{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3555", "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": 3555, "subject": "King Jesus/Autarch Severian/Calde Silk - Part One", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-11-10T22:58:11+00:00", "last": "2002-11-16T00:04:50+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Don Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-11-10T22:58:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) King Jesus/Autarch Severian/Calde Silk - Part One", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello everyone. This is my first post, though I've been lurking around for\nmonths soaking in the great conversation and waiting for an interesting\ntopic of my own. Whamo! As chance would have it, I had just finished my\nsecond reading of TBotNS when I came across a book I had never heard of\nbefore: King Jesus by Robert Graves. I immediately bought it and read it.\nTo me it was a revelation, not just because it's an incredible and heretical\nwork\nof art, but because there are so many themes in it that echo through NS, LS,\nand SS. In some ways (imho, of course) NS is a reworking of Graves' work\n(why had I never heard of this book before?). But enough intro. I'll dive\nright in. I think a list is easiest.\n\n1. This is the obvious one. Severian's lameness and the wound on his face.\nThis applies to Silk as well (at least the limp) but this has been discussed\nbefore so I'll move on.\n\n2. This one is marginal but interesting. Dorcas appears in KJ as the\nplaymate of the boy Jesus. While they are playing \"Noah's Ark\" she becomes\nfrightened and runs away. It's on p.166 and it reads like Dorcas and\nSeverian's relationship writ small.\n\n3. Jesus in KJ is a product of the manipulation of bloodlines by devotees of\nthe triple goddess with the goal of creating the second Adam. He is also\nthe grandson of King Herod. Simon son of Boethus to Herod Antipater (Jesus'\nfather): \"What if this latest millennium should close with the appearance of\na King who combines all the qualities of his predecessors: true born like\nAdam, sinless like Enoch, faithful like Abraham, wise like Solomon?\" p.64\nMalrubius to Severian in Citadel: \"In you all the divergent tendencies of\nour race may have achieved synthesis.\" Silk is also an engineered man\ndisplaying most of these qualities. Jesus' cousin John the Baptist is also\na product of these sorts of machinations, by adherents to the Goddess. (I\nimmediately thought of Scylla, the undines and the Mother)\n\n4. Severian's multiplicity of personalities has it's echo as well: \"But\nApollo, who contains within himself the shades of numerous gods and demons\nis now the sole master of Delphi.\" p.245 (I'm offering specific quotes, but\nthese themes run throughout the book. It has to be read to be appreciated,\nunless I'm just waay off base)\n\n5. Jesus to Mary the Hairdresser (Magdalene) servant of the Goddess:\n\"Therefore my fate will be as the Father ordains, not as your mistress\nordains. I am released from the jurisdiction of the Female; I have come to\ndestroy her works.\" This conflict is reflected in NS and LS and especially\nin SS when the narrator worries over the intentions of the Mother. This is\nalso the Jesus parallel that Mantis was searching for long long ago\nregarding Severian's execution of Prefect Priscia in UotNS.\n\n6. Typhon. In KJ Herod seeks to reestablish the worship of the sun god\nSet-Typhon.\nIn addition one of Jesus' marks of true kingship is a typhonic or red beard.\nThis ties Typhon in NS and LS to both the red sun, which Severian the New\nSun vanquishes, and to Herod. To further bolster this, Silk is described as\nhaving a reddish gold beard.\n\n7.Graves says somewhere in the book that the sun god gives birth to himself.\n\n8. And last, at the end of King Jesus/Short Sun Jesus/Silkhorn departs in a\nship with Mary the mother/Maytera Marble, Mary the wife of Jesus/Nettle, and\nMary the Hairdresser/Seawrack who is the servant of the Goddess/Mother.\nNote also the Arthurian parallel.\n\nI hope that I am not rambling incoherently but I find my discovery very\nexciting. It's given rise to some tenuous theories that I will post in Part\ntwo so as not to make this too long. Thanks for bearing with me.\nD.D." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-11-12T18:11:28+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) King Jesus/Autarch Severian/Calde Silk - Part One", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don:\n\nFirst, let me second Roy C's words of welcome and express \npleasure in reading your interesting and articulate first\nposts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... I had just finished my second reading \nof TBotNS when I came across a book I had never heard of\nbefore: King Jesus by Robert Graves. I immediately bought \nit and read it. To me it was a revelation, not just because \nit's an incredible and heretical work of art, but because \nthere are so many themes in it that echo through NS, LS, and \nSS. In some ways (imho, of course) NS is a reworking of \nGraves' work (why had I never heard of this book before?)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK; here's my primary point of contention. I do not think it\nreasonable to suppose that NS is a reworking of King Jesus,\nbecause Graves's world view is utterly at odds with Wolfe's.\nGraves is, as you note, \"heretical*\" while Wolfe is a \nbelieving and practicing Catholic Christian**. As such, he\nmay write novels which are not _explicitly_ Christian, or\neven novels (such as the \"Soldier\" books or THERE ARE DOORS)\nwhich take non-Christian deities as their givens; but even\nthese will have at their base the worldview of Catholicism\n-- a worldview which is Christian in some very specific ways:\nit emphasizes the importance and value of the material/sensible \nworld; it is extremely sacramental and formal, at times almost \nlegalistic; and, more than any other Christian body, it places\nhuge value on what Charles Williams called the \"economy of \nexchange\" -- bearing one another's burdens, praying for one \nanother, praying to/with/for the departed-in-Christ. We may\nexpect to find, and we do find, traces of all this throughout\nWolfe's work.\n\n-----\n* Actually, that word doesn't really apply, because heresy \n is dangerously false belief within the context of a \n religious community; as a non-member of a Christian \n community Graves could not be a Christian heretic. The\n technical term of condemnation, if you want one, would\n be \"infidel,\" one who does not believe. 8*) \n**Some people (on this list and elsewhere) seem to find\n this fact irritating and try to ignore it when interpreting\n Wolfe's work. To my mind, this is like trying to interpret,\n say, the novels of Jean-Paul Sartre without taking\n existentialism into account.\n-----\n\nGiven that, Graves' thesis in KING JESUS is going to be\nfundamentally alien to Wolfe's worldview. He may (for all I \nknow) value KING JESUS as a work of art. But if there is \nany sense in which NS is a \"reworking\" of KJ, it would have \nto be an extremely radical one, it would have to be \na reworking which takes some of Graves' material and wrenches \nit _back_ into a context in which there is only one true God, \nin which Jesus is not a merely-human agent but the actual and\nunique incarnation of that God, in which Jesus had not come \nto \"destroy the works\" of the female but to save humanity \nfrom sin and death.\n\n(In fairness to your thesis: Yes, there is a streak in Wolfe's \nwork which trends that way -- a streak which can uncharitably \nbe called misogynistic, or more charitably the failure of an \nolder man to shuck off certain negative values of the culture\nin which he was raised.)\n\nBut Severian Narrator does not serve primarily to \"destroy \nthe works\" of the Female -- nor do Silk or the Narrator. \nAll of them serve primarily as liberators of their people \nfrom various kinds and consequences of sin. Severian, the \nNew Sun, liberates the people of Urth (at a terrible cost) \nfrom the slow death which results from their behavior when \nthey were imperial masters of space. If there is a single \nfigure which represents this sin, it is not a woman, but \nTyphon.\n\n(Silk may be a \"christ figure\" but he is at least as much a \nfigure of Moses. As such, he is a prophet who leads his \npeople forth from \"that iron foundry, Egypt\" -- or, dragging \nforth the requisite Gnostic allusion, Philip K. Dick's \"black\niron prison\" -- but is not permitted to enter the Promised \nLand himself. And the Narrator is a much more complex and \nambiguous figure, whose meaning I believe we are only \nbeginning to tease out, after the initial, somewhat hostile, \nreaction to the ending of SS.)\n\nThe real problem is that you've made a lot of surface\nconnections, but I don't see a smoking gun, as it were\n-- that is, something which uniquely and unambiguously\nties NS to KJ, something which points directly at KJ and\nno other work as something which Wolfe is using as a \nmodel. This kind of surface connection can be found \nbetween almost any two rich and complex works of \nnarrative literature; I'm not going to proceed through \nthe exercise, but I believe one could find similar \nconnections between NS and, say, OLIVER TWIST, or \nPILGRIM'S PROGRESS." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "1. This is the obvious one. Severian's lameness and the \nwound on his face. This applies to Silk as well (at least the \nlimp) but this has been discussed before so I'll move on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that is an image that is found all over literature;\nsome of the most obvious referents include the wounded \nFisher-King of the Wasteland (in the Grail cycle), Tamurlane, \nand, if I recall correctly, Marcus Aurelius (whom I have \nnever studied myself so I'm spouting my memory of others' \nposts on this subject). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. This one is marginal but interesting. Dorcas appears in \nKJ as the playmate of the boy Jesus. While they are playing \n\"Noah's Ark\" she becomes frightened and runs away. It's on \np.166 and it reads like Dorcas and Severian's relationship\nwrit small." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, this is straining for a connection whose explanation\nis much simpler ... Humans of the Commonwealth (as Wolfe has \nmade clear) all have the names of Christian saints. Dorcas is \nnamed for the woman Peter raises from the dead in Acts \nchapter 39, vv 36-41, -- who is also (rather confusingly) \ncalled Tabitha. The resonance with Dorcas in NS being raised \nfrom the lake of the dead by Severian and/or the Claw leaves, \nI think, no reasonable room for doubt. \n\n_Could_ Wolfe also be referring to Graves' Dorcas? Of course; \nbut lacking a smoking gun connection, I don't see it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "3. Jesus in KJ is a product of the manipulation of \nbloodlines by devotees of the triple goddess with the \ngoal of creating the second Adam. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now, see, this is exactly the sort of thing I expect\nWolfe would reject utterly. Jesus for a Christian is\nthe end product of a carefully preserved blood line, \nbut _not_ one manipulated by humans for any such purpose.\n(But now you have me wondering about Frank Herbert and\nthe Bene Gesserit!)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He is also the grandson of King Herod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We know with reasonable certainty who Severian's maternal \ngrandparents are. For the paternal line, well, Wolfe \ndeliberately keeps that mysterious and, though many \nspeculations have been offered, none has really proven\nsatisfactory. I suggest that the mystery is deliberate,\nand intended to reflect the orthodox Christian belief\nthat Jesus had no human father." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Simon son of Boethus to Herod Antipater (Jesus'\nfather): \"What if this latest millennium should close with \nthe appearance of a King who combines all the qualities of \nhis predecessors: true born like Adam, sinless like Enoch, \nfaithful like Abraham, wise like Solomon?\" p.64 Malrubius to \nSeverian in Citadel: \"In you all the divergent tendencies of \nour race may have achieved synthesis.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it a little difficult to see Severian as trueborn,\nand quite difficult to see him as sinless or faithful. \n(Wise is a whole nother question.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "4. Severian's multiplicity of personalities has it's echo as \nwell: \"But Apollo, who contains within himself the shades of \nnumerous gods and demons is now the sole master of Delphi.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm really not clear on the relevance of Apollo to Severian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[Graves has Jesus say:] \"...I am released from the \njurisdiction of the Female; I have come to destroy her \nworks.\" This conflict is reflected in NS" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How, precisely?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and LS and \nespecially in SS when the narrator worries over the \nintentions of the Mother. This is also the Jesus parallel \nthat Mantis was searching for long long ago regarding \nSeverian's execution of Prefect Priscia in UotNS." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is probably your single best argument, in that it\n_does_ explain something new in a satisfactory manner...\nbut, I don't know." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "6. Typhon. In KJ Herod seeks to reestablish the worship of \nthe sun god Set-Typhon. In addition one of Jesus' marks of \ntrue kingship is a typhonic or red beard. This ties Typhon in \nNS and LS to both the red sun, which Severian the New Sun \nvanquishes, and to Herod. To further bolster this, Silk is \ndescribed as having a reddish gold beard." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A connection like this between Herod and Typhon is very \ncool, but ... well, so what? Typhon's primary \"function\" in\nthe Christ-walk of Severian is as Satan tempting him in the\ndesert.\n\n(Incidentally, this definition of \"typhonic\" does not appear \nin any dictionary I have been able to look in, though I admit \nthat I have not currently got access to an OED. The only \ndefinition I could find was, basically, of or pertaining to \ntyphoons. I suspect Graves was referring to _something_ but\nI don't know what.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "7.Graves says somewhere in the book that the sun god gives \nbirth to himself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That would be pure Egyptian mythology. But Severian, well,\ndoesn't." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "8. And last, at the end of King Jesus/Short Sun \nJesus/Silkhorn departs in a ship with Mary the mother/Maytera \nMarble, Mary the wife of Jesus/Nettle, and Mary the \nHairdresser/Seawrack who is the servant of the \nGoddess/Mother. Note also the Arthurian parallel." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Arthurian parallel, yes. The other ... well, since\nthe Arthurian thing is so clear, we're once again short\na smoking gun.\n\n*****\n\nOkay, some quick comments on Part Two." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Typhon is not Severian's father. I believe that Ymar is.\nMore correctly, Ymar is the original Severian [...]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Umm, no. The original Severian is Severian. The wanderers\nup and down the Corridors of Time have made ... adjustments\n... to Severian's life. He is a revised edition." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I believe the mausoleum where Severian played is Ymar's. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, I think it's Scylla's, isn't it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "One parallel that I forgot to mention between Graves'\nJesus and Severian and Silk is that none of them are\ntruly divine. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Wolfe's Jesus is ... which is, semi-paradoxically,\n_why_ Severian isn't." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-11-16T00:04:50+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) King Jesus/Autarch Severian/Calde Silk - Part One", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nDon:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...> > 8. And last, at the end of King Jesus/Short Sun " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jesus/Silkhorn departs in a ship with Mary the mother/Maytera \nMarble, Mary the wife of Jesus/Nettle, and Mary the \nHairdresser/Seawrack who is the servant of the \nGoddess/Mother. Note also the Arthurian parallel." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Arthurian parallel, yes. The other ... well, since\nthe Arthurian thing is so clear, we're once again short\na smoking gun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To me, this is Don's \"smoking-est gun\". It's extremely bizarre that Silk\n\"sails\" away with Horn's wife and mistress, but according to Don, King\nJesus sails away with his wife and a former prostitute. (Does Graves'\nJesus have sex with Mary the Hairdresser?) Considering the parallels Don\nnotes, the correspondence here is far better than that with Arthur's\nhalf-sister Morgan Le Fay, the Queen of the Wasteland, and the Queen of\nNorgales, as in Malory. (Unless there's a version of the Arthur legend\nwhere the three queens are Igraine, Guenevere, and Morgause?)\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] } ] }