{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/12", "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": 12, "subject": "Severian, the God", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1997-04-16T15:44:59+00:00", "last": "1997-04-16T15:44:59+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-04-16T15:44:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: (whorl) Severian, the God", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At 03:11 PM 4/13/97 -0400, you wrote (on Whorl list):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And no, of course I don't think Gene Wolfe is a Gnostic. I think he is a\nGnovelist.\n\nAnd I think Severian is the Outsider.\n\n-alga-" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tA gnostic universe. My conclusion exactly the first time I read the\noriginal 4. (Want my evidence?) When I re-read them, I read them in that\nlight, and thought I was right. Then volume 5 came out. Now we have not\njust a cosmos, but heaven & earth (with heaven moving backward timewise).\nEven after that, I could still accommodate a gnostic universe, which is at\nonce ancient, Hindu, and that of modern physics. \n\t(In fact, my first conclusion was that Severian, like the clones in \"Fifth\nHead\" was the anti-christ of this universe. I was wrong, of course, but I\ncan supply my reasons if you want them.)\n\tBut I no longer think we have a gnostic universe in operation. Reading the\nthird time, I saw evidence of a Christian creational universe. \n\tLasrach comments that the Increate never personally intervenes in the\nuniverse, but works through angels exclusively. Now, that's all we see, but\nis that all we know? (A) There's nothing unChristian about God's using\nangels for many things, especially to keep nature running -- in fact, the\nlatter is a Christian dogma. (B) I come back to the missionaries we see in\nvolume 1. The incarnation of the second person of God as Jesus Christ is a\ndefinite intervention by the Increate. Of course, one can put a gnostic\nspin on this as well -- plenty did in the first centuries AD. \n\tSeverian's culture is that of early Byzantium, which had plenty of\ngnosticism as well as Christianity, and all kinds of mixtures. Wolfe has\nsaid (for those who did not pick this up from the books themselves) that\nthis is so, and that he did much research in Byzantium in preparing the\nCommonwealth. (Interview in \"Across the Wounded Galaxies,\" pp. 250-1.)\n\tPlease note: I'd enjoy the books either way. If Wolfe has created a\ngnostic, closed, circular universe without a true transcendent, and is\nsimply using Christian symbolism within it, that's okay with me. That was\nmy original thinking, especially regarding the huge amount of sacramental\nmaterial. But I really don't think that is what he is/was doing. It is more\ncomplex than that. The \"physical sacraments\" in the books are only images\nof the real ones, which we just don't see presented anywhere.\n\tI wrote Gene just before my interview: \"I want to understand better the\nChristian sub-text, such as it may be, in your novels, and I have a few\ninterpretive questions here. Severian is routinely called a Christ figure\nby commentators. I can see Severian as someone who becomes more Christ-like\nin the way all of us should, but who also falls away from time to time.\nJoan Gordon thought that the Conciliator was the historic Jesus, who died\nnot only for our sins but for His own (not an orthodox notion!). That way\nshe could identify Severian and Jesus. I don't think they are so close.\"\n\tGene replied: \"You understand Severian; they don't.\"\n\tAlso, from the interview with Wolfe in \"Across the Wounded Galaxies\" (pp.\n253-4): \"I'm a practicing Catholic.... And in the Book of the New Sun, I\ntried to work out some of the implications of my own beliefs.\"\n\tSo, a purely gnostic read of the Severian Quintet is out of the question.\nSeverian is a New Sun only in a purely intra-cosmic, physical fashion, and\nthus a created replica of the true New Sun (Jesus). He is a Christian\nfigure, not a Christ figure. He does on a grand scale what all of us are\nsupposed to be doing: offering physical life to those in the shadow of\ndeath. He cannot offer ultimate Life from himself, for he is not Jesus.\nSeverian dies and comes back to live over and over again, but not in a\ntransfigured body like Jesus'. He is merely resuscitated, like Lazarus.\nThis is a picture of the Christian, who dies and comes back to life over\nand over again in this world until his/her task is finished. (Of course,\nSeverian's first death is also a baptism.) Similarly, the New Sun does not\ntransform or transfigure the universe into a glorified New Heavens and\nEarth, but only resuscitates the solar system. All of this intra-cosmic\nstuff LOOKS like a gnostic universe that might have been \"generated\" by the\nIncreate. But it's not. Beyond the Briah-Yesod universe is the Outsider,\nwho does intervene occasionally in human affairs. Compare the Ruler in\n\"Westwind.\"\n\tFinally, Alga, on p. 251 of the book above, Wolfe says, \"If you read the\nbook carefully, it's clear that the action takes place in South America.\" I\nrealize it's a bit brutal of me to throw this quotation at you (We Nutrias\ncan be quite bestial!), but while it voids the geographical aspect of your\nproffered map, it does not void possible symbolical dimensions thereof --\nespecially since the Commonwealth is Byzantium-based.\n\nNutria (Jim Jordan)" } ] } ] }