Subject: (urth) Adam and Atom

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 15:38:00 +0000

Roy,

The focus on the play and its authorship seems to place it entirely
in the realm of fiction.

Maybe it is more like the Periodical Table of Elements.  A document
describing real and hypothetical things, however hampered by the
language and understanding of the time.

Who authored the elements?  Well, nobody mortal--they were uncovered
(in a way we can no longer say continents were "discovered") by
various people at various times.  Why does the earliest version
differ so much from the latest version?  Further refinement.  Now
that we have the Table and atomic theory, as we cast our eyes back to
the ancient Greeks it seems like some of them were very close to the
Truth as we now know it--did =they= discover it and then lose it?
No, they did not, but they were among the pioneers who began the
process by which the Table came into being.

My point being that the play is a Truth (Briah/Yesod, the whole deal)
rendered in terms that its illiterate audience can grasp in some way,
shape, or form, at one entertaining sitting.

As for the universe of the hard choice, or "why Urth must be
destroyed so that Ushas can be created."  That is the central point
of the entire Urth Cycle, after all.  While we might all wish for the
rivers of milk and honey of the New Jerusalem in =this= universe,
skypie for everyone in the here and now with no guilt and no regrets,
still the text resists such utopia.  But it isn't as if Severian
doesn't =try=: for example, in the lazaret at the front, Severian
suddenly tries to heal everybody at once.

The Claw shuts down.

What this means =exactly= depends upon several factors, including how
you interpret the Claw (dumb object or intelligent other) and/or the
nature of healing it provides (it seems to leach from Severian's life
force--thus, it might be physically impossible for him to heal a
whole tent full: it would kill him and make them feel only slightly
better.  The Claw as circuit breaker.).  But here is one case where
Severian tries and is thwarted.

Without getting religious about it, the text also makes it quite
plain that death is not a terminus; so, not in anyway to diminish the
grimness of the Flood, nor to shy away from the "Anti-christ" aspects
of Severian; but still--who weeps for the countless krill eaten by
the whale?

Again, we are talking about a fiction.  The best fiction involves
Conflict.  Tragedies involve Suffering and Sacrifice.  Utopias are
inherently Boring.  Easy Solutions are Not Satisfying.

=mantis=

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

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 19:19:48 +0000

On 4-1-99 mantis wrote:

<snip>

Again, we are talking about a fiction.  The best fiction involves
Conflict.  Tragedies involve Suffering and Sacrifice.  Utopias are
inherently Boring.  Easy Solutions are Not Satisfying.<<

    Thanks for your response. I wasn't looking for a happily-ever-after
ending. It's just that, once the god-like powers of the agents of Yesod over
space and time that are postulated in the texts are granted, then almost
anything is possible. Severian pines for Thecla throughout the Urth cycle.
Death is no obstacle, as you say. He can have her, as an eidolon, as she was
at his "trial" and as he himself becomes. He can go back and save and know
his mother. He can have things any way he wants, apparently just because
he's "special". If the agents of Yesod were unwilling (but certainly able)
to do those things for Severian, he, at the pinnacle of his powers brought
by the New Sun, was able to do it for himself. He can work miracles. He can
walk the Corridors of Time. So why doesn't he? He, conveniently for Wolfe,
never seems to think of these things.

    The Hierodules bow down to Severian. Why? He wouldn't even be on my long
list of candidates for world savior. The only reason given in the text is
his "perfect memory". When did that become a criterion for saviors, much
less the supreme one? Severian is a thoroughly despicable lout, cruel,
callous, stupid, woefully ignorant, a murderer, and has the morals of a dog.
Eata was a better man; he could rise above his upbringing and leave it
behind. Severian never does. Jonas was a better man, and he wasn't even a
man. Severian is blown about like a tumbleweed all through the Urth cycle,
seldom in control of his own life for any length of time, a perpetual victim
of circumstances. In that, he is very like Green of _There Are Doors_, but
without Green's innocence.

Roy

---

From: Alex David Groce <adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu>
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 01:40:47 +0000

> without Green's innocence.

	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 Silk, the reader won't necessarily come to even
-like- him.  On the other hand, as I think PEACE and BOTNS would suggest, Wolfe
probably doesn't see Severian as an anti-hero, but as like a real man.  In
this, I think there's a point--not an anti-hero, but a dark everyman.  Wolfe
protagonists are often murderous, cold, confused, or mad--from "Seven American
Nights" to "The Death of Dr. Island" to "The Doctor of Death Island" to
"Tracking Song."  Sure, there are innocents--Tib in "The Eyeflash Miracles,"
and in a more complex but essentially innocent portrait, Silk (I very much like
Alga's comparison to Dostoyevsky's Myshkin).  But in general, Wolfe tends to
focus on very flawed characters.  A prime example would be the man in "The
Ziggurat."
	However, I don't think he means us to reject these figures--rather, to
see ourselves in them, with veins of dark and light.  A picture of a (to sue
the religious terms that are relevant) sinful but redeemable man.  And I think
it's clear that there IS moral growth in Severian throughout the BOTNS.  The
final talk with Palaemon, in my opinion, establishes that for the pre-Urth
Severian, at least.
-- 
"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

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 16:59:08 +0000

On Sun, 4 Apr 1999, Alex David Groce wrote:

> > list of candidates for world savior. 
> 
> On the other hand, as I think PEACE and BOTNS would suggest, Wolfe
> this, I think there's a point--not an anti-hero, but a dark everyman.  

You make a good case for why Wolfe would write about someone like
Severian, but I'm not sure it answers the question of why the Hierodules
would choose Severian as a savior.  

Are you suggesting they have a similar agenda?  Perhaps Tad has a wager
with with Satan?  "Betcha I can even make a saint out of this guy." "A
torturer?  No way--yer on." 

-Rostrum