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I don't agree. With 1), everything Tzadkiel says can be taken as the Word of God. With 3), everything Tzadkiel says can be taken as being said with good intention. Great gulf fi…
01 Jul 2010, 12:34
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Right. Although now I will say such a thing. Tzadkiel presents himself not as the Outsider but as His agent. Arguably the most important question of the series is whether Tzadki…
01 Jul 2010, 12:18
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This is the most peculiar argument I've ever had on this list. Maybe anywhere.…
29 Jun 2010, 18:15
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...and almost everyone in the world refers to a "page" as being a single face of the paper, not a single sheet of paper. Which there are different numbers on the opposite sides of…
29 Jun 2010, 18:08
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Motif; red herring. Why?…
29 Jun 2010, 04:06
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Well, as Dan Rabin pointed out on this list, Severian implies pretty strongly in Autarch that he knows Inire was the uturuncu: "We even know that your master was with us in the ju…
29 Jun 2010, 01:36
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Or Wolfe is using monkeys as a motif for some reason. Not every literary choice is justified in the plot. That said, at least *some *of the candidates have to be Inire.…
29 Jun 2010, 01:17
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Again, me too. The mystic body of Christ is a pretty broad concept. The statement is perhaps identical to the statement that Severian is a member of the Order for Seekers of Truth…
25 Jun 2010, 19:39
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Unless it was all made up. Or none of it was. In other words, there isn't really a lot of hard evidence to go by.…
25 Jun 2010, 01:33
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Well, me too.…
24 Jun 2010, 19:49
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I don't think he's the literal anti-christ either. He's maybe a take on what a heretical version of Christ would've been like in a science-fiction world? Of course, I think that …
24 Jun 2010, 19:05
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That's is an awfully thin reed for "Severian is supposed to literally be Jesus" rather than "Severian is supposed to parrallel Jesus in important ways". Perhaps the distinction is…
24 Jun 2010, 18:58
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I sort of can't believe we're having this discussion again, so I will simply restate my point. 1) Gene Wolfe tells us he's an orthodox Catholic, and we have no reason to disbelie…
24 Jun 2010, 14:53
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Apu Punchau: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apu_Punchau…
23 Jun 2010, 01:38
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I was noting that one reason to associate a doll with lemonwood was that Howdy Doody was made of lemonwood. Obviously the "doll" in question here would not literally be made of wo…
21 Jun 2010, 05:22
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She rested in a lemonwood box while not used. The marionettes in The Toy Theatre likewise rested in boxes, and were likewise used as sex toys.…
21 Jun 2010, 05:14
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Moreover. Gene Wolfe (married to Rosemary) wrote The Toy Theatre and used marionettes as a central image in New Sun. Did he never think of the pun "Rose-Marionette"?…
21 Jun 2010, 05:00
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Motif.…
21 Jun 2010, 04:44
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If only Gene Wolfe had written another text, possibly a short story, exploring the idea of puppets in boxes. Then maybe someone wiser than I could draw wisdom from that text and a…
21 Jun 2010, 04:43
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I'm lost. The girl in the box?…
17 Jun 2010, 17:39
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I always thought Abaia was calling the shots. He's the one who's set up as the "enemy" of the New Sun, right?…
14 Jun 2010, 15:49
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We seem to be pretty common.…
12 Jun 2010, 03:05
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Maybe they represented Romans! Or Germans! It makes perfect sense for Tolkien to equate American military might with the servants of Manwe. I mean, he completely approved of all…
07 Jun 2010, 18:07
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I have lots of experience in internet disputes. And I've met some of my interlocutors in person. My guess is that in person, you, brunians, come across as very friendly and maybe…
06 Jun 2010, 20:41
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I don't know that I accept that...there's a word for the position of rejecting belief in a divinity but accepting the possibility that a divinity exists, and that word is "agnostic…
06 Jun 2010, 20:09
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Well, just the one. Atheists by definition reject the existence of a deity. Pure reason cannot lead to the conclusion that no such being exists--at the very best it leads to the …
06 Jun 2010, 18:30
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I don't think the Anglicans still canonize. I think Lewis, in point of fact, argued against new canonizations. That said, Lewis has been added to the Episcopal Church's calendar …
06 Jun 2010, 18:23
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The Latin root is "sanus." I suspect that it and "salus" derive from a common P.I.E. root, as they were practically synonyms in ancient Rome. "Sanus," in ancient Latin, had roughl…
06 Jun 2010, 17:46
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Where would I be if I shared the perspective but acted as though I understood that there were those who didn't and that those people remain rational? I guess I'd have ironclad fai…
06 Jun 2010, 14:49
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I think that's right. brunians has repeatedly referred to his direct experiences of what others would call the supernatural. It may be that, from his perspective (or feigned pers…
06 Jun 2010, 14:09
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It's a fable. If every work that used a journey as a metaphor for death was deemed an allegory, the word would be stretched out of meaning.…
06 Jun 2010, 05:19
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I rather doubt that Tolkien considered The Pearl to be an allegory. He took the time to translate it, after all.…
06 Jun 2010, 04:53
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Is that the friendliness we talked about earlier?…
06 Jun 2010, 01:31
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Do people feel similarly betrayed by Doestoevsky? Again, I find it bizarre. I can't imagine thinking to myself "How dare Author X have different views than me!" I can imagine th…
06 Jun 2010, 00:01
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Personally I find the "betrayal" narrative bizarre whenever I hear it. Secular writers and religious writers alike "color" their fiction to reflect their political, moral and/or me…
05 Jun 2010, 20:53
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And Tolkien would weep a silent tear to see his work called "allegorical."…
05 Jun 2010, 17:17
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A pedantic point: Tolkien most assuredly meant for Middle-Earth to be set in the distant past of our own world. Linguistically, however, the commonalities were indeed meant to be…
04 Jun 2010, 23:21
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It is required to refer to him as The Cosmic Metatron.…
04 Jun 2010, 20:56
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Like Arishem the Judge? You know who's cooler than Arishem the Judge? No one. That's who.…
04 Jun 2010, 20:43
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However, Pas's role in Short Sun is a little more complicated... My interpretation is that the Short Sun is (inter alia) about the Outsider's long game of converting Pas into a re…
04 Jun 2010, 20:38
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Boxing too. Apparently now, however, the opposite practice is encouraged.…
04 Jun 2010, 20:04
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No, I know that. Well, perhaps with interlocutors like you two, I should be very clear in what I mean. You are both very smart and know a lot about this stuff and so may have mor…
04 Jun 2010, 20:02
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I think we're all friendly here.…
04 Jun 2010, 19:42
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Is it in Reno? I'm unlikely to be in Reno.…
04 Jun 2010, 19:41
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Because Wolfe is also playing with the notions of an anti-Christ or demiurge. Falsity and pretence to authority are pretty key parts of those notions. (And frankly Pas is a lot m…
04 Jun 2010, 19:40
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Well, no, obviously not... I guess what I'm asking is, do that parallels between the Chapter and the Catholic Church rise to the level that within the fictive universe there must …
04 Jun 2010, 19:23
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I'm never sure what planet you're from. For the record, Nietzsche shared your view that there was some biological benefit to preserving the seed. He too was a bit of a nutter.…
04 Jun 2010, 19:21
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I disagree with that, actually. I recognize that, oh, historically, there were various secular causes for priestly celibacy. But there's a pretty well-established human impulse t…
04 Jun 2010, 19:14
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How Catholic is the Chapter, really? Naturally there are elements in the liturgy and priestly celibacy. But the Catholic liturgy did not spring forth fully formed either, and pri…
04 Jun 2010, 19:10
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Lots of drugs? Too much time spent with Byron?…
04 Jun 2010, 11:56
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