{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1574", "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": 1574, "subject": "Wolfe's textual Catholicism", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-04-25T05:29:04+00:00", "last": "1999-04-29T05:01:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Gevers", "address": "potto at webmail.co.za" }, "date": "1999-04-25T05:29:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's textual Catholicism", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In response to Ori Kowarsky's interesting and emphatic recent posting,\ndenying any necessary religious reading of Wolfe's work:\nCertainly many different interpretations of Wolfe, religious or\nsecular, are sustainable; but some difficulties arise with an\ninsistently secular approach:\n1) Wolfe's known Catholicism is ignored: the major flaw in Peter\nWright's Wolfe articles.\n2) The logic I've cited previously is ignored: as a Catholic writer,\nWolfe feels free to be very catholic in his deployment of literary and\nsymbolic materials. As Catholic missionaries have done over centuries\n- incorporating \"foreign\" rituals, beliefs, and philosophies into the\nChristian mix as additional masks that God may wear - so Wolfe adopts\nDarwinian, Hindu, and other components into his texts, as conveniences\nof garb, serving the still Christian purposes of God and author. In\nthe process, the \"foreign\" elements serve Christianity, and so are\ndeprived of their original, non-Christian force. This is the essence\nof parody, the literary technique at which Wolfe excels: the borrowing\nof cultural forms in order to use them in capacities utterly opposed\nto their customary ones.\n3) The secular emphasis ignores the PROCESSES of religious belief: in\nparticular, Faith. Expanding a point made in my posting of a couple of\ndays ago: I recently remarked to Peter Cash that Wolfe's texts are, in\na lit-crit sense, analogues of Faith: that is, they show us a world of\napparent darkness, of countless clashing signs, but a subtle divine\npattern is there to be discerned if we are willing (and able); this is\nhow one comes to Faith. This is not easy: one can spend many years\nteasing out Wolfe's meanings; and Wolfe, a deeply perverse writer,\npresents us with apparent paradoxes, such as a creator God who is\nwilling to remake the world (Urth) by exterminating its people, whom\nHe made in the first place. But Catholicism has always been capable of\nperversity, and of reflecting the cruelties of the Christian concept\n(martyrs, the Inquisition, etc.)\n//--------------------------------------\nNicholas Gevers\npotto at webmail.co.za" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1999-04-25T12:15:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's textual Catholicism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 25, 7:29am, Nicholas Gevers wrote:\nSubject: (urth) Wolfe's textual Catholicism\nIn response to Ori Kowarsky's interesting and emphatic recent posting,\ndenying any necessary religious reading of Wolfe's work:\nCertainly many different interpretations of Wolfe, religious or\nsecular, are sustainable; but some difficulties arise with an\ninsistently secular approach:\n1) Wolfe's known Catholicism is ignored: the major flaw in Peter\nWright's Wolfe articles.\n2) The logic I've cited previously is ignored: as a Catholic writer,\nWolfe feels free to be very catholic in his deployment of literary and\nsymbolic materials. As Catholic missionaries have done over centuries\n- incorporating \"foreign\" rituals, beliefs, and philosophies into the\nChristian mix as additional masks that God may wear - so Wolfe adopts\nDarwinian, Hindu, and other components into his texts, as conveniences\nof garb, serving the still Christian purposes of God and author. In\nthe process, the \"foreign\" elements serve Christianity, and so are\ndeprived of their original, non-Christian force. This is the essence\nof parody, the literary technique at which Wolfe excels: the borrowing\nof cultural forms in order to use them in capacities utterly opposed\nto their customary ones.\n3) The secular emphasis ignores the PROCESSES of religious belief: in\nparticular, Faith. Expanding a point made in my posting of a couple of\ndays ago: I recently remarked to Peter Cash that Wolfe's texts are, in\na lit-crit sense, analogues of Faith: that is, they show us a world of\napparent darkness, of countless clashing signs, but a subtle divine\npattern is there to be discerned if we are willing (and able); this is\nhow one comes to Faith. This is not easy: one can spend many years\nteasing out Wolfe's meanings; and Wolfe, a deeply perverse writer,\npresents us with apparent paradoxes, such as a creator God who is\nwilling to remake the world (Urth) by exterminating its people, whom\nHe made in the first place. But Catholicism has always been capable of\nperversity, and of reflecting the cruelties of the Christian concept\n(martyrs, the Inquisition, etc.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tOr to put it differently, Wolfe reflects the paradoxes of the God of\nthe Cross. It's not that it's impossible to interpret BOTNS in a purely\nmaterialistic light, as a commentary on colonialism or what-not, but it's\nsurely ignoring the form and patterns of many of the events. When an avowedly\nCatholic writer writes a book that contains what are clearly versions of events\nportrayed in the Gospels, and even titles the first chapter \"Death and\nResurrection,\" surely the burden of proof in offering convincing\ninterpretations is in the lap of purely secular readings. It is a case, in\npart, of \"separating what you want to see from what is actually there.\" But if\nthere's a strong indication the author wanted it to be there too, that does\ntend to create \"more privileged\" readings. Joyce's ULYSSES could be read\nwithout examining the parody of the Odyssey, but it probably isn't the\npreferred way of looking at it." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-04-26T10:09:36+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's textual Catholicism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Nicholas Gevers wrote:\nIn response to Ori Kowarsky's interesting and emphatic recent posting,\ndenying any necessary religious reading of Wolfe's work:\nCertainly many different interpretations of Wolfe, religious or\nsecular, are sustainable; but some difficulties arise with an\ninsistently secular approach:\n1) Wolfe's known Catholicism is ignored: the major flaw in Peter\nWright's Wolfe articles." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Using the author's biography and alleged intent to interpret a novel can\nbe interesting, but I prefer interpretations that stand on their own\nsupport from the text. \n\nYou may end up dismissing some interesting questions if you assume that\nbecause Wolfe is Catholic, Tzad is an angel and therefore a good guy. \n\nI really agreed with Alex's observation, that while the text of Wolfe's\nbooks have me pretty convinced that Tzad is an angel, that the Outsider\nreally enlightened Silk, etc., I'm not absolutely sure. I can enjoy\nthinking through a \"secular\" interpretation of the book. And, for me, it\nonly ruins it if Wolfe says in an interview, \"the Outsider is real.\"\n\nSo I think it's much more interesting to try reading through the book and\nseeing if Ori's secular interpretation can be sustained (or if, as I\nsuspect, it leaves too much unexplained) than to just dismiss it by\nsaying, \"Wolfe is Catholic.\"\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Gevers", "address": "potto at webmail.co.za" }, "date": "1999-04-29T05:01:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Wolfe's textual Catholicism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In response to Ori Kowarsky's recent defence of his non-Christian\nreading of the Urth Cycle: eloquently argued, Ori, but I detect a\nmajor inconsistency in your posting. Initially, you describe the\nChristian allusions in BOTNS as detritus from past ages, part of the\neclectic symbolic soup of Wolfe's posthistory; then, you maintain that\nthere's no sign that Christ has been present in Severian's universe,\nthat Christian salvation can apply there, etc. But surely the survival\nof Christian iconography and theology into Severian's age means that\nChristianity has been present on Urth, but has faded into abeyance\nover time? There is plenty of textual evidence to support the\nexistence of the Bible as a text familiar in some respects to the\npeople and hierodules of Briah: the presence of Christian missionaries\nwho can read from Exodus in the Jungle Garden; copious references to\nGenesis in Dr. Talos's Play; the fact that the religion of Typhon's\ntime was analogous to Catholicism, and as such parodied by the gods of\nthe Whorl in LONG SUN. Surely, Severian is a reiteration of a\nmessianic pattern encountered previously on Urth or Earth, not only in\nApu-Punchau and the Conciliator, but also in Christ.\nAs for the Urth Cycle not enacting the pattern of Revelations, etc.:\nhow literally should Biblical prophecies be taken? In any case, as\nI've argued previously, the God described by Wolfe is a highly\nperverse being, at least from a mortal perspective; His Plan is vast\nand complicated, entailing cruel manipulation of humanity, to the\npoint of genocide; in my view, the Increate's behaviour is a warning\nto the reader that the actions of God (and his counterpart the Author)\nare best not taken for granted. If Severian's cosmos is not ours, it\nemanates from the same Creator, and any variations it presents on the\npattern of our universe are deliberate and elegant, if often\ninscrutable, variations performed by that Artist.\n//--------------------------------------\nNicholas Gevers\npotto at webmail.co.za" } ] } ] }