# Deciphering the Divine

*The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 30 Apr 1999*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1603>

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### Nicholas Gevers
*30 Apr 1999, 06:10*

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

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