Subject: (urth) Thus Spoke Severian? (Nietzsche links)

From: Jon Camfield <griffjon at mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 09:35:35 +0000

(Yah, I's been quiet.  I's been busy.  OTOH, I did have a chance to read
lots of Nietzsche, and find a few parallels, only one striking one)

In _On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Live (1874), Nietzsche
argued that man must live as a balance between remembering and forgetting,
and one passage in particular struck me:

"Cheerfulness, the good conscience, the joyful deed, confidence in the
future -- all of them depend, in the case of the individual as of a nation,
on the existence of a line dividing the bright and discernable from the
unilluminable and dark; on one's being just as able to forget at the right
time as to remember at the right time; on the possession of a powerful
instinct for sensing when it is necessary to feel historically and when
unhistorically.  This, precisely, is the proposition the reader is invited
to meditate upon: /the unhistorical and the historical are necessary in
equal measure for the health of an individual, of a people and of a
culture/."  (/../ specify italics, Nietzsche's.)

Now, not to overanalyze, (but I wish I knew if Wolfe had read Nietzsche!),
but "line dividing the bright ... and dark"? Terminus Est, you mean?  Or
what about Severian being the 'memory' for a culture living in the present
moment (living unhistorically) while immersed in it?  And in being the
opposite extreme, gives a healthy balance?

Also, in _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, Zara announces the future of humanity as
having two possible courses, one towards the Last Man (no lie!), of a
future bright in technology and comfort, but immersed in decadence and
eventual death, and that of the Superhuman/Overman, who is a dramatic
change from current man, an evolution from him, but more a revolution in
(moral) thought-- Ash, master of the Last House vs. the Green Man?

...nahhhh. ;)

Has anyone else read these connections into Nietzsche, or (as is likely)
seen ones I missed?

------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Camfield      "GriffJon"  	|Webmaster, Plan II Honors Program:
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"Behold the good and the just!  Whom do they hate the most?
The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker, the
lawbreaker; yes he is the creator"
--Nietzsche, _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Alex David Groce <adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 11:30:21 +0000

> Has anyone else read these connections into Nietzsche, or (as is likely)

Striking, but I'm doubtful.  I can imagine Wolfe having read Nietzsche (at
least some), as Wolfe is certainly very widely read...  On the other hand, I
don't see an intentional reference to Nietzsche as very likely--it just seems
that Wolfe's general view of things is so non-Nietzschean...
	Of course, it could simply be my personal distaste for
Nietzsche--certainly a genius and a brilliant writer, but on the whole his work
strikes me as containing a thin vein of clear perception in a sea of murk and
error...  Severian as the Superman seems quite a bit off (first of all, Wolfe
has mentioned somewhere (I think) that he was fond of Chesterton's "Meeting the
Superman" or whatever, and I doubt if that's the case he'd have wanted Sev.
associated with that...)
	But mainly, Nietzsche's "slave morality," etc. analysis doesn't seem to
fit well as a source for BOTNS...  Although N's self-contradictory enough that
you could say that's irrelevant...

-- 
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." - John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)
Senior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)
'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President
608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce

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From: Peter Stephenson <pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 16:35:06 +0000

Jon Camfield wrote:
> (Yah, I's been quiet.  I's been busy...)

It's been quiet, has it?  Oh, *I's* been quiet.  Dialect, don't you
know.  Good show.

> GriffJon at mail.utexas.edu   	| www.dla.utexas.edu/~plan2

All explained.  Tallyho.

> (moral) thought-- Ash, master of the Last House vs. the Green Man?

Sounds like parallel evolution.  Lots of mystical views of the future
probably have this forking paths theme.

On the other hand, it's certainly interesting how many parallels you
can find when you pick writers with that sort of out of the way
viewpoint.  Like the connections I brought up with Yeats some time
ago; I think the conclusion (parallel evolution) was the same there.
He's got gyres rather than forking paths though, i.e. both extremes
happen repeatedly.  (Did that sentence make sense?)

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws at ibmth.df.unipi.it>       Tel: +39 050 844536
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/
Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56127 Pisa, Italy

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 20:36:57 +0000

In message <199812031631.IAA29045 at lists1.best.com>, Alex David Groce writes:
>fit well as a source for BOTNS...

	It certainly would be very difficult to fit it into BOTNS.

>Although N's self-contradictory enough that you could say that's irrelevant...

	I think Karl Jaspers said that someone wasn't familiar with
Nietzsche until they had found every statement and its contradiction
in Nietzsche's writings!

	Derek

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 20:33:27 +0000

>Now, not to overanalyze, (but I wish I knew if Wolfe had read

	Certainly he's aware of Nietzsche; _To the Dark Tower Came_
had Kent punning on the word "Superman" without even mentioning the
word itself. (One of the phrases used is a thumbnail portrait of
Nietzsche's Superman.)

	On the other hand, Nietzsche's eternal reccurence of
the same could be seen as incompatible with the eschatological themes
of TBoTNS - it's certainly a new Sun and a new Earth. (A biblical
reference, if I'm not mistaken; Nietzsche also referred to the Bible
though as well as Plato - who he disliked.)

	Just to be contra-contradictory :-), there is also the
oft-quoted passage "I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give
birth to a dancing star." Well, Severian doesn't create or *give
birth* to the New Sun, but he is full of chaos - all those autarchial
personas inside!

>Has anyone else read these connections into Nietzsche, or (as is likely)

	In his first book, _The Birth of Tragedy_, Nietzsche used a
couple of symbols that reappeared in _TSZ_: one was an eagle, the
other was the Sun!

	Then again, I think Nietzsche's sun is associated with the
Apollonian spirit and I think Gene Wolfe has explicitly said that the
New Sun is non-Apollonian.

	He also showed his dislike of Socrates and, by
implication, Plato. He accused Socrated of bullying people with talk,
IIRC and called for a balance between the Apollonian spirit (rational,
linked with moderation) and the Dionisian spirit (chaotic, wild,
potentially creative and destructive). This description is only a
small part of TBoT - it is a very complex book, including Nietzsche's
speculations on Greek drama as an outgrowth of religion.

	Derek