# Digest urth.v031.n015

*The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 14 Dec 2001*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2869>

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### David Duffy
*14 Dec 2001, 00:18*

>> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> There's an essay by Wolfe about Tolkien in December's "Interzone"
>> and freedoms - the Christian order itself, even if there is no sight of
>> God himself in the books.

> "No sight of God" is literally true, but God is busily arranging
> coincidences, prophetic dreams, and stuff like that.  Sort of like TBotNS,
> as a matter of fact.  I wonder whether Tolkien was Wolfe's model in that
> book.

>> Curiously, the ultra-Catholic Lafferty despised LOTR because he thought

> It's also interesting, at least to me, that as a child I felt a bit
> betrayed when I realized that _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ was
> Christian propaganda, and I'm glad LotR didn't do that to me.  Obviously
> I've gotten over this, since I like Wolfe.

Tolkien said that he disliked allegory.  As a child, I read his
introduction to LOTR, and used it to justify a literal reading of the
Pilgrim's Progress ;).  Wolfe always has a-not-always-convincing
alternative explanation for the events in his stories, while Lafferty...

Have we been here before?

Arwen = Apheta
Aragorn = Severian
elves = Heirodules
Gandalf = Father Inire
Gollum = Baldanders (has to get that ring you know, or maybe Saruman)
Ring = Claw
Sauron = Abaia

I am unsure who Cate Blanchett gets to play

| David Duffy.                                                     ,-_|\
| email: davidD at qimr.edu.au  ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101    /     *
| Epidemiology Unit, The Queensland Institute of Medical Research \_,-._/
| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia                 v

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### Jerry Friedman
*17 Dec 2001, 16:36 · follows David Duffy*

> --- David Duffy <davidD at qimr.edu.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 Jerry Friedman wrote:

>>> There's an essay by Wolfe about Tolkien in December's "Interzone"
>>> and freedoms - the Christian order itself, even if there is no sight
>>> of
>>> God himself in the books.

>> "No sight of God" is literally true, but God is busily arranging
>> coincidences, prophetic dreams, and stuff like that.  Sort of like
>> TBotNS,
>> as a matter of fact.  I wonder whether Tolkien was Wolfe's model in
>> that
>> book.

...

> Tolkien said that he disliked allegory.  As a child, I read his
> introduction to LOTR, and used it to justify a literal reading of the
> Pilgrim's Progress ;).  Wolfe always has a-not-always-convincing
> alternative explanation for the events in his stories, while Lafferty...
> 
> Have we been here before?
> 
> Arwen = Apheta
> Aragorn = Severian
> elves = Heirodules
> Gandalf = Father Inire
> Gollum = Baldanders (has to get that ring you know, or maybe Saruman)
> Ring = Claw
> Sauron = Abaia
> 
> I am unsure who Cate Blanchett gets to play

Master Malrubius.

Looks like I was unclear above.  I meant that LotR may have been Wolfe's
model in how to handle literarily the role of God, not that BotNS is some
kind of imitation of LotR.

Jerry Friedman

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