Subject: (urth) swing low, sweet chariot

From: Peter Cash <cash at rsn.hp.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 11:54:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Alice Turner <al at ny.playboy.com> semaphored with her cilia:

> Rock (that makes you a chem; sure you don't want to be Roc?)

You have a PROBLEM with chems? And that's SERGEANT Rock to you, lady!

>I'm going to make one last attempt at nailing "Tracking Song," and then move
>on. Unlike Nutria, I do think it's a religious story, on one level almost an
>allegory...

Yes! I think you're definitely going in the right direction here; this
helps me. Could it be (dare I bring this up? Is this perhaps what you
were thinking? ) that Cutthroat is a christ-figure? He's been cast down
into the fallen world, to share the suffering of its inhabitants--and
ultimately to die into a new life. Too pat, probably.

>...until what may be the moment of his death, at which
>time the sought-for home appears. One may somewhat deplore the appearance of
>a winged being but, in a story by a practicing Catholic, one can hardly
>ignore it. 

If one reads this strictly as a science fiction story, then the sleigh
is a death-bed hallucination. It can't be where it is--it can't have
circumnavigated (do sleighs navigate?) the world in the time available.
Thus, it has to be an illusion. But if this is a religious, allegorical
story, then the sleigh is something more: it's a divine or angelic
vehicle, come to carry Cutthroat home. 

I have to resist the constant temptation to read Wolfe's stories as only
what they superficially appear to be: science fiction tales. 

Sgt. Rock

P.S. Do you really work for Playboy, alga?

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 18:15:43 +0000

>ultimately to die into a new life. Too pat, probably.

Just for the record, I did post a some Christ-figure suggestions in one of
my posts. Remember, that for Wolfe, Christians are living in imitation of
Christ, so all of Wolfe's "Christ figures" are really "Christian figures."

If my post on this did not go through, I can resend it.

Nutria