{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/282", "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": 282, "subject": "Returns", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-12-20T22:43:44+00:00", "last": "1997-12-21T00:23:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-12-20T22:43:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Returns", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been what, four months since I was last on this list? MOved\nto the Big City and haven't made arrangements for reliable access\nin my new digs. Since then I've picked up the Dr. Island book and\ntreated myself to the new editions of TBONS. This is the first\ntime I've read it with the Lexicon sitting next to me. Hugely\ninformative, of course, as has been all the exposure to the ideas\non this list.\nI've been\nreading with special attention to the whole question of whether\nSeverien's Christianity is metaphorical or literal, or just what\nis the nature of religion in the Coomonwealth in general. Anybody up for\nreopening that can of worms? Also dug up The Best of Cordwainer\nSmith on the general recommendations of this list.\nAnyway, the point is that I have access for at least the next\nweek or so, and thought I'd dip my boots into the old stomping\ngrounds.\n\ncephalothorax" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1997-12-21T00:23:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Returns", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #3792019 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\ncephalothorax,\n\nHey there, hi there.\n\nRe: religion in the Commonwealth and/or TBOTNS. Sure, go\nahead--document for us your interpretation and/or spin! Granted that\nprobably no one will agree with you entirely, and possibly no one will\nagree with you at all, but still, the quest for self-expression is\nthe thing in and of itself. (Like the Book of Mirrors . . . this is\nno map, this is the thing itself.)\n\nToday the Conciliator seems to me to be rather a lot like John the\nBaptist, with his speech about, \"Don't worry what happens to me--the\n=next= guy who comes will be the New Sun.\" And, of course, there\nare (were) heresies that consider(ed) John the Baptist to be the true\nMessiah, etc. Not to cloud the issue. But there are so many\nheretical notions--so many substitutions on the cross of the ship\nTzadkiel (double-cross, triple-cross), so many indications that\neverything is just for show (ala THE PASSOVER PLOT, et al.), that all\nfights are rigged (the winner has been chosen ahead of time), that\nall judicial trials are shams (the case has already been decided\nahead of time), and so on, that I begin to wonder if this is part of\nthe point: not the gnostic route that Peter Wright more-or-less\ndescribes (using most of the items I've just listed), but instead a\nsort of \"compilation of worst case scenarios\" that begins with the\noutrageous notion of Jesus being a torturer (making a whip and a\ncross, we are told in the Bible according to Wolfe) and then piling\non every juicy heresy that can be shoehorned in. Including issues of\na twin, etc. To what end? As if to say, \"With all this working\nagainst him, the guy can =still= be Christian.\"\n\nMeanwhile I've just received a note from Polly Morris of San Diego\narea. She asks,\n\n\"Is it possible to include more timeline tables for the `torturer'\nseries? And a map of the ship's journey in URTH OF THE NEW SUN? I\nsimply can't understand the path of the ship. Not enough astronomy\nin my background I guess. I know Wolfe is writing sci-fi not fantasy,\nbut I just can't understand the thrust of the narrative. I love the\nbook, though.\"\n\nI don't quite understand the first request--does she want more\ndetails added into the existing framework? Probably! Or does she\njust want text citations? Not unreasonable! (I'll just ask\nher.) Well, who doesn't?! Then again there probably is some stuff\nI've already worked out, notes gathering dust somewhere around here:\ntime of androsphinxes, eidolon guardians, details of the\nConciliator's brief visit to Urth . . .\n\nA map of the starship's journey, now =that= would really be something!\nI should put in all the notes I've got on that. Diagram of Briah and\nYesod as being two conveyer belts moving in opposite directions . . .\nAll in all, more stuff for the delayed \"Additions, Errata, &cetera:\nVolume 3.\"\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }