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Now, now, Alga. Wolfe is coy, but he's not all that coy--it's pretty easy to infer from interviews, fiction, and essays that Wolfe would be described religiously as Roman Catholic…
14 Nov 1999, 14:16
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Ah, but whether this is true or not, I think it's not at all consistent with the theme of BOTNS--the judgement in URTH shows that all of the "loves, hates, etc." we've seen in NEW …
10 Nov 1999, 12:06
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Ah, perhaps--but I think a better statement for Wolfe's work would be: the meaning of life is that there's a lot more meaning to life than you're ever likely to manage to grasp -…
09 Nov 1999, 10:25
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Babbie, I think. Hmmm... This listing makes very clear just how much is hinted at but not answered in OBW. I think that, by comparison, SHADOW OF THE TORTURER left a lot less op…
08 Nov 1999, 13:03
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Yes, although from my brief skim, Dawkins does so in poor fashion--I disagree with Dawkins on (most) things, but usually he's at least an honest battler, heading straight for his t…
07 Nov 1999, 14:32
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Perservere with Long Sun, if for no other reason, because it leads towards Short Sun--which is, I think, more what you're looking for--on evidence of first volume, it's top-quality…
07 Nov 1999, 14:11
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Clute's reviews in SF Weekly have tended to be like that--Clute at his most pontificating and (usually) least enlightening. The Hal Clement review is the one I like best, for some…
05 Nov 1999, 13:02
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Well, Severian TELLS us he's a liar, etc. But I'm still unclear about what you and Clute think he's lying about in a major way--Wolfe's narrators are, in my opinion, for the most …
05 Nov 1999, 12:56
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Actually, in CLAUDIUS THE GOD, he does just that--using (IIRC, it's been a good while since I read it) elephants in the battle to frighten the British. Claudius is actually (in Gra…
03 Nov 1999, 15:08
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I believe there are some way back in the Urth archives. I know I asked something or other, but I can't remember what. I think long ago Alga used _There Are Doors_ in her "three …
03 Nov 1999, 12:41
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Patrick-- Well, part of my point in the whole modernism debate was that, because he avoids their techniques, Wolfe is at the least pretty darn accessible for a modernist. While I…
02 Nov 1999, 10:21
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And someone (I forget who) on here has pointed out that Cyby is described as roughly what Wolfe might have looked at when he wrote BOTNS, so we have Wolfe as the humble apprentice …
27 Oct 1999, 17:04
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Yes. Of the friends I've convinced (forced at gunpoint if necessary) to read BOTNS, I've had three reactions: one, very well-read in Heinlein/Asimov/Clarke (and, though he hates …
27 Oct 1999, 13:08
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Daniel: To be sure, Wolfe's concern with memory and perception is a very modernist idea, and BOTNS (and all of Wolfe's fiction) is highly concerned with not just the stories told …
26 Oct 1999, 18:54
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I also agree that if you had to assign a critical label to Wolfe, it would be as a modernist (much more so than a post-modernist). I suspect, though, that the most important liter…
26 Oct 1999, 13:40
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Well, I'm not sure there are nearly as many narrative comparisons, but the overall idea of Silk leading the people out of bondage to Typhon & co. in the Whorl to arrival in a new l…
18 Oct 1999, 15:48
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I'm sending this to both lists, since the general issue of narrative reliability seems to be coming up on both lists. I'll try to avoid OBW spoilers, which shouldn't be too hard--…
18 Oct 1999, 12:35
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What Nutria and I are saying is that whatever the truth value of "Matthew invented some stuff" is, it's unlikely that WOLFE thinks he did, which is an argument for giving THE BOOK …
17 Oct 1999, 16:31
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Ah, but Rat & I would attribute to the Holy Spirit the result that Matthew never actually _gets it wrong_--contradictions are only apparent, resulting from reading things in the wr…
17 Oct 1999, 10:51
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Since BLS and OBW are highly theological novels, its important to assess what Ah, but as someone actually going through the conversion process right now, I think formal Catholic …
15 Oct 1999, 19:15
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I'm a bit confused here--fits in with the Christ parallels in that Silk couldn't possibly be that Christ-like, or fits in that the _gospels_ are exaggerations? I would think the f…
15 Oct 1999, 12:10
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Another possible motive for delaying the embarkation, even if Blue/Green is the Whorl's destination: by the time of arrival, Pas seems to be communicating less and not as "in cont…
13 Oct 1999, 12:04
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As I understand it the "Urth=Earth" arguments tend to boil down to "Yes, this is the future of OUR universe" or "This is the future of a Universe Very Much like ours, but we are th…
12 Oct 1999, 13:40
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Although (ignoring Wolfe's purposes and attributing final reasoning to Typhon here) the fact that the parodies are as close as they are to religions we know suggests that (as I thi…
08 Oct 1999, 10:57
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Dan Rabin asked: <snippage> The last is possible, but with Wolfe I think it's always best to assume everything that looks intelligent and capable of willed action IS a moral age…
03 Oct 1999, 15:50
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But if this is Krait's big nasty secret, how does it reduce the inhumi to (inexact quote, I'm at work) "little more than animals." If the secret strategic victory over the inhumi …
01 Oct 1999, 19:46
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Very interesting idea. On the plus side, I think we can safely place the idea of the vampire as one of Wolfe's major motifs, only subtly present in New Sun, more overt (and by the…
01 Oct 1999, 18:42
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I just assumed Krait knew what was going on and was hitching a safe ride back home with the others--they knew who he was and he knew who they were. The trip back and forth is clea…
30 Sep 1999, 12:10
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Just to note that there's no need to get uncorrected proofs from eBay. Amazon seems to be regularly shipping ON BLUE'S WATERS now. My order was mailed today. "And ye shall know …
21 Sep 1999, 10:13
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There's also Anatole France's THAIS. About said courtesan, I believe, and a stylite. (I haven't actually read it myself.) "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set …
13 Sep 1999, 11:55
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I'm not sure what the reference is to--Severian's statement about symbols (the "We believe we create symbols..."), perhaps? At any rate, as usual Wolfe is not presenting a simple …
05 Sep 1999, 14:19
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So, then, is Wolfe parodying the Buddhist text, or the Ascian version thereof? After all, what Loyal-17 says most strongly suggests that the problem is (A) the restrictions impose…
03 Sep 1999, 11:57
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With respect to the "anthropomorphism" debate here, I think that Mr. Million is, indeed, our best look at Wolfe's attitude: highly ambiguous--Mr. Million clearly has a strong rela…
16 Jun 1999, 10:11
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I think this is missing the point--I'd be surprised if Wolfe believes that human emotions are purely a matter of particular electro-chemical processes of the brain--just as many pr…
12 Jun 1999, 11:47
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I seem to recall somewhere else where Wolfe says almost the same thing (this quote is from the ACROSS THE WOUNDED GALAXIES interview, I think) but in such a way as to imply that he…
03 Jun 1999, 13:34
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Partial agreement on my part, but very partial if you mean what you seem to mean; sure, Wolfe is a modernist, and almost all of his major works are, to some extent, metafictional c…
29 Apr 1999, 11:12
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Ah, now this is interesting. I think that when you noted a materialistic explanation, I assume you meant an interpretation that just ignored/avoided the theological overtones. Wh…
28 Apr 1999, 11:23
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Or to put it differently, Wolfe reflects the paradoxes of the God of the Cross. It's not that it's impossible to interpret BOTNS in a purely materialistic light, as a commentary o…
25 Apr 1999, 12:15
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It can certainly be approached that way; however, from the standpoint of the author, at least, it would appear there IS an implied connection between the material events and a spir…
23 Apr 1999, 13:59
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Hmmm... Also interesting to note that realizing the Ascians are human doesn't prevent Severian from carrying on the war against them. In fact, it would seem a further justificati…
21 Apr 1999, 23:11
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History as the main character--I like that--and it would be one answer to why the stories don't end... It fits the idea that PEACE is a story about a man whose story is actually e…
14 Apr 1999, 11:12
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I'm pretty sure the "I'm trying to remember who killed who" was re: PEACE. Although it was an online interview, so there was some chaos and confusion in the transcript. Nobody as…
14 Apr 1999, 00:19
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Well, some of us aren't convinced that Weer is reponsible for anyone's death other than (A) the boy on the stairs, and that's not exactly murder and (B) maybe (there is someting si…
12 Apr 1999, 21:09
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The idea is interesting, although the correspondence of names with the woman Peter raises from the dead in Acts 9:36-42 is suggestive of a real resurrection, the first human raised…
07 Apr 1999, 18:50
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Maybe. But notice the word "eternal"--which would imply the solution of St. Augustine, that "predestination" means that God's knowledge is outside time, which is a creation, and t…
06 Apr 1999, 10:34
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I won't argue that Severian is easy to identify with; as to Silk, I would place him in another category of Wolfe's protagonists. Green is somewhere in the middle--not as dark as S…
06 Apr 1999, 10:28
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Yes and no. Severian perfect saviour? Definitely not. (Hence Wolfe's various denials that Sev. is exactly a Christ figure.) But... Sure Severian is often a lout, and unlike Si…
04 Apr 1999, 01:40
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Well, I don't really think that Prufrock is about anything so Freudian as inability to procreate or seduce--Prufrock's failure to declare his love for the "That is not what I meant…
28 Feb 1999, 18:51
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Ah, that's it. It's been years since I read it. Great book--much more satisfying, IMO, than Coover's short fiction. We should also throw in works used in Wolfe stories, such as …
27 Jan 1999, 10:19
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Also, although I doubt it influenced PEACE (since Wolfe has said he came to read Nabokov only later), I think of PEACE and PALE FIRE as two sides of one coin--Weer turns his story …
26 Jan 1999, 11:09
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