{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1962", "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": 1962, "subject": "Messianic?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-11-18T16:29:09+00:00", "last": "1999-11-19T08:53:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-11-18T16:29:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Messianic?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Alex wrote:\nThis interpretation of BOTNS can be supported from the text, with a lot of\nwork, but I strongly disagree with it. It seems to me that you're seeing\nsmall and largely disputable points in Severian's narrative as evidence that\n(A) Severianis a bald-faced liar and the narrative we have is not merely\nincomplete, but actually a complete distortion of actual events we can\nnever, in any way, know, and (B) the cosmic plan outlined (why we should\nbelieve in it at all, I'm unsure--why not say Severian is a poor torturer's\napprentice who, in a fever, dreams he is a savior of the world?) is in fact\nthe work of what seems almost a fallen angel, or, perhaps, as others have\nstated some time ago on the list, a kind of sneaky colonization plan by\nEmpire-builders from Yesod :).<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(A) is too strong a summation of my approach. I think the text is roughly\naccurate--so far as it is given--but Severian deceives himself often enough\nthat his judgements can't be taken at face value. As he says to B,F,&O when\nquestioned about what he had gained from his predecessor besides his\nmemories:\n\n For the first time in many years, I felt the blood rise in my cheeks.\n\"I lied,\" I said. \"I am he, just as I am Thecla. You three have been my\nfriends when I had few, and I should not lie to you, though so often I must\nlie to myself.\" (V, V)\n\nWhen he lies to himself he distorts reality, or rather, his perception of\nit. When he then relates his perceptions to the reader he is lying to the\nreader by commission; when he fails to relate something altogether he is\nlying by omission. I cannot seriously entertain the notion that he lies to\nhimself but tells the truth to the reader.\n\nI'm not making these quotes up. Wolfe put them in for a reason, I suppose,\nnot just to pad the text. We can argue about which things Severian relates\nthat he is not telling the truth about, to what extent he is not telling the\ntruth, why he left out something that obviously should have been in his\naccount, but I don't think it can be doubted that not everything he tells us\nis the truth.\n\nSometimes what he tells the reader isn't true, but he isn't lying; he's just\ntoo dense to understand what is going on around him. He then misleads the\nreader by making unwarranted assumptions.\n\n(B) is an interpretation advanced by Ori Kowarski. I don't entirely agree\nwith it--but arguments can be put forth in support of it. I'll leave that to\nhim to pursue if he wishes, but I will point out one thing which has been\nmentioned before here, which is hard to ignore.\n\nRemember the Infernal imagery in URTH right before Sev and Gunnie left\nYesod? Sev would not recognize it as such--but the reader does. Maybe Sev\nfinally figured it out. Maybe he left things out of his manuscript because\nthey were the evidentiary links in the chain that bound him to his destiny\nas a hapless pawn in a cosmic game--which is just how Captain Tzadkiel spoke\nof Sev and his kind when he last saw her. (V, XXIV) He didn't even get his\nGethsemane scene; he hadn't a prayer of passing the cup, because the game\nwas rigged before he was even born. The Yesodians would keep picking him up,\ndusting him off, and sending him back again and again until he got it Right.\n\nYour \"fallen angel\" comment may be closer to the truth than you think. Why\n*did* Wolfe put the Dante bits in? Lucifer, too, was a star, the \"light\nbringer\": \"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!\"\n(Isaiah XIV, 12)\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In fact, given this approach, I'm curious--could you elaborate on what you\nsee BOTNS as \"about,\" in this case? It strikes me that most of the\nunderlying themes I see in it are undercut by this interpretation (which\nreminds me of the \"Weer is a mass-murderer, and kills EVERYONE in\nCassionville\" version of PEACE).<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]\n\nYes, well, hmm, unlike Weer, Severian really *did* kill everyone on Urth.\n Given what I know of Wolfe--strictly from his work and transcripts of\ninterviews and some personal anecdotes from people on this list--it's hard\nto interpret TBOTNS other than in a religious sense. The Biblical elements\nare certainly there, but I have a very difficult time seeing Sev in a\nChrist-like, Christic, Everyman, or even Christian role. Not being religious\nmyself, he shouldn't be able to offend my religious sensibilities, because I\ndon't have any. But Wolfe manages it with Sev. I've read the BIBLE, I\nrecognize the parallels, and I've read the arguments and explications\ntendered on this list in support of that reading. I remain far from\nconvinced. I'm even rather surprised that devout Christians aren't outraged\nat comparisons of Sev to Jesus. Perhaps they are; this list is hardly\nrepresentative of the people who read Wolfe. To me, despite the parallels,\nSev of the Urth Cycle is about as far from the character of Jesus as\nportrayed in the Gospels as two members of the same species can be.\n\nYou know all the points where they correspond; let me point out some rather\nglaring contrasts. Jesus never killed anyone. He didn't have sex with every\nfemale he could get his hands on. He knew who his parents were. He didn't\nearn his daily bread by being very good at hurting people. He was not a\nsoldier. He was not a temporal ruler. He never slept with his grandmother.\nHe didn't have a sister or wife, etc., etc.\n\nIn the Christian tradition Jesus suffered and died to save mankind. Severian\nthe messiah destroyed mankind, then got to go sit on the beach drinking\nmargaritas and watching the girls go by, writing his memoirs and basking in\nhis new-found godhead. I just don't see any meaningful comparison, in or out\nof a religious context. Ushas isn't even pie-in-the-sky for all those\ncorpses floating on the tide; they're just dead.\n\nIf Wolfe intended Sev to be seen as Christ-like, why make him so\nunchristian? If Tzadkiel and his followers were meant to be angelic, why\nmake them liars and deceivers, puppet masters in a shadowy theater? Why the\nimages of hell in Yesod? Wolfe is at least sending mixed messages.\n\nGiven that the manuscripts are the only extant artifacts of an otherwise\nunknowable universe/world, Sev's word is all we have to judge them by. I\nused the term \"literary solipsism\" because that was the phrase used by Alex\nin his Nov. 5 post to describe the de facto situation.\n\nSev at times addresses the hypothetical reader of his manuscripts directly\nto somehow qualify what he has written or will write. This serves to remind\nthe reader that *all* that he writes is addressed to that reader and that\nall of his writing is qualified--by his abilities, his perceptions, his\nunderstanding. When he writes that he lies to himself, the reader is given\nwarning that all that he relates cannot be trusted to be true. People who\nlie to themselves do so because they cannot face the truth. Human nature is\nsuch that people lie to themselves about things that they regard as\nimportant to their sense of self-identity, self-worth, the core values of\ntheir being. This colors and otherwise distorts their worldview; all that\nthey perceive is filtered through that lens. This causes people to see\nthings not as they are, but as their ego will allow them to see them. If Sev\nhas to lie to himself then he has no choice but to lie to the reader when he\nrelates something that conflicts with his preferred view of what he is\nrelating. And the fiction is that in his manuscripts he only related what he\nthought was important to his life, from torturer's apprentice to godling on\nthe beaches of Ushas.\n\nWhen his reader reads his own statements that he is a liar, that he has lied\nand will lie, even to the masters of his universe, is he telling the truth?\nOr is that just another lie?\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-11-19T08:53:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Messianic?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nWhen his reader reads his own statements that he is a liar, that he has lied\nand will lie, even to the masters of his universe, is he telling the truth?\nOr is that just another lie?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But if Severian is lying, then he must be telling the truth, but if he's\ntelling the truth, then he must be lying, but if he is lying, then he must\nbe telling truth, but if he's telli- ***NOMAD GO BOOM!***" } ] } ] }