuring Aurelia’s governance: Ientaculum, Prandium, Merenda, Cena. Each “corner” marks a teaching occasion. → See also: Ientaculum, Prandium, Merenda, Cena
- Free Spirit Daily PM
- The publication credited with How Square Must We Be? The Implications of Acceptance and Humility, the tenth book in Albert Derby’s review (82, 97–98). See also: Books about Aurelia.
G
- Gaea SP
- Greek: Earth, the primordial goddess. One of the seventy-six planets, “called Telluris or the Earth by its natives.” Characterized by “grossness.” The joke is that Aurelia has landed on Earth itself. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets, World of the Compensation
- Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter NE
- Dutch: “great landowner.” One of the three Magi serving Aurelia. His name suggests landed wealth. → See also: Magi, Balthasar Doppiocroce, Melchior Rixthaler
- Gelotopolia SP
- Greek gelos + polis: “City of Laughter.” One of the seventy-six planets, characterized by “juvenile clownishness.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- George Clavicle NE
- “Forensic Reporter with World International Press.” His name (clavicle = collarbone) suggests anatomical precision. Questions Aurelia’s governance. → See also: World International Press
- Golden People / Golden World Cultus SP
- “Golden People” is another name used for the Shining People. The “golden world cultus” is the community or culture to which successful students are expected to return. Those who fail may remain loyal to it as Children of the Penumbra without belonging to it again (3–4, 12). → See also: Shining People, Law of Planetary Constancy
- Governor of Hard Cases RA
- Clootie’s self-designation: “I am the governor of hard cases. I am an advocate of the fear-and-trembling people.” While Aurelia governs through joy and light (“She does things easy”), Clootie governs through repentance and harsh truths (“I do them hard”). He pulls people “out of the mud” that Aurelia cannot see: the ninety-nine depth layers below the surface. The term evokes both pastoral care for difficult souls and legal jurisdiction over complex situations. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Division of Mission, Fear and Trembling
- Grabman, Kirol NE
- Author of Machiavelli and the Aurelian Ethos. His surname suggests acquisitiveness. Asks Aurelia about “raw-grab” techniques. → See also: Books About Aurelia, Raw-grab
- Grace / Love a-burning RA
- “The right key that opens the door in the wall is called on one side of it ‘Grace’ and on the other side of it ‘Love a-burning.’ It opens the door even if you use it upside down.” Aurelia’s final homily image for salvation, the key works regardless of approach. → See also: Home Free Certificate, Law of Happiness
- Groll’s Planet SP
- One of the seventy-six planets, characterized by “grossness.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Grubby / Grubbiness LN
- Lafferty’s term for moral and spiritual squalor. Cousin Clootie is “a grubby teenager.” The term extends to worlds; grubbiness is aesthetic and moral failure. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Law of Planetary Constancy
H
- Hate-Em-Ails LN
- A comic name for people who make hatred a way of life. They appear in Aurelia’s Second Cena denunciation and in the joint celebration that follows, smuggling partisanship into communal enjoyment (154–55). The coinage echoes “hate them all.” See also: Cheap-Shotting.
- Hawk-Eye the Reporter NE
- Author of Aurelia Is from Iowa: The Waterloo Revelations. The name evokes Iowa’s Hawkeye nickname. Albert Derby’s review describes the author as possibly pseudonymous and treats the documented Iowa-origin thesis as a false conclusion assembled from cultivated evidence (82–83). → See also: Iowa, Iowa Double, Books About Aurelia
- Helen Staircase NE
- One of the River Boat’s international gamblers. She explains its floating society, later joins Clootie’s camp, and finally kills Marshal-Julio in fulfillment of a card draw. She claims her name means “strong cheese” in German, a joke associated with her description as a cheesecake beauty rather than a literal translation (24, 103, 143, 182). See also: Floating World, River Boat, Marshal-Julio.
- Hellpepper Planet SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. Characterized by “outright horror.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Herr Boch NE
- An antique dealer whose returning growths prove to be antlers rather than the evil-associated horns he fears. He stops suppressing them with Blue Caustic and obtains artifacts from Aurelia’s ship. His antlers fall off on the final night; she swallows them, and they later grow at her burial place (102–3, 130–33, 179–80, 182). His name plays on German Bock, a buck or male goat. See also: Antikenladen, Antlers.
- Hokey Planet SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. “Any decent person will feel disgust for Hokey Planet.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Home Free Certificate RA
- Aurelia’s metaphor for assured salvation, developed in the Third Merenda homily. She can be killed but not ultimately hurt, and the certificate is offered for the asking. Clootie contrasts this with his unsigned certificate of uncertain arrival through many perils (171, 173). See also: Grace / Love a-burning, Cousin Clootie.
- Horned People ET
- The horned covens or cornutus practice ritual killing through encirclement. Their horns are sensed even when invisible. On the final night they understand Clootie’s shielding well enough to humiliate him without inflicting a fatal blow (172, 179). Aurelia distinguishes their horns from Herr Boch’s antlers. See also: Cornutus Covens, Antlers.
- Horner’s Corner SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. Characterized by “intolerable raunchiness.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Hound Dog Hulk SP
- A world named in the opening ballad and later explicitly ruled out by George Clavicle as Aurelia’s present location (1, 110). The song calls it “Hound-Dog Hulk.” See also: Seventy-Six Planets, Skokumchuck.
- Hyades CA
- Greek mythology: daughters of Atlas. Visible in daylight during Aurelia’s cavalcade, associated with rain. → See also: Waggoner, Virgo, Dionysia
- Hyperborean ET
- Greek, “beyond the North Wind.” Aurelia buys a Hyperborean wristwatch that runs when the north wind blows. In the sibyl’s crystal ball, a violent north wind makes the watch display the time of her predicted death after the Third Cena (113–15). See also: Fawney Men.
I
- Ientaculum RM
- Latin: Roman breakfast, from ientare (“to breakfast”). The first of four daily stops, occasion for “Cock-Crow Insights” and hearing legal cases. → See also: Prandium, Merenda, Cena, Four Corners of the Day
- Instrumental Knot SP
- Aurelia ties this painful knot in Uncle Gifford Redwing’s anatomy after his assault. A naval knot expert and a doctor cannot resolve it. The proposed solution involves pulling the whole universe through the loop; Aurelia says it can be untied when she leaves the world (46–47). See also: Uncle Gifford Redwing, Counter-action.
- Iowa ET
- An alternative earthly origin proposed for Aurelia. In Aurelia Is from Iowa: The Waterloo Revelations, Hawk-Eye the Reporter presents documents placing her birth in Waterloo, Iowa, sixteen years earlier. Albert Derby’s review calls the documents genuine but rejects the resulting thesis as false and suggests a murderous conspiracy (82–83). → See also: Hawk-Eye the Reporter, Iowa Double
- Iowa Double ET
- The “unconscious stand-in” from Waterloo whose documented existence “proves” Aurelia is not from Shining World. “She cannot now be produced because she is supposed to be Aurelia, and there cannot be two of them.” → See also: Iowa, Hawk-Eye the Reporter
J
- Jefferson’s Fluoroscope ET
- The device cited in Cipher’s study as revealing Aurelia’s hollow, air-filled bones (92). See also: Bird Bones, Cipher.
- Jimmy Candor NE
- Ironic name: “candor” means frankness, but Jimmy practices malicious distortion. Journalist attacking Aurelia through the Morning Ponder. Practices “constructive defamation” and “dynamic apathy.” → See also: Forbidden Phrase Law, Morning Ponder, Constructive Defamation
- Jot-and-Tittle Party LN
- The party to which Charles Sinkman imagines Aurelia belonging in his reconstruction of her teaching (88). The phrase alludes to Matthew 5:18 and emphasizes the smallest particulars of the law. → See also: Law of Happiness
- Julio Cordovan NE
- “The man with a thousand faces” appearing in multiple disguises. First on the River Boat, later as “Marshal Straightstreet.” His surname (Cordovan = fine leather) suggests the wearing of masks or skins. → See also: Marshal-Julio, River Boat
K
- Karl Talion NE
- Latin talio: “retaliation in kind” (lex talionis). A large man on the River Boat who loses brag to Blaise Genet, surrendering four quarts of blood. Wears “a pleasant mask that was now scarred and tired.” → See also: Brag, River Boat
- Kickoff Night SP
- The departure ceremony for World Government students. “They were having kick-off night together and giving a rousing send-off to their own adventures.” “Kick-off Nights are always nights of good weather, even if favorable weather must be borrowed.” → See also: Launching Needles, Oblate Sphere
- Kill Aurelia Now League ET
- Assassination organization that has more than ten million members worldwide within its first hour. Its members resent Aurelia’s supposed superiority and unacceptable views, but chiefly want someone to kill (61–62). → See also: Citizens’ Execution League, Horned People
- Kill Cousin Clootie Now ET
- Splinter faction with absurdly verbose full name: “Kill Cousin Clootie Now and Aurelia in Just a Minute.” Attacks Clootie on the third night but his protective shafts intercept every blow. → See also: Kill Aurelia Now League, Protective Shaft
- Kleptis SP
- Greek kleptes: “thief.” One of the seventy-six planets, “one of the Trader planets.” “The dishonesty of the inhabitants of Kleptis . . . was well known.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Kolokynthekephale SP
- Greek kolokynthe + kephale: “Pumpkin-Head World.” A legendary, possibly mythical planet. Aurelia fears she’ll end up there; she later asks if she’s landed there and is told no. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
L
- Lamos SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. The name may derive from Lamus, king of the Laestrygonians in Homer’s Odyssey, cannibalistic giants. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Land Company, Southern ET
- Example in Aurelia’s teaching about “raw-grab” corporate takeovers. She explains how to create a “Northern Land Company” as counterpoise, then use media to absorb the target. → See also: Kirol Grabman, Raw-grab
- Launching Needles SP
- Structures atop which students perch before departure. Ships are “balanced atop launching needles that stabbed into the night sky.” Students sit “like scared crows” during Kickoff Night. → See also: Kickoff Night, Oblate Sphere
- Lavender NE
- One of the seven students. Speaks in “her easy contralto” and insists: “None of us is lacking, nor can be!” The narrator notes she was mistaken. Name suggests calm, contrasting with her assertive personality. → See also: Seven Students, Contralto
- Law of Happiness SP
- Aurelia’s central teaching from Fat Tom. Happiness is “both the key and the goal” of existence. “There was one law given at the physical beginning of the universe, at the ‘big-bang’ moment—the Law ‘Be Happy!’” Recognizably Thomistic: Aquinas’s beatitudo. → See also: Fat Tom, Final Happiness, Father of Lights
- Lenaea CA
- Greek: a festival of Dionysus, the “new-wine feast.” Among the ancient festivals grafted onto Aurelia’s cavalcade. → See also: Agrionia, Anthesteria, Dionysia
- Leucippe CA
- Greek Leukippe, “white horse.” One of the Prince of Nysa’s past lovers, who, he says, turned into a screech owl. Erigone, another lover in the same reminiscence, belongs to the Lesser Dog Star Clan (102). See also: Prince of Nysa, Erigone.
- Lola NE
- George Clavicle’s wife. She objects when he writes Aurelia’s obituary prematurely: “She hasn’t gone from us.” Clavicle replies: “She will be gone soon, Lola, just as I have written it here.” Her name (diminutive of Dolores, “sorrows”) suggests grief over his callousness. → See also: George Clavicle
- Lotophage SP
- Greek lotos + phagein: “Lotus-eater.” One of the seventy-six planets. In Homer, Lotus-Eaters consume a narcotic plant causing forgetfulness. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Luxury Cabin ET
- Rex Golightly’s hundred-room “tent” called “Potlatch.” Features Spartan dining, chapel, arsenal, moat, game park. “One almost forgot that ‘Potlatch’ had been there less than a week.” → See also: Rex Golightly, Potlatch
M
- Magi, The RA
- Wealthy patrons who provide gifts and hospitality. The first is Rex Golightly; others include Melchior Rixthaler, Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter, and Balthasar Doppiocroce. The number is left variable, with an early prediction of three, six, nine, or twelve. Their gift-giving evokes Matthew 2, although that Gospel does not specify three visitors. See also: Rex Golightly, Melchior Rixthaler, Gaspar Grootgrondbezitter, Balthasar Doppiocroce.
- Marco Rixthaler NE
- Melchior Rixthaler’s son, who rides a mule that believes itself a machine and longs to learn how to make living creatures. He buys carnival tickets to kiss Aurelia and later despairs of crossing the differences between their worlds. On the final day, she tells him her objections about chromosomes and other obstacles were jokes; she had wanted a child, but his bashfulness and the little time remaining prevented their relationship (118–19, 137–38, 167–68). → See also: Melchior Rixthaler, Magi
- Marshal-Julio NE
- Composite name for Julio Cordovan appearing as “Marshal Straightstreet,” Rex Golightly’s supposed bodyguard. Aurelia recognizes him immediately. → See also: Julio Cordovan
- Mechano-organo SP
- A hybrid of mechanical and organic components. Aurelia made her monkey herself; its awkward construction reflects her uneven practical abilities (118). → See also: Monkey
- Media Extinction Arm ET
- An assassination faction that uses slow poison. The narrator names Slowpoke Snails as a dish its Jimmy Candor Cell may have poisoned (173). See also: Slowpoke Snails, Jimmy Candor.
- Melchior Rixthaler NE
- German Reichstaler: a silver coin. One of the three Magi, father of Marco Rixthaler. The coin-derived surname suggests wealth and worldly wisdom. → See also: Magi, Marco Rixthaler
- Merenda RM
- Latin: light afternoon meal, from merere (“to earn”). Third of four daily stops, between Prandium and Cena. → See also: Ientaculum, Prandium, Cena
- Michael Strogoff LR
- The blind gambler on the River Boat, seen playing solitaire with blank cards and an Aurelia-value card. He later joins Clootie’s followers. His name recalls Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff (1876), whose courier survives an attempted blinding. See also: River Boat, Floating World.
- Millennians / Millennian Sectarians ET
- Religious enthusiasts witnessing Aurelia’s crash-landing. They hail her as “Messianic Angel” and possess “Holy writ” with cabalistic marks. One asks: “Will you make all things new?” → See also: Cavalcade
- Monitory Chronometer SP
- A timing and navigation device Aurelia forgets to make. Without it she cannot know her proper launch instant or choose the planet best matched to her abilities. Her ship’s programmed network still ensures arrival at one of seventy-six suitable worlds (7–11). See also: Compensating Contingency Grid.
- Monkey, The SP
- Aurelia’s mechano-organo messenger, badly built. Runs “up and down the dangling ladder from Aurelia’s space ship to herself, bringing her data and assurances.” The invisible ladder blows in the wind. → See also: Mechano-organo, Sky-Rope
- Morning Manna RA
- Exodus 16: manna in the wilderness. Falls copiously during Day Two but is ignored, “with so much else to eat.” Only breakfast-food companies gather it for adjectives: “fruity, nutty, honey-like.” The miracle passes unnoticed. → See also: Slowpoke Snails
- Morning Perspective PM
- Newspaper where Nathanial Nutting publishes “Wolf-Children in Perspective,” comparing Aurelia’s arrival to previous media spectacles like “the Bangia Wolf-Children of last autumn.” → See also: Nathanial Nutting, Wolf-Children
- Morning Ponder PM
- Jimmy Candor’s publication, platform for his attacks on Aurelia. The title suggests contemplative journalism, ironic given his unreflective malice. → See also: Jimmy Candor, Forbidden Phrase Law
- Morning Review PM
- Publication running Albert Derby’s review of books about Aurelia. → See also: Albert Derby, Books About Aurelia
- Mulsum RM
- Latin: honey wine. Served at the First Prandium. The Prince of Nysa explains: “It’s honey wine, but of a special honey, the same as we used in ambrosia. The Olympians used it.” → See also: Prince of Nysa, Olympians
- Mystery of Iniquity RA
- The house obstructing the road in Aurelia’s Third Ientaculum homily. Opening it sends the traveler back a thousand kilometers and a thousand days to Swampy Junction. The name recalls 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (160). See also: Swampy Junction.
N
- Nathanial Nutting NE
- Journalist who writes “Wolf-Children in Perspective” for the Morning Perspective, comparing Aurelia to past media spectacles. His surname suggests either craziness (“nutty”) or gathering nuts: collecting sensation. → See also: Morning Perspective, Wolf-Children
- Nebris CA
- Greek: fawnskin worn by devotees of Dionysus. Among ritual attributes at the cavalcade: “the nebris or panther-skin, the fox skins, the she-bear skins.” → See also: Dionysia, Sabazius
- New Shansi SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. “The dishonesty of the inhabitants of Kleptis or New Shansi was well known.” The New Shansi Old Journal offers sympathetic coverage. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Nine Thousand Names of the World LR
- Essay Karl Talion is perpetually writing. Echoes Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God,” naming worlds as infinite task. → See also: Karl Talion
- Nocastian Nights LR
- The marvelous stories Aurelia invokes in her final homily, recalling The Arabian Nights. They contain flying horses, transporting carpets, talking creatures, and other wonders she identifies with the abundance of the real world. She asks what these stories are called locally (174–75). See also: Grace / Love a-burning.
- Nomad King ET
- Rex Golightly’s self-description: “I am a nomad king as well as a tall tycoon.” Combines wandering with authority, personal rather than territorial power. → See also: Rex Golightly
- Nysa CA
- Greek mythology: mountain where Dionysus was raised by nymphs. The Prince of Nysa serves as Aurelia’s master of ceremonies. Nysa was traditionally located variously, appropriately placeless. → See also: Prince of Nysa, Dionysia
O
- Object of Desire RA
- A term in the First Ientaculum homily. Aurelia distinguishes false goals from happiness, the true object of desire, which requires ordered and deliberate will. Her argument invites comparison with Aquinas’s discussion of happiness in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 2 (111). See also: Final Happiness, Universal Good.
- Oblate Sphere SP
- Shape of personal starships: a sphere flattened at the poles. Students perch “like big birds on the tops of their oblate spheres which in turn were balanced atop launching needles.” At launch, students “seemed to melt into” them. → See also: Launching Needles, Death-mind
- Odor-Signature SP
- Identity marker detectable by smell. Aurelia is astonished Earth people lack this sense: “Don’t you know enough to give every character you play a different odor-signature?” she asks Julio. “It’s coming into a blind world or a deaf world.” The Shining People’s governance depends on senses Earth has not developed. → See also: Julio Cordovan, Shining People
- Olympians CA
- Greek mythology: gods dwelling on Mount Olympus. When serving mulsum, the Prince of Nysa notes: “The Olympians used it.” Aurelia asks if there were Olympians on this world; he replies: “Sort of a Road-Show version of them.” → See also: Mulsum, Prince of Nysa
- Operatic-conversevole SP
- Italian conversevole: “conversational.” The Shining People’s mode of speaking: voices that are “very carrying” and blend speech with song, carrying between nearby launching needles. → See also: Basso-parlante, Contralto
P
- Pan-Math and Science Boluxus ET
- James Forcedmarch’s grand title. His conversation with Aurelia moves from the location of Shining World to her electric surface, pointillism, and the relation between inner and outer landscapes (65–69). The grandiose label undercuts any simple division between science, art, and speculation. See also: Forcedmarch, James.
- Pandolfo NE
- One of the seven students. Encourages Aurelia: “You will be that candle wherever you go, Aurelia. You will be the light of that world.” → See also: Seven Students
- Paravata SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. Name may derive from Sanskrit paravata (“pigeon”) or parvata (“mountain”). → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Patmo NE
- One of the seven students. Reminds Aurelia of essential preparations: “Don’t forget to set your Compensating Contingency Grid.” Name evokes Patmos, where John received the Revelation. → See also: Seven Students, Compensating Contingency Grid
- Patrushkoe-Horse SP
- An existing Shining World species that Aurelia’s school-built steed resembled. Students are “not allowed to mimic already existing species too closely.” → See also: Mechano-organo
- Peripateticus SP
- Latin/Greek: “walking about,” from Aristotle’s teaching habit. Rex’s term for Aurelia’s traveling ministry: “a walkabout, a march, a trek, a trudge, a schola, a forum ambulatory.” → See also: Cavalcade, Circuit-Court
- Peter Principle LR
- A special-interest advocate who asks Aurelia how to undermine a popular leader. His name alludes to Laurence J. Peter’s principle that people in hierarchies tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Aurelia offers a campaign of excessive, counterfeit praise (51–53). See also: Raw-grab.
- Potlatch ET
- Northwest Coast indigenous gift-giving ceremony. Rex Golightly’s luxury cabin. “He loves to give gifts and potlatches.” The tent-nature suggests impermanence beneath apparent solidity. → See also: Rex Golightly, Luxury Cabin
- Prairie Dog Town Prolocutor PM
- “The largest circulation daily in the world.” Reports on Aurelia’s arrival with mixed skepticism and wonder. Combines Western imagery with formal Latin (prolocutor = spokesman). → See also: April Fool
- Prandium RM
- Latin: Roman midday meal. Second of four daily stops. “The cavalcade formed into a circle of five thousand persons on the grass by the lake-shore.” → See also: Ientaculum, Merenda, Cena
- Prince of Nysa NE
- A magus and expert in pageants who organizes the ancient festivals surrounding Aurelia’s journey. His name and recollections evoke Dionysus. He says he left the horned people millennia ago and had himself dehorned; he gives his saved horns to Aurelia and Clootie. He also uses athanatos bark and proposes the “Big Blow” cosmology (102, 131–33, 161). See also: Nysa, Big Blow, Athanatos Bark.
- Protective Shaft SP
- A defensive projection from a student’s ship. Clootie’s shafts intercept deliberate attacks, but a retracting shaft deflects a yin-yang dart into his chest. Aurelia bends over him, blocking the shafts’ access, and the returning dart kills both (179–82). See also: Yin-Yang Yo-Yos, Worm with the Pistol.
R
- Ragsdale SP
- One of the seventy-six planets, characterized by “juvenile clownishness.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets, Gelotopolia
- Randy Rex Ranch ET
- Ranch whose Long-Horn show cattle accompany Aurelia’s cavalcade (109). → See also: Rex Golightly
- Raw-grab LN
- Corporate takeover technique. Aurelia explains to Kirol Grabman how to create counterpoise companies, manipulate media, pressure churches, kidnap executives. “The raw-grab device is a ‘Wave of the Past.’” → See also: Kirol Grabman, Southern Land Company
- Rex Golightly NE
- Latin rex: “king.” A tycoon who is “one of the Magi, the first one to appear.” Maintains Potlatch and calls himself “a nomad king.” Represents worldly power attempting to serve transcendent purpose. → See also: Magi, Potlatch, Nomad King
- River Boat ET
- Floating gambling establishment, also called “River Boat Queen.” “The River Boat goes where it will, on Sea or Lake or Sewer.” Primary setting of the “floating world” where brag is played for blood-stakes. → See also: Floating World, Brag, Helen Staircase
- Rome RA
- A recurring historical and eschatological marker. Herr Boch says Rome fell two millennia earlier and will rise in another millennium, adding that it has fallen on almost every world (131). The exchange complicates rather than conclusively resolves Aurelia’s planetary identification. See also: World of the Compensation.
- Romp Publications PM
- Publisher of Will It Ever Be Fun Again? The Aurelian Revival. The name suggests playful or unserious publishing. → See also: Books About Aurelia
- Rory McCory NE
- The numerologist and mathematician who disputes with Aurelia about a supposed prime number between five and seven. She treats the unnamed number as a corrupting intrusion and associates it with the Number of the Beast. Clootie supports its existence (64–65). See also: Cousin Clootie.
- Rotten Ralph’s ET
- A “holy-unholy” nightclub for the humanities elite. Walter Kunste invites Aurelia: “Will you join the most illustrious of the rotters at Rotten Ralph’s tonight?” She declines, fearing the Kill Aurelia Now crowd, though they “wouldn’t hinder you, not if they knew that you were going to Rotten Ralph’s.” → See also: Walter Kunste
- Roxie ET
- A woman in the Kill Aurelia Now League whose appearance Aurelia borrows as a disguise. When the disguise fails, Aurelia redirects the mob toward the real Roxie, who is killed (72, 76–77). → See also: Kill Aurelia Now League, Sheila-be-Damned
S
- Sabazius CA
- Phrygian/Thracian: god associated with Dionysus, depicted as horned serpent. Among masked figures at the cavalcade: “Sabazius the horned serpent, Silenei with small brow-horns.” → See also: Silenei, Dionysia, Horned People
- Sackcloth and Ashes RA
- Biblical: traditional garments of mourning and repentance (Jonah 3:6, Matthew 11:21). A “very poor-looking man with a push-cart” vends sackcloth and ashes to penitents during the cavalcade. Karl Talion, Blaise Genet, Helen Staircase, and Michael Strogoff “began to haggle and buy their sack-cloth and ashes, and they talked about the quality of it.” Their purchase signals their defection to Cousin Clootie’s camp; they accept his gospel of repentance over Aurelia’s gospel of joy. → See also: Cousin Clootie, Division of Mission, Corporate Communion
- Sad Dog Planet SP
- One of the seventy-six possible destinations named in Aurelia’s navigation list (10). See also: Seventy-Six Planets.
- Saint Cecelia RA
- Patron saint of music. One book asks: Is Aurelia Saint Cecelia?. Whether Aurelia is the saint incarnate connects her to holy musicians. → See also: Bad Music League, Books About Aurelia
- Seven Students SP
- Aurelia’s classmates departing on Kickoff Night: Aurelia, Rex, Adrian, Audry, Lavender, Pandolfo, Patmo, “four males and three females” sharing “one ‘romantic episode’ soul.” → See also: Kickoff Night, Launching Needles
- Seven-Day Sickness ET
- Aldous Spencer-Trencher’s diagnosis of Aurelia’s terminal condition: the world’s allergic response to an “intruder.” “Either you must die of the contact, or the local race must. It is simpler for you, having fewer moving parts than the aggregate of the local race, to die.” Confirmed by Doctor Thorgrimsson’s anaphylaxis theory. → See also: Aldous Spencer-Trencher, Doctor Thorgrimsson
- Seventy-Six Planets SP
- The worlds forming the programmed network of Aurelia’s possible destinations. Twenty-one are named in the initial list, followed by fifty-five others. Her ship cannot escape this network and must land on one of its worlds (9–11). See also: Gaea, Skokumchuck, Kleptis.
- Sheila-be-Damned ET
- Kill Aurelia Now League member whose appearance Aurelia temporarily assumes. Uses intoxicating “sticks” that cause hallucinations. Her profane name reflects the camp’s nihilistic culture. → See also: Roxie, Kill Aurelia Now League
- Shining Mist SP
- Altered state Helen Staircase identifies in Aurelia: “She’s not in a fog. . . . She’s in a ‘Shining Mist’ of the alchemists. She is talking from another viewpoint.” Suggests visionary perception beyond ordinary consciousness. → See also: Death-Mind, Aurelia
- Shining People SP
- Aurelia’s species or civilization, also called “Golden People.” Characterized by: operatic-conversevole voices, aerated flesh, bird bones, ability to build mechano-organo creatures, World Government curriculum. Their name suggests luminosity and moral brightness. → See also: Golden People, Shining World
- Shining People Tangency SP
- Contact point between Shining World civilization and other worlds. The New Shansi Old Journal editorializes: “We believe in the ‘Shining People Tangency.’ . . . Something splendid has touched us!” Geometric term suggesting worlds touch but don’t interpenetrate. → See also: Shining People
- Shining World SP
- Aurelia’s home planet, center of a civilization sending young governors to “deficient worlds.” Name is both literal (the world shines) and evaluative (brightness against grubbiness). “‘Shining World’ is like a sunbeam or like quicksilver: it is difficult to nail down.” → See also: Shining People, Golden World Cultus
- Silenei CA
- Greek: companions of Dionysus, aged satyrs with horse features. Among masked figures: “Silenei with small brow-horns.” → See also: Sabazius, Dionysia
- Silly Week ET
- The ballad-makers’ composition after the deaths. The people wake “at the same time” and say: “What strange daze have we been in anyhow? . . . Oh, it’s been a silly week!” The governorships reduced to entertainment. → See also: Quick-media World
- Sireneca SP
- One of the seventy-six planets, “pretty distant.” Name combines “Siren” with Latin suffix: a world of dangerous allure. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Skokumchuck SP
- Chinook Jargon: “strong water.” “The Shelni Planet,” one of the seventy-six. Appears in the students’ World Government Ballad: “From Hound-Dog Hulk to Skokumchuck.” → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Sky-Rope SP
- An image in the Third Prandium homily: choosing a future goal resembles throwing a rope into the sky and climbing it in confidence that it will hold. This is distinct from the monkey’s invisible ladder to Aurelia’s ship (164). See also: Monkey, Home Free Certificate.
- Slowpoke Snails ET
- Aldous Spencer-Trencher brings Aurelia a bowl at the Third Ientaculum. She feeds five thousand regular followers and others from it, then discards what remains. A thousand kilos arrive at the Third Prandium. Later the narrator identifies snails as a dish the Media Extinction Arm may have poisoned (158–59, 164, 173). See also: Aldous Spencer-Trencher, Media Extinction Arm.
- Spartan Dining ET
- Feature of Rex’s luxury cabin: “the ancient Spartan dining halls would sit three hundred persons in the plain elegance that the soldier-princes liked.” Paradox of luxurious austerity. → See also: Potlatch
- Spooking Worlds SP
- Aurelia’s diagnosis of Earth: “This is one of the ‘spooking worlds.’ . . . You people here are trying to spook me into believing that I will die tonight.” Worlds that kill by collective belief; the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling through social pressure. → See also: Fortune-Tellers, Death
- Station KEY PM
- Radio station broadcasting reports about Aurelia. Call letters spell a word: key to understanding, or to doors Aurelia opens. → See also: Quick-media World
- Strange World Sickness SP
- The condition that kills about one in seven students taking the World Government Course. Aurelia recognizes that she is dying of it during the Third Prandium. Aldous Spencer-Trencher describes it as the local world’s rejection of her, and Doctor Thorgrimsson develops the analogy after her death (158, 164, 176–77). See also: Seven-Day Sickness, Doctor Thorgrimsson.
- Susan Pishcala NE
- News-woman murdered in Clootie’s cavalcade: “a case of unmistaken identity” because Aurelia had used her face as disguise. “She did not have a sweet disposition,” so her death is not mourned. The bodyguard notes they can “discard a used disguise with a free conscience.” → See also: Julio Cordovan, Jimmy Candor
- Swampy Junction RA
- The place where the “Mystery of Iniquity” house sends us back, “a thousand kilometers and a thousand days” of regression. Symbolic of moral starting-point; sin returns us to square one. → See also: Mystery of Iniquity, Law of Happiness
T
- Telluris SP
- Latin: “of the Earth.” The Latin name for Earth. Gaea is “called Telluris or the Earth by its natives,” placing Earth within cosmic taxonomy. → See also: Gaea
- Through a Glass Darkly RA
- Allusion to 1 Corinthians 13:12. Aurelia’s teaching: “That we may see this universal good now only through a glass darkly is not a real objection. That is better than not seeing it at all.” → See also: Father of Lights, Law of Happiness
- Tookers ET
- A type of bird following Aurelia’s cavalcade. “Birds, tookers, hawks, king birds, grackle, black birds, all followed along in crowds.” Regional dialect or Lafferty coinage. → See also: Cavalcade
- Trastevere ET
- A Roman district whose name means “across the Tiber.” The Bad Music League’s book identifies Saint Cecelia with this quarter as part of its account of her as a musician (84). See also: Saint Cecelia, Bad Music League.
- Trolls Under Bridges RA
- Scandinavian folklore. Helen Staircase’s self-description: “We are the people placed here to confound you. . . . We are the trolls who live under the bridges.” The River Boat people as liminal guardians, testing travelers. → See also: River Boat, Helen Staircase
U
- Uncle Gifford Redwing NE
- “Funny uncle” at Potlatch with predatory designs on Aurelia. She ties an Instrumental Knot in his anatomy, leaving him in extreme pain. The knot cannot be untied until Aurelia leaves this world. → See also: Instrumental Knot, Potlatch
- Uncle Silas NE
- Also “Uncle Simon.” “Befuddled youth” at Potlatch on “medication or trip-facient,” who tells rambling stories about invading “Bandicoot.” Sleeps across Aurelia’s doorway; found decapitated at dawn. Returns as apparition “ninety percent dead,” explaining Clootie’s decapitation gave him “release,” mercy for the “walking dead.” → See also: Cousin Clootie, Athanatos Bark
- Uncles, The ET
- Surrogate male relatives at Potlatch. Include Uncle Silas (also called Uncle Simon), who guards Aurelia’s door, and Uncle Gifford Redwing, a “funny uncle” who receives an Instrumental Knot for attempted assault. → See also: Uncle Silas, Uncle Gifford Redwing
- United Churchmen for Liberation ET
- Religious activist group enlisted in “raw-grab” takeovers. Aurelia explains how to “go to the churches which form the most subservient arm of the media.” Satirical name combining ecumenism with politics. → See also: Raw-grab
- Universal Good RA
- Aurelia’s name for the object of final happiness, which she places “outside-and-above.” She says that seeing this good “through a glass darkly” is better than not seeing it at all, recalling 1 Corinthians 13:12 (111). See also: Final Happiness, Object of Desire.
V
- Vaunt-songs SP
- The boastful hymns the seven students sing on Kickoff Night before their departures. “They all meditated and prayed. And they sang some more.” The songs combine prayer with self-glorification, appropriate for students who believe themselves incapable of failure. The opening ballad ranges “From Hound-Dog Hulk to Skokumchuck.” The term “vaunt” (to boast) captures the Shining People’s confident, perhaps overconfident, culture. → See also: Kickoff Night, Seven Students, Launching Needles
- Vengeance RA
- A surly woman warns: “The yin-yang principle takes death-vengeance on those who believe it to be of very small importance.” Aurelia dismisses yin-yang yo-yos but the vengeance proves real; she dies by yin-yang dart. → See also: Yin-Yang Yo-Yos
W
- Waggoner CA
- Auriga, the Charioteer constellation. Visible in daylight during Aurelia’s cavalcade, suggesting celestial sanction and vehicular protection. → See also: Hyades, Virgo
- Walking Dead RA
- Uncle Silas’s posthumous description of his condition before Cousin Clootie decapitated him: “I was probably ninety percent dead and decayed.” In Clootie’s home world, “the cutting-off-of-the-head had something to do with dispatching the ‘walking dead’ and giving them release.” The concept suggests that physical life can persist after spiritual death, and that Clootie’s grim ministry involves releasing such unfortunates. The “walking dead” may be those who have rejected happiness and exist in moral decay while technically alive. → See also: Uncle Silas, Cousin Clootie, Division of Mission
- Walter Kunste NE
- German Kunst: “art.” “High Honcho of the Humanities” who discusses discordancy theory. Appreciates Shining People’s cacophonous horns. “Not even on the Main-Stream. . . . He was on the Rotten River which is somehow larger.” → See also: Bad Music League, Rotten Ralph’s
- Waterloo ET
- Iowa city in which Hawk-Eye’s Aurelia Is from Iowa: The Waterloo Revelations claims Aurelia was born sixteen years earlier. Albert Derby accepts the documents as genuine but rejects the book’s conclusion, calling it an “over-documented thesis” (82–83). → See also: Iowa, Iowa Double, Hawk-Eye the Reporter
- Wax Figures ET
- Cf. voodoo dolls; sympathetic magic. On the River Boat, replicas of all international personages, including Aurelia. “It is believed that if you injure them, their primaries will receive the same injury.” Aurelia wonders if she was her wax replica on the first night: “I smelled waxy then.” → See also: River Boat
- Wide Awake PM
- “The Morning Medical Journal” where Doctor Thorgrimsson publishes his comments on Aurelia’s visit: “The best thing about this curious encounter is that we may be able to learn something from it.” → See also: Doctor Thorgrimsson
- Wolf-Children ET
- Media phenomenon contextualizing Aurelia’s arrival. The Morning Perspective compares “Sky-Wolf Children” to “Bangia Wolf-Children” and “Little Green Wolf-Children of Lothogoth,” trivializing cosmic visitation as one more media spectacle. → See also: Quick-media World
- Words on Water RA
- Cf. Keats’s epitaph: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Rex commands his fish projection: “Write this on the water! Preserve her name. Her name is Aurelia.” The words “did not fade,” reversing Keats’s image of oblivion. But fishermen think it’s a “Monumental Water Company” product. → See also: Rex Golightly, Ego-Fragment Projection
- World Government Course SP
- The tenth-form assignment requiring Shining People students to build ships, travel to other worlds, and govern for several equivalent months before writing a thesis. Clootie says his own people imitate the course and correct its Shining World errors (2, 7, 145–46). See also: Kickoff Night, Cousin Clootie.
- World International Press PM
- George Clavicle’s employer. Grandiose name suggesting global reach and authority. → See also: George Clavicle
- World of the Compensation RA
- Herr Boch’s designation for the visited world, which he insists is the only one where the Compensation has occurred. Aurelia knows several other worlds making the same claim. The term suggests Christian redemption, but the disputed planetary naming remains unresolved (131). See also: Compensation, The; Rome.
- Worm with the Pistol ET
- Marshal-Julio describes a theoretical attack from an extremely low angle that could evade Aurelia’s shielding if she bent over it. The image becomes a rumor, then a painted design on the yin-yang darts. Aurelia recognizes that design in the weapon lodged in Clootie before it strikes her (142, 172, 180). See also: Protective Shaft, Yin-Yang Yo-Yos.
Y
- Yellow Dog SP
- One of the seventy-six planets. “The perversity of Yellow Dog . . . was well known.” Colloquial name (a yellow dog is a coward or worthless thing) suggests moral deficiency. → See also: Seventy-Six Planets
- Yin-Yang Yo-Yos ET
- Double-pointed darts that strike selected targets and return to their manipulators on a whistle. Their purported safety depends on contact with earthly materials and people. A collision with Clootie’s unearthly protective shaft defeats that assurance; the dart strikes him and then Aurelia as she bends over him (172, 180–82). See also: Protective Shaft, Worm with the Pistol.
Z
- Zero Equation SP
- Clootie’s claim that existence begins at zero and returns to zero, with time eventually reversing and erasing the apparent activity between. He offers it during Greenpasture’s speculative discussion of the Big Bang (56). See also: Cousin Clootie, Charles Greenpasture.