{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1032",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1032,
    "subject": "Silhouette",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-31T22:03:23+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-31T22:03:23+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0072@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-31T22:03:23+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Silhouette",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Given that in \"Silhouette\" we have a literal Deus ex machina--originally a\nconvention of stagecraft--plus a panoply of characters who are known only\nby their first names or rank (the stuff of allegory), in addition to a\nseries of scenes that recapitulate Biblical events, from Genesis to the\nHarrowing of Hell to the Second Coming, I'd like to suggest the following\nabout \"Silhouette:\" in my opinion it's meant to be read as the science\nfiction equivalent of a medieval Mystery Play. Throw in a little Francis\nBacon--\"Silhouette,\" after all, was originally published in an anthology\nentitled NEW ATLANTIS--and keeping in mind that Bacon's central conceit\nattempts to argue that science can be used to bolster religious tenets, I\nthink I might be ready to make an attempt at rendering sense of one of Gene\nWolfe's more enigmatic works. \n\nMystery Plays, of course, were loosely based on Biblical events (or\nmedieval variations thereof), and so that's how I'd like to frame most of\nmy discussion. Also keep in mind Mystery Plays jumped around a lot--they\ndidn't always present events chronologically, and often juxtaposed time,\nplace and action, so you often got a hodge-podge of narrative skeins.\n\nJohann, a lieutenant aboard an unnamed ship orbiting Neuerddraht, a planet\nin the Algol system, is Silhouette's viewpoint character. He is crippled in\none leg like so many Wolfe characters (most people attempt to link this to\nWolfe's childhood bout with polio, but his maternal grandfather also had a\nwooden leg), and so has Christlike qualities, but when we first meet him,\nhe's surrounded by the icefoam walls of his compartment. Icefoam, being a\npolymer of water, is placental in nature; the ship is also constantly\nrearranging itself--mitotic imagery. Both of these notions suggest the\ninstauration of a new universe. But this time around will God's first words\nbe \"Fiat Lux\" or the opposite: \"Let darkness reign.\" And of course we\nimmediately note that the lights in Johann's apartment have begun to go\nout--despite a maintenance check that asserts this is not so. I think it's\nalso important at this point to keep in mind a quote from another\nJohann--St. John the Divine: \"Men loved darkness rather than light, because\ntheir deeds were evil.\" \n\nNeuerddraht--German for \"New Earth Wire\"--will be, if all goes well, the\nnew Eden. \"Earth is sick\" and Johann's ship is meant to find habitable\nworlds to colonize. But while Neuerddraht has the verdure of Eden, it also\nhas unusually high ultraviolet--something more akin to hell. (Algol, in\nfact, means Demon Star.) The \"wire\" in its title also links it back to the\novermonitor, which some of Johann's shipmates call God. \"Wire\" may as well\nlink back to the leisure satellite Pleasureworld--another sinister false\nEden (note how it's called Pleasureworld, not Heaven), with its garden (the\nForest of Trees) grown from recycled ordure. (Cf. Johann urinating into and\ndrinking from the same recycler.) \n\nIn the next pageant of the Mystery Play, Johann plays Adam. (Somebody once\nasked where the phrase God's Fingers originated--I always thought it\nrelated to the following passage from Silhouette: \"In Michelangelo's\npainting The Creation of Adam, a floating Jehovah stretches forth his hand\nto the reclining Adam.\") Playing not Eve, but Lilith, is the ship's Captain\n(who's never named). She drugs Johann and they copulate, but Johann\nhallucinates that he's making love to Marcella (fr. Don Quixote?), a\nformer, truer love--his Eve--so in a sense he's remaining faithful, at\nleast in his mind. The forbidden knowledge motif here is carnal, not\nfructive. It's also mentioned that the Captain has not often availed\nherself sexually of Johann because his leg wound (which symbolizes Christ)\nturns her off. Lilith also appears in Goethe's Faust (as do the triumvirate\nof Grit-Gerta-Gretchen in Margarete). Having been the one to disconnect the\novermonitor--\"God\"--she also represents the Miltonian rebel of heaven,\nLucifer. And in the end she attempts to lead \"awakened\" marines--other\nrebellious angels--to the New Eden (but which is actually Hell).\n\nMore Genesis links: the overmonitor disobeying verbal commands and\nrephrasing questions, as well as its dispersal to other machines during its\nattempted disconnection, recalls the tower of Babel and what happened\nthere, with the diaspora of post-Edenic tongues.\n\nThere's also a huge tie-in with Sodom and Gomorrah. Most of the ship's crew\nappears to be bisexual, although Johann refuses the advances of both Karl\nand Emil. Yet another crewmember who refuses to partake in this\nanything-goes-licentiousness is Anna, a former undercook who's committed\nsuicide--might we not expect such behavior from someone named after the\nmother of the Blessed Virgin? Johann thus represents Lot here; and when\nhe's on Neuerddraht (where a city much like ruined Sodom is later found),\nhe's told that if he turns around and looks, the alien ghost he's\nchanneling will become unavailable to him, recalling Lot's wife and her\ntransubstantiation (she becomes a eucharist of salt, no?). Johann also has\na difficult time disengaging his emotions from those with whom he has\ncasual sex; i.e., he needs love to make coitus spiritually rewarding.\n\nChrist's Passion is the next event in the Silhouette Mystery Play. Johann\ntransported via astral projection to Neuerddraht represents Christ's walk\nin the Garden of Gethsemane. The scratches he receives there represent\nChrist's scourgings and the crown of thorns. The computer reports him as\nbeing either missing or dead; this is the time immediately after\ncrucifixion, where Johann as Christ harrows Hell--a very popular motif in\nMystery Plays (in fact, the earliest known English Mystery Play is entitled\nThe Harrowing of Hell). Here his alien companion represents the souls Jesus\nsuccors from the fires of damnation. The name \"Johann\" here also recalls\nJohann Sebastian Bach, not only because of his fugal walks, but because\nBach suggests yet another harrower of hell, Orpheus, who's also counciled\nto look straight ahead (but who still loses Eurydice in the end).\nJohann/Christ returns to the ship (the Resurrection), and with the alien at\nhis side, and with a few loyal crewmembers (note how his affection\ntransfers from Grit to Gerta [\"Pearl\"]--another transubstantiation image,\nbut more positive), and is able to carry the day (the Second Coming). His\nfirst act as Captain? To turn their ship away from the false Eden/Hell of\nNeuerddraht, and chart a new course for elsewhere. It's now the redemptive\nEighth Day (as the title of one of Johann's books by Thorton Wilder\nsuggests). \n\nAs for Wolfe's rather Baconian attempt at explaining astral projection in\nterms of quantum/temporal mechanics, this fits in with the New Atlantis\nangle I mentioned earlier, and makes it seem less \"New Agey\" in some\nrespects, at least in regards to some of the other beliefs advocated by the\nvarious cult factions. But less so is the silhouette of the title--the\nalien ghost/familiar Johann channels. Is his ability to host the alien\nbased on his belief in \"God\"? (The word, according to the alien, exists in\nJohann's brain--unlike his shipmates, who use books like gambling chips,\nJohann reads, which also recalls, as I've argued before, the Gospel of St.\nJohn: \"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the\nWord was God.\") Does the alien symbolize the soul and all things spiritual?\nIs it the shadow of the Almighty, and Johann its priest-king summoner? Is\nJohann with his Covenant a benign Johannes Faustus?\n\nPerhaps there's a clue in the entymology of mystery, at least as it relates\nto Mystery Plays, for here the keyword does not derive from mysterium, but\nministerium, the same word which gives us minister.\n\nJohann as minister; Wolfe as magister. The curtain lowers. Who knows what\nthe next Mystery Play by our favorite lupine may depict? \n\nRobert Borski "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}