Our discussion of the religious or non-religious nature of Wolfe's work has certainly become complexly and compulsively interesting. Noting Jonathan Laidlow's comments on TBOTNS as a text not to be taken too concretely or literally: I don't quite agree. To reiterate something I've said before: although Wolfe's subject matter is primarily religious and so symbolic or non-literal, he does play a vast, subtle game of clues. Wolfe's God is in the subtle, precise, insinuated details of his work; deciphering those details is crucial to a proper, complex understanding of that work. When Robert Borski engages in close, literal literary detective work, or when people debate the precise nature of Jonas' and Sidero's physical character, they are doing precisely what Wolfe intends: drawing out the myriad details out of which the shape of God can be discerned. //-------------------------------------- Nicholas Gevers potto at webmail.co.za