Subject: Re: (urth) Some problems if the Pancreator/Outsider is theHoly

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 21:02:15 +0000

At 03:08 PM 6/10/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>James Jordan wrote:
>
> > .... remember that Urth is a universe-cycle before ours. These events
> > predate the promise to Noah by about 50 billion years maybe. We don't know
> > that such a promise had been given to any Urnoah in Urth history. Nor,
> > returning to the first point, do we have to assume that God managed Briah
> > precisely the same way He manages our cycle.
> >
>
>I've come across this stated in the archives before; is the source an
>extra-textual Wolfe interview or the like?

         Yes.

>The reason I ask is because it seems
>odd that in a whole different cycle of creation you'd still get the Apollo 
>moon
>landing whose picture is recognizable as such.  And as someone else mentioned,
>how would Severian's box with BOTNS make it through the singularity?

         Well, the fact that is does somehow pass through the singularity, 
on board the Ship perhaps, or in the Yesod Library, is the intra-textual 
indicator that these events are in our past. That's always the problem with 
Wolfe: which of the tiny hints are important and which of the hints are not 
hints at all?

>That aside, what's going on with that window into the 20th c. in the botanical
>gardens?

         Protestant missionaries of the Theoanthropos. Well, like the 
Apollo picture, somehow this earlier BangganB of the cosmos is much like 
ours, but not quite the same. I do think we have an incarnation of the 2nd 
person of God in this earlier cosmos, the aforementioned Theoanthropos, the 
original Conciliator of which Severian is an application, but as 
Dan'l  mentioned, from some Roman Catholic perspectives the atonement of 
the Son is "eternal" so it could "happen" in time more than once. If this 
was not in Wolfe's mind, then I doubt if we are supposed to press the 
problem of a repeated crucifixion.
         But then, if we allow Wolfe the "liberty" to have a previous 
incarnation and atonement-of-infinite-worth in the Briah cosmos, then how 
are we to "know" that Severian's manuscript is from a previous cosmos and 
has made it into ours? Which "hint" do we take as simply a liberty we grant 
the author, and which "hint" we take as internal to the argument of the 
narrative? After all, maybe Wolfe just "somehow" got Severian's book from 
the future and "somehow" (golden spectacles?) was able to translate it, and 
we are not supposed to ponder further? Or, maybe it fell back to him 
through the corridors of time, instead of proceeding forward to him from 
the previous BanggnaB. Is there another "hint" that resolves the question? 
This is the problem and frustration when reading Wolfe!

JBJordan Nutria

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 02:36:14 +0000

> From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>

> >extra-textual Wolfe interview or the like?

	Did he explain why he has completely reversed his statements in the
appendix of Shadow?
 
> Wolfe: which of the tiny hints are important and which of the hints are not

	Where is this "fact" documented?

> problem of a repeated crucifixion.

	Whay can't this just be regarded as allegorical? The crucifixion would
not be repeated so much as represented, it avoids all problems with
time-binding statements and promises attributed to G-d, doesn't make a
liar out of the translator, and doesn't require the Book to travel half
a universe backward, get translated, then come 1 1/2 forward to be
published. 

-- 
Jeff Wilson
How Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789
"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy." -Cpt Law

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:14:14 +0000

On 11/06/2002 06:58:32 Roy C. Lackey wrote:

>In addition to the objections raised by others, there are all those
stories
>in the Brown Book, clearly recognizable to students of Classical
mythology
>as founded on Earth's mythology. It also contains a direct quote from
>Genesis, and another from Marlowe's FAUSTUS. No. No. No. Urth is in our
>Earth's far future.
>
>Facts aside, as well as theological difficulties, the notion of Severian,
>turning water into wine, being baptized, dying and being resurrected, a
>world savior, etc., in a previous iteration of creation, makes him the
>prototype for Jesus. Kind of cheapens the whole Holy Spectacle, doesn't
it?
>Putting the cart before the horse.
>
>Not to mention it plays hell with Nick Gevers' idea of placing 5HC in the
>SUN universe. A separate creation with an Earth, complete with Ireland,
>Scotland, Wales, and New York City, DAVID COPPERFIELD, and Catholic
saints
>(all mentioned in the text), stretches credulity past all endurance.

I agree. The internal evidence of tBotNS is only consistant with it being
set in the very far future.

I'd be curious to know if the external statements were delivered
ex-cathedra or if they were accompanied by any explanation or rational
that gives reason for the change.  I have to suspect pure mischief.

Matthew

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:01:14 +0000

>> extra-textual Wolfe interview or the like?

Textual and theological difficulties aside, I really don't like this idea.
I won't say it ruins the books for me, but it does detract substantially
from their sense of wonder and the uncanny.  It's as if had declared that
THE DYING EARTH was really the Dying
some-other-planet-that-happens-to-be-called-Earth.

Since, afaik, there's no indication in the original BotNS that the books are
taking place in a previous universe, I'm tempted to speculate (and hope)
that this was an idea Wolfe thought of after writing the original books.

--Adam

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:55:18 +0000

universe? Or is that a universe that resurrected saints have set up in the 
world to come as part of the cities that they made?
GW: No. I thought of it as a long past universe. Something that we are 
repeating rather than something that we are.

http://www.op.net/~pduggan/gwjbj3.html

That was my source.

Nutria (JJ)

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 01:28:51 +0000

> From: James Jordan [mailto:jbjordan4 at cox.net]

> JJ: This universe that you sought in Briah are part of it. Is that our

Well yes, =Yesod= is a previous universe, an extension of one, or at the
very least, a place settled by refugees from one according to Mantiss. 

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 07:37:58 +0000

>http://www.op.net/~pduggan/gwjbj3.html

Thanks.

But that does seem like mischief because the explanation of the origin of
the manuscript is in the book, so we have to add a further wrap around it
to account for the book arriving in our hands.

On a metaphysical level I also cavil somewhat - the similarities of the
books ancient past with our world are too similar.  Either it's not just
cyclic but the repetition is near identical or we have to interpolate
additional holes through which things like the moon picture have been
moved.

For sheer fun I quite like the idea of Ultan's library being part of L
space. Just as the shelves reach might the archive of the House Absolute
so too one might hope to turn an unexpected corner and come across a
russet furred Librarian subjecting a minor grimoire to some remedial
book-binding.

But no, placing tBotNS in a distant past distresses me.  It's too complex.
 Not that we expect anything but complexity from Wolfe; but this is
purposely complex and purposelessness is not a lupine characteristic.

Matthew

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:49:36 +0000

on 6/12/02 10:28 AM, Andy Robertson at andywrobertson at clara.co.uk wrote:

> It is logical and straightforward.  It is called Quantum Electrodynamics.

No, QED combines special relativity and quantum mechanics.  The problem of
reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics is still unsolved.

--Adam

> From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
>> "Toying" is an important word here. Based on the Wolfe answer I'm quoting
>> here, I'd say trying to make tBotNS fit with Christian theology in every
> way
>> (or most ways) is like trying to create a perpetual motion machine or
> trying
>> to rectify general relativity with quantum mechanics: It seems so logical
>> and straightforward, but then....

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 16:15:00 +0000

On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, James Jordan wrote:

> Or, maybe it fell back to him 
> the previous BanggnaB. 

If you're going to count the intros/appendix where Wolfe talks about
translating Severian's manuscript, Wolfe directly refers to all the stuff
of Severian's time being in the future, or "futurity."

I guess Wolfe could have been mistaken...

-Rostrum

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 16:18:39 +0000

Rostrum saith:

> translating Severian's manuscript, Wolfe directly refers to all the
> stuff of Severian's time being in the future, or "futurity."

Yes. But on the other hand, he also writes of having been allowed
to tour and photograph the "surviving" buildings of that distant
future period. Which seems to put the distant future into the distant
past and make the whole thing cyclic after all, dunnit?

--Dan'l

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