Subject: (urth) Soldier Series

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 13:49:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #7223192 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Xury,

His real name is Lucius; he is a Latin; he was cursed by the Great
Mother Goddess for messing up her temple during a battle; "Latro"
means both "mercenary" and "pawn" (game piece), and Lucius is
definitely both; and, in the interview words of Gene Wolfe, Lucius
has a truly magic sword--"It cuts things." <g>

But seriously, anything more specific than that, you just go ahead
and axe--er, "ask"!  Maybe a few conflicting answers can be found
around here, I'll bet.

=mantis=

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 12:48:39 +0000

Spoilers...

> has a truly magic sword--"It cuts things." <g>

I don't have all the people straight in my head (it's been a while, and I
make all the connections), but Latro is a pawn in the conflict among the
Mother Goddess, the goddess of the Spartans/Rope Makers, Mars (who is
served by the Amazons), and is there also a god/goddess of the Athenians?

In the end, when Latro rides to freedom rather than victory, allowing the
Amazons to win the race, it seems he is thwarting some of the gods and
helping others, but I don't have it all sorted out.

Also there's the Athenian whose name starts with 'T' who the Spartans give
all those gifts, apparently to make him look like a traitor and lose power
among the Athenians.

And another scene I didn't catch until Wolfe explained it in an interview:
The whole ceremony Latro participates in with the Rope Makers is based on
a real event.  When the Spartans gave their slaves arms to help repel the
invading Persians, they had this ceremony where they were ostensibly going
to make them all honorary Spartans, but insted they killed them all,
fulfilling their policy of never allowing slaves to carry weapons.

It wasn't clear to me in Wolfe's version if they had intended and failed
to kill Latro and Seven Lions or if they never intended to kill him and he
was sickened and depressed because that meant he was kind of on the same
side as the people who played such an evil trick. 

In spite of my confusion (part of which is faulty memory), I think the
Soldier books are my favorite of all Wolfe's work.

-Rostrum

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From: Derek Bell <dbell at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:31:08 +0000

>served by the Amazons), and is there also a god/goddess of the Athenians?

	Um, yes - Athena. She was the patron goddess of Athens as well
as their goddess of war and wisdom. The Roman equivalent, Minerva, was
a goddess of the hearth and wisdom. (Romans being male chauvinists and
not wanting to give Athens too much importance either.)

	Derek

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From: Scott Dalrymple <scottd at wycol.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 16:09:21 +0000

>Soldier books are my favorite of all Wolfe's work.

I have to admit that I had trouble with the Soldier books the first time
through.  I always knew that Wolfe was smarter than me, but here some
things seemed so far over my head that I found it frustrating reading.
Then I found an unabridged cassette recording of _Soldier of the Mist_.
Hearing that read to me well *really* increased my appreciation (and
understanding) of the book.  BTW, I think the company that made the tapes
was The Listening Ear, and I also thonk they're defunct now.  I found a
copy at the Rochester (NY) Public Library.

On another note: I recently saw a CD-ROM game called City of Lost Children.
 Does anyone know if it has anything to do with the movie that's been
mentioned here (and which I have yet to find)?

Scott Dalrymple

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 20:53:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #7613260 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Rostrum,

Re: Soldier series as your favorite, you are not alone--I've met
others who feel the same way, but also a number of people who dislike
them for not being accurate enough (in a classicist point of view)
and get downright irritated at some of the seemingly willful
"mistakes."  I believe SOLDIER OF THE MIST was the favorite one that
made Jeremy Crampton start up his fanzine, "Book of Gold."  So the
Soldier series might be the most controversial in having love/hate
camps.

(This issue of "accuracy" could possibly be leveled against the use of
mystical terms in TBOTNS, but I haven't seen anybody go much further
than Nutria's "He is just using Yesod for Heaven and Briah for Earth"
statement a few messages back.  Because it is true--Gene Wolfe isn't
a Kabbalahist!  [Nor am I, for that matter.]  I'm impressed by how
well he can use such terms as he does.  OTOH, the analogy "Heaven is
to Yesod as Earth is to x" would be answered "Malkuth" by the novice
student, rather than "Briah," which really is a different catagory--a
set in which "Assiah" makes more sense than Briah, for that matter.
So, is this a "mistake"?  Who knows, but say "Sure" just to avoid
pointless argument or senseless speculation on trying to figure it out.)

(All of which returns to the bush of "Gene Wolfe is writing
entertaining fictions not educational tracts.")

FWIW his pagan magic scenes seem to have met with great approval by
at least one pagan magic non-fiction author, Godwin, who wrote about
it/them in his book LIGHT IN EXTENSION.

Looking at the interview with Nutria (on the subtopic of the Soldier
books) one can see that Gene Wolfe planned to move ever further away
from the Robert-Graves-under-heroic-self-constraint-of-I, CLAUDIUS
(as opposed to wild Bill of KING JESUS and THE WHITE GODDESS) and
fully into the realm of Barry Fell's AMERICA B.C., with ancient
Phonecians, Romans, Greeks, et cetera cruising around North America
before the advent of Jesus.  At which point the classicists would have
finally relaxed and said, "Well, that's what happens when you read the
National Enquirer!"  To which Gene would surely quip, "But I always
read News of the World first!"  Or something like that, 'cause it's
true.

It is definitely a challenging text because of the narrative device!

=mantis=

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 08:37:00 +0000

As regards the Soldier series, one thing we have to bear in mind is that
it is incomplete. We'd have lots more problems interpreting Severian if we
only had the first two books of the New Sun. 
	The other point to bear in mind, which Mantis touched upon, is that Wolfe
is not committed to "establishment" reconstructions of the history and
chronology of the ancient world, any more than he's committed to
"establishment" views of evolution. (He's Lamarckian.) Speaking as someone
who has done some work in this area, I agree with Wolfe: A great many
supposed certainties about the ancient world are merely hypotheses that
have been repeated too many times. If anyone wants to pursue such matters,
Peter James's *Centuries of Darkness* (Rutgers U. Press) and David Rohl's
*Pharaohs and Kings* (Crown) make a good starting point. 
	At any rate, there is good reason to think that Troy fell around 800 BC,
and that the early Romans were indeed Mycenaean Trojans; and very good
reason to think that Tyreans and other Phoeniceans travelled to the
Americas. Also, one has to bear in mind that Hiram of Tyre was a worshipper
of the God of Israel, and was closely allied to David and Solomon, so that
there was Yahwistic influence among the Phoenicians -- something often
overlooked, but which I would not be surprised if Wolfe picked up on.
	We'll just have to wait and see. Happily, we have been told that Wolfe is
now going to complete the series.

Nutricious