Subject: (urth) C.S. Lewis

From: akt <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 02:08:19 +0000

Vizcacha said:

> I refer again to C. S. Lewis's position, explicated somewhat in _Out
of the
> Silent Planet_ et seq., that space travel (or possibly only space
> colonization) and immortality are sins.  This is a thread not far
below the
> surface in much of _New Sun_ and even in other works by Wolfe.

And Rostrum replied:

> It's a fine point, but he didn't think space travel and immortality
are
> themselves sins, rather they are a bad idea because they would allow
sin
> to grow beyond it's current bounds of time (a lifetime) and space
(Earth).

I would appreciate more on this. I've read these books (not for years,
true) without conciously picking up these points. And does Wolfe really
echo them? Typhon, who lives for centuries, is bad. But the Green Man,
Sev himself, everyone on the starship are not immortal, but are
long-lived. Tzad is probably immortal (but also supernatural).

-alga

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Daniel Fusch <dfusch at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 07:49:08 +0000

>From: akt at attglobal.net
>

I'm interested in this, too. I have only a vague recollection of "Out of the 
Silent Planet," but didn't that novel end with the antagonists being sent 
back to earth so that they would not pollute the peaceful inhabitants of an 
Edenic paradise with vain and self-destructive philosophies?

Incidentally, I remember the same thread appearing in L'Engle's work--A 
Wrinkle in Time--with the difference that the silent planet was there a 
shadowed planet. The similarity was that travelers from earth were viewed 
with suspicion (at first) on the planet neighboring Camazotz, once the 
inhabitants learned of their origin.

But, not to meander--wouldn't the Green Man be an example of redeemed 
humanity, or the Urth equivalent thereof? In the Green Man's time, Urth has 
already been transformed into Ushas, there is a new sun, and the world is 
filled with verdure and life.

As for the state of affairs on Urth, it seems to me that the Autarchs have 
closed the roads, abandoned spaceflight, etc., not to prevent humanity from 
spreading like a plague and infecting the rest of the universe, but rather 
to lock society into an earthbound holding pattern, so that the Autuarchs 
can maintain a status quo until the coming of the New Sun. The alternative, 
from the Autarchs' point of view, would be endless warring, the ceaseless 
rise and collapse of empires, turmoil without end; they have tried every 
system of government available throughout the millenia, but none of these 
have worked. Vodalus' dreams of progress and glory are illusory; from this 
view, conquest of the stars would simply increase the scope of the turmoil 
that is human history.

Therefore, it is necessary to lock everything in place until the New Sun 
comes to make all things new both spiritually and physically.

>From the old Autarch's death scene in Citadel:

"I stand...you will stand...for so much that is wrong.... Because all else 
is worse. Until the New Sun comes, we have but a choice of evils. All have 
been tried, and all have failed. Goods in common, the rule of the 
people...everything. You wish for progress? The Ascians have it. They are 
deafened by it, crazed by the death of Nature until they are ready to accept 
Erebus and the rest as gods. We hold humankind stationary...in barbarism. 
The Autarch protects the people from the exultants, and the 
exultants...shelter them from the Autarch. The religious comfort them. We 
have closed the roads to paralyze the social order.... Until the New 
Sun...."

This paralysis allows the Autarchs to keep the society in stasis--and thus 
in peace and order--as they wait for the New Sun. The Autarchs would be 
fatalists, if it were not for their certainty of the coming of the New Sun 
and the rebirth/renewal of Urth.

Meanwhile--I think--some of the Hierodules drop by periodically to help 
guide humanity and prepare everything for the New Sun. I think. I've never 
been entirely clear on the role of the Hierodules in their ministering to 
humanity. But then, I don't know whether Severian was entirely clear on that 
point, either.

The short version of all this is that immortality and the colonization of 
space are sinful only in the sense that they are self-destructive. By 
spreading across the universe, homo sapiens does not harm others so much as 
harm itself, by increasing the political, economical, and social chaos of 
the species. I'm not certain whether Wolfe addresses the issue of 
immortality, but I suspect that if he did his ruling would be that 
immortality is not sinful in of itself, but is inherently perilous and 
detrimental because it extends one's sinful or chaotic condition. Death--as 
long as the world and humanity as a whole is in a decaying state--is not 
necessarily a bad thing; an eternity of decay would be worse. However, I 
have no textual support at hand for this, so this remains mere speculation.

What do you think?

Daniel
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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 11:42:02 +0000

>filled with verdure and life.

	That would seem to be so. Eden restored and transformed.

>comes to make all things new both spiritually and physically.

	I was much surprised when I interviewed Wolfe to learn that Cordwainer
Smith was not much of an influence on him. *Scanners Live in Vain* has the
same theme, and in both cases we are retelling the transition from the Old
Covenant Under Law to the New Covenant Under Grace. The Law of Yahweh/Moses
freezes people to prevent their becoming worse, and the same is true of
Taboos in all Archaic cultures. From a Christian standpoint, the Levitical
laws are the "true" form of such taboos. Then Jesus comes, the New Son/Sun
(Malachi chapter 4) and such freezing is no longer necessary. In Smith, he
is Adam Stone, both of whose names are significant. (In case anyone does
not catch it, God and the Messiah are repeatedly called the Rock in the
Bible, especially in the Psalter.)
	"Freezing" is just Wolfe's implied metaphor, because the alternative
eschatology that leads to Master Ash is the increase of this freezing until
the world is completely Ragnaroked. 
	It's interesting to compare/contrast "Scanners" and *Severian.* Smith
tells the story from the standpoint of the Jewish Sanhedrin (the scanner
corps), who by the Law keep dead men "alive" in the "great pain" of cursed
space (where rat-dragons live and prey on men). Wolfe tells the story more
from the standpoint of the pagan world, especially Rome, enabling Wolfe to
bring in "everything under the sun" as he tells the story. 

>humanity. But then, I don't know whether Severian was entirely clear on that 

	Well, they are kind of like angels in the Old Testament, and (from Wolfe's
standpoint) the kindly angels who ministered in pagan cultures before the
coming of Christianity. 

Nutria

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 22:35:47 +0000

This poem gives a pretty clear picture of Lewis's thoughts on the subject,
although he didn't publish it in his lifetime, so he may have had
reservations about the ideas (or about the way he expresses them here).

PRELUDE TO SPACE
An Epithalamium

	So Man, grown vigorous now,
	Holds himelf ripe to breed,
	Daily devises how
	To ejaculate his seed
	And boldy fertilize
The black womb of the unconsenting skies.

	Some now alive expect
	(I am told) to see the large,
	Steel member grow erect,
	Turgid with the fierce charge
	Of our whole planet's skill,
Courage, wealth, knowledge, concentrated will;

	Straining with lust to stamp
	Our likeness on the abyss--
	Bombs, gallows, Belsen camp,
	Pox, polio, Thais' kiss
	Or Judas', Moloch's fires
And Torquemada's (sons resemble sires).

	Shall we, when the grim shape
	Roars upward, dance and sing?
	Yes: if we honor rape,
	If we take pride to fling
	So bountifully on space
The sperm of our long woes, our large disgrace.

(From _Poems_, ed. Walter Hooper, p. 56.)

I can't remember where Lewis talks about our limited lifespan as a mercy,
lest a bad man continue to get worse and worse without limit.  Maybe in
_The Abolition of Man_ or _The Problem of Pain_.

An amusing aside, there's another poem by Lewis, "An Expostulation Against
Too Many Writers of Science Fiction," where he complains of people writing
science fiction adventure stories that could just as easily take place
anywhere on Earth:

  Why should I leave this green-floored cell,
  Roofed with blue air, in which we dwell,
  Unless, outside its guarded gates,
  Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits,
  Strangeness that moves us more than fear,
  Beauty that stabs with tingling spear [...]

(Ibid, p. 58.)

-Rostrum

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From: akt <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 17:03:12 +0000

I can see why Lewis never published "Prelude to Space." It's awful, just
awful! The fragment of the second one is much better and the title is
funny: "An Expostulation Against Too Many Writers of Science Fiction."
Hmmm. I hadn't known that he identified himself at all as a SF writer.

-alga

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 22:31:57 +0000

On Sun, 28 May 2000 akt at attglobal.net wrote:

> awful! 

Yeah, I don't know that Walter Hooper is doing Lewis any favors publishing
some of this stuff, but it does give a pretty clear picture of his
thoughts on the matter.

> The fragment of the second one is much better and the title is

What I think is funny is that he could complain about too many SF writers
in 1959.   What would he think of shelves full of Star Trek tie-ins?

-Rostrum

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From: Daniel Fusch <dfusch at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 05:01:00 +0000

>From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
>

Rather like cleaning out a dozen old file cabinets. This happens to most 
great writers, I think, sooner or later!
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