Subject: (urth) Deluge, Hierodules, Materialism

From: Ori Kowarsky <orik at sprint.ca>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 19:58:32 +0000

I'd like to thank everyone on the list for the warm welcome.  In particular,
thanks to alga for cluing me in on that HTML problem.  I apologise for
cluttering up the list with all that illegible nonsense;  my intention was
to clutter it up with legible nonsense.

Christoper R. Culver wrote:

"I think that the "judge" version of Tzadkiel, analogous to the Archangel
Michael, would be certainly be divine. Whether of not he receives
communication directly from the Pancreator is one of the more interesting
mysteries of _Urth_."

I approach TBOTNS and UOTNS from a materialistic point of view.  If the
elements of fantasy have an ultimately scientific rationale within the
context of the book, then so too should the religious elements.  If, for
example, Terminus Est is not a magical sword but rather a subtle and
ingenious mechanism, then I believe it is appropriate to apply the same
standards of proof to the larger machines -- even the deus ex machinae -- at
play.

I do not blieve that Tzad is remotely connected to the Archangel Michael, in
either motive or substance.  If he comes off like an angel on the Day of
Jugement this is a carefully orchestated effect, done for the benefit of Sev
and his personal, shall we say, demons.

*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: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 13:59:29 +0000

On Apr 22,  7:58pm, Ori Kowarsky wrote:
> Subject: (urth) Deluge, Hierodules, Materialism

	It can certainly be approached that way; however, from the standpoint
of the author, at least, it would appear there IS an implied connection between
the material events and a spiritual reality.  That is, although Wolfe "plays
the science fiction game" nicely and does provide a purely materialistic
explanation most of the time (as in BOTLS for Silk's enlightenment, the Crane
hypothesis), Wolfe obviously isn't a materialist, and the fiction stretches the
belief in a purely materialistic explanation pretty thin--it works, but a more
plausible worldview for the reality portrayed would accept non-material
influences.  I like to think of it in the Douglas Adams refutation of Sherlock
Holmes' "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however
improbable must be the truth"--sometimes it is better to reject a certain idea
of what is impossible than to accept the monstrously improbable.  In other
words, although Wolfe doesn't come out and FORCE acceptance of the non-material
elements, his fictions are pretty heavily weighted (as I'd argue the real world
is) in favor of a non-purely-materialistic explanation.

-- 
"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: Carlos Martinho <carlosom71 at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 11:55:42 +0000

Hi! It's my first post. This
materialism/supernaturalism question in TBONS and
UOTNS 
is quite interesting, so...

I guess it's a mistake to attempt to put Wolfe's work
in one of these categories, or read it in a
"materalistic" or "supernaturalistic" view. The TBONS
universe is so old that every distintion of this kind
makes no more sense in the minds of the people who
live there, and it's a new approach to us -- a
approach that we have to grasp.

It's a universe where the scientific facts are seen
just as the magic of the Increate, after all. I guess
that the best aproach would be to see the Increate
as a god on the Spinozean sense: the Substance.

And, if all of us are tools of the Increate, why
couldn't Tzadikiel be some sort of high-high-high-tech
android and the archangel Gabriel at the same time? an
angel, after all, is just a messenger -- a tool -- of
the Increate...

===
"The nostalgia of things unknown, of lands forgotten or
 unfound, is upon me at times. Often I
 long for the gleam of yellow suns upon terraces
 of translucent azure marble, mocking the 
windless waters of lakes unfathomably calm"

Clark Ashton Smith, "Nostalgia of the Unknown"
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 16:26:05 +0000

> approach that we have to grasp.

We recently had a discussion that touched on this topic.  Some people
argue that the distinction between "materialistic" and "supernaturalistic"
is a modern one, and that it's we who are unique in making the
distinction, not the TBONS universe for not making it.

-Rostrum

---

From: Ori Kowarsky <orik at sprint.ca>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 19:19:34 +0000

alga wrote:

"Now wait a sec here. Tzadkiel is not Michael but s/he certainly is an
angel,
not an archangel like Michael, but a sufficiently great and important being
for Urth/Ushas. S/he is the Angel of Divine Justice. (My info comes from
Gustav Davidson's -A Dictionary of Angels-, Free Press 1967, which is not
one of those idiotic gift-books of angels, but a scholarly work). I don't
have the book to hand, so cannot tell you more, but I do have a xerox of the
list of the 30 top angels (and the 103 fallen angels)."

Alex David Groce wrote:

"That is, although Wolfe "plays the science fiction game" nicely and does
provide a purely materialistic
explanation most of the time (as in BOTLS for Silk's enlightenment, the
Crane
hypothesis), Wolfe obviously isn't a materialist, and the fiction stretches
the
belief in a purely materialistic explanation pretty thin--it works, but a
more
plausible worldview for the reality portrayed would accept non-material
influences.  I like to think of it in the Douglas Adams refutation of
Sherlock
Holmes' "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however
improbable must be the truth"--sometimes it is better to reject a certain
idea
of what is impossible than to accept the monstrously improbable.  In other
words, although Wolfe doesn't come out and FORCE acceptance of the
non-material
elements, his fictions are pretty heavily weighted (as I'd argue the real
world
is) in favor of a non-purely-materialistic explanation."

I disagree with the above two statements by alga and Alex Groce for much the
same reason.  They both make the assumption, and perhaps a reasonable one
given what I've heard of Gene Wolfe's beliefs, that the mysteries or themes
of TBOTNS may be best understood or explained through the prism of certain
strands of Christian tradition.  The assumption is neither correct or
incorrect, it is simply one positionof many and serves to prove how
multifaceted and multi-dimensional an experience TBOTNS is.  My personal
point of view is that to assume that Tzadkiel is an angel simply because
there is a tradition of there being an angel named Tzadkiel in Western
culture is fine, but does that mean that every sailor named Jonas was once
swallowed by a whale in the Mediterranean?

Alex Groce believes that TBOTNS is slanted towards a non-materialistic view
of the universe.  I don't know.  Wolfe could have written that Terminus Est
was a magical sword, but in fact it is a technological artifact.  The
Pelerines' tent could have risen into the air by divine fiat but was in fact
inflated by hot air as the Pelerines torched it.  Master Malrubius could be
a spiritual ghost or an angel or a spirit from heaven but he is in fact a
sort of three dimensional projection.  In Citadel Wolfe could have written
"these Hieros are angels, they come from Heaven, the Increate is the God of
the Bible" but he does not;  their origin is explained in the very
materialistic terms of biology, politics and technology.  The whole cosmic
flower metaphor or discription is actually lifted from Hinduism.  The
actions of the Hieros appear to me to be no different from any
technologically superior colonizing force, the only difference that I see is
that they look and dress like angels and monks as opposed to green men with
fishbowl helmets.  The issue, I would argue, is not separating the
impossible from the improbable;  it is separating what you want to see from
what is actually there.

Ori