{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3746", "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": 3746, "subject": "RTTW Chras writings", "messages": 11, "voices": 4, "first": "2003-01-06T16:11:29+00:00", "last": "2003-01-09T15:43:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-01-06T16:11:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I missed a Chras quote from RTTW when I posted on this topic previously. In the scene where SIlkHorn assists with the sacrifice in Viron, we get this passage:\n\n\"A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible fantasy, nor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ...\"\n\nAnybody know where this comes from? Google has let me down. \n\nIt reads like something which could be in the Introduction to Graves' \"The Greek Myths\" (lost my copy years ago), but I guess there are many other possibilities." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2003-01-06T17:25:29+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Andrew Bollen wrote:\nI missed a Chras quote from RTTW when I posted on this topic previously.\nIn the scene where SIlkHorn assists with the sacrifice in Viron, we get\nthis passage:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible\nfantasy, nor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anybody know where this comes from? Google has let me down." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It reads like something which could be in the Introduction to Graves'\n\"The Greek Myths\" (lost my copy years ago), but I guess there are many\nother possibilities." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Could easily be \"Hamlet's Mill\".\n\nJ." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-07T14:26:10+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A -->quick<-- scan of the introduction to “The Greek Myths” did not find\nthis one. Nor did I find it in Graves’ introduction to Bullfinch’s “The\nFabled Age.” The more I think about it, the less it sounds like something\nGraves would say.\n\nI didn’t find it in Frazer’s “The Golden Bough,” albeit I was only\nscanning – still, it is surely post-Jungian considering the “psychology”\nreference. I really really wanted to find it in C.S. Lewis’ “Myth Became\nFact” but it’s not there. But Lewis talks a lot about the meaning, purpose,\nand value of myth so there is a lot of places to look there. Hmmm, I didn’t\ncheck Tolkien’s essay introducing “Leaf by Niggle.”\n\nSo ends (for now) my determined search for this quote.\n\n-- Crush (who is hoping hoping hoping it is not a quote from Joseph\nCampbell)\n\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Andrew Bollen [mailto:abollen at internode.on.net]\nSent: Monday, January 06, 2003 10:11 AM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) RTTW Chras writings\n\nI missed a Chras quote from RTTW when I posted on this topic previously. In\nthe scene where SIlkHorn assists with the sacrifice in Viron, we get this\npassage:\n\n\"A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible fantasy,\nnor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ...\"\n\nAnybody know where this comes from? Google has let me down.\n\nIt reads like something which could be in the Introduction to Graves' \"The\nGreek Myths\" (lost my copy years ago), but I guess there are many other\npossibilities." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-01-08T11:20:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush the sleuth writes:\n\nA quick scan of the introduction to \"The Greek Myths\" did not find this one.\nNor did I find it in Graves' introduction to Bullfinch's \"The Fabled Age.\"\nThe more I think about it, the less it sounds like something Graves would\nsay.\n\nI didn't find it in Frazer's \"The Golden Bough,\" albeit I was only\nscanning - still, it is surely post-Jungian considering the \"psychology\"\nreference. I really really wanted to find it in C.S. Lewis' \"Myth Became\nFact\" but it's not there. But Lewis talks a lot about the meaning, purpose,\nand value of myth so there is a lot of places to look there. Hmmm, I didn't\ncheck Tolkien's essay introducing \"Leaf by Niggle.\"\n\n------------------\n\nThose were the kind of places I'd been thinking of, too & I agree - *please*\nlet it not be Campbell! I think C.S. Lewis is a good bet.\n\nThe second sentence starts: \"It [myth] is wholly other ...\" That \"wholly\nother\" phrase is suggestive, being apparently a common term in in theology\nfor the Godhead. It seems to be most closely associated with the writing of\nRudolf Otto, esp. \"Idea of the Holy\". This is a work which influenced C.S.\nLewis, who of course saw Christianity as being a myth of the same kind as\nthe classical myths, except for being *true*. For Lewis et al, and maybe\nWolfe, it would seem that the territory of myth is the same numinous, wholly\nother realm inhabited by the Godhead.\n\nThis from a commentary site on Otto:\n\n\"The Natural mystery indicates a secret or a mystery that is alien to us,\nincomprehensible, and unexplained. Like Sherlock Holmes, we may clear up\nthis level of natural mystery. Religious mystery is of a higher order. It\ncan never be solved, cleared up or otherwise resolved. It is in some sense\nWholly Other, something \"which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the\nintelligible, and the familiar, which therefore falls quite outside the\nlimits of the 'canny', and is contrasted with it, filling the mind with\nblank wonder and astonishment.\" One frequent response is the human attempt\nto rationalize or explain away the Mystery with theories. This transforms\nMystery into a problem. Otto points out that this is invalid: \"The truly\nmysterious object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only\nbecause our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we\ncome upon something inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are\nincommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a\nwonder that strikes us chill and numb.\" Mystery is something we can feel,\n\"without being able to give it clear conceptual expression.\"\n\nAnd this brief commentary on a work by John Crossan (of all people) kind of\nties things together:\n\nMyth ... is rooted in extra-ordinary encounters with that which is Wholly\nOther than the world as we know it. When we read of the Paradise that is in\nEden from which we are barred by \"the cherubim and a perpetually revolving,\nflaming sword\" (Gen 3:24), we know that the writer speaks of a realm that is\nOther, the Garden of God from which man has been expelled. By definition,\nthis place cannot be found in our world. This does not say, however, that\nParadise is not actual; merely that it does not exist in the world of\nobjects around us the way women baking bread do" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2003-01-08T12:11:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really do think it is from \"Hamlet's Mill\".\n\nAnyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read\nHamlet's Mill.\n\nJ.\n\n____" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Andrew Bollen wrote:\nCrush the sleuth writes:\n\nA quick scan of the introduction to \"The Greek Myths\" did not find this one.\nNor did I find it in Graves' introduction to Bullfinch's \"The Fabled Age.\"\nThe more I think about it, the less it sounds like something Graves would\nsay.\n\nI didn't find it in Frazer's \"The Golden Bough,\" albeit I was only\nscanning - still, it is surely post-Jungian considering the \"psychology\"\nreference. I really really wanted to find it in C.S. Lewis' \"Myth Became\nFact\" but it's not there. But Lewis talks a lot about the meaning, purpose,\nand value of myth so there is a lot of places to look there. Hmmm, I didn't\ncheck Tolkien's essay introducing \"Leaf by Niggle.\"\n\n------------------\n\nThose were the kind of places I'd been thinking of, too & I agree - *please*\nlet it not be Campbell! I think C.S. Lewis is a good bet.\n\nThe second sentence starts: \"It [myth] is wholly other ...\" That \"wholly\nother\" phrase is suggestive, being apparently a common term in in theology\nfor the Godhead. It seems to be most closely associated with the writing of\nRudolf Otto, esp. \"Idea of the Holy\". This is a work which influenced C.S.\nLewis, who of course saw Christianity as being a myth of the same kind as\nthe classical myths, except for being *true*. For Lewis et al, and maybe\nWolfe, it would seem that the territory of myth is the same numinous, wholly\nother realm inhabited by the Godhead.\n\nThis from a commentary site on Otto:\n\n\"The Natural mystery indicates a secret or a mystery that is alien to us,\nincomprehensible, and unexplained. Like Sherlock Holmes, we may clear up\nthis level of natural mystery. Religious mystery is of a higher order. It\ncan never be solved, cleared up or otherwise resolved. It is in some sense\nWholly Other, something \"which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the\nintelligible, and the familiar, which therefore falls quite outside the\nlimits of the 'canny', and is contrasted with it, filling the mind with\nblank wonder and astonishment.\" One frequent response is the human attempt\nto rationalize or explain away the Mystery with theories. This transforms\nMystery into a problem. Otto points out that this is invalid: \"The truly\nmysterious object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only\nbecause our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we\ncome upon something inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are\nincommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a\nwonder that strikes us chill and numb.\" Mystery is something we can feel,\n\"without being able to give it clear conceptual expression.\"\n\nAnd this brief commentary on a work by John Crossan (of all people) kind of\nties things together:\n\nMyth ... is rooted in extra-ordinary encounters with that which is Wholly\nOther than the world as we know it. When we read of the Paradise that is in\nEden from which we are barred by \"the cherubim and a perpetually revolving,\nflaming sword\" (Gen 3:24), we know that the writer speaks of a realm that is\nOther, the Garden of God from which man has been expelled. By definition,\nthis place cannot be found in our world. This does not say, however, that\nParadise is not actual; merely that it does not exist in the world of\nobjects around us the way women baking bread do\n\n\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-01-08T14:30:02+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Josh wrote:\n\nI really do think it is from \"Hamlet's Mill\".\n\nAnyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read\nHamlet's Mill." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Tks - I'll check it out if I can find a copy.\n\nAs an aside: I think the hacks who put together the Chras writings would\nhave had an abundance of material to work with. There's a snippet in UOTNS\nwhich I think reveals that Typhon was the ruler of Cyriaca's tale, who\nfounded the library of Nessus. The doctor in the Typhon-era version of the\nMatachin Tower, to Severian: \"This coast is quake-prone, as the old records\nindicate clearly enough - praise to our monarch, by the way, for having them\nbrought here ...\"." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-08T17:14:14+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew Bollen wrote:\nAnd this brief commentary on a work by John Crossan (of all people) kind of\nties things together:\n\nMyth ... is rooted in extra-ordinary encounters with that which is Wholly\nOther than the world as we know it. When we read of the Paradise that is in\nEden from which we are barred by \"the cherubim and a perpetually revolving,\nflaming sword\" (Gen 3:24), we know that the writer speaks of a realm that is\nOther, the Garden of God from which man has been expelled. By definition,\nthis place cannot be found in our world. This does not say, however, that\nParadise is not actual; merely that it does not exist in the world of\nobjects around us the way women baking bread do\n\nCrush epiphanys:\nI just realized that Adam and Eve were separated from the Garden by a\n**whorl**!!!\n\nThat is, a \"perpetually revolving sword.\" The Hebrew used here is \"haphak\"\nwhich according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance means \"to turn about or\nover\" and by implication \"to pervert.\" Sounds like our Whorl.\n\n-- Crush (with his imagination working overtime)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-08T20:47:27+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Josh Geller adamanted:\nI really do think it is from \"Hamlet's Mill\".\n\nAnyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read\nHamlet's Mill.\n\nCrush probes:\nWhat in this work makes you think of this quote? I'm not familiar with\n\"Hamlet's Mill\", but I'm interested now.\n\nMaybe you're right, but I've been increasingly thinking...Chesterton.\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2003-01-08T21:12:34+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The book is called \"Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating Myth And The\nFrame Of Time\", and it is by Giorgio di Santillana and Hertha von Dechend,\nwho were professors of the history of science at MIT and Goethe\nUniversitaet, Frankfurt respectively.\n\nI will perhaps try to explain what it is about at another time.\n\nJ.\n\n___" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, James Wynn wrote:\nJosh Geller adamanted:\nI really do think it is from \"Hamlet's Mill\".\n\nAnyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read\nHamlet's Mill.\n\nCrush probes:\nWhat in this work makes you think of this quote? I'm not familiar with\n\"Hamlet's Mill\", but I'm interested now.\n\nMaybe you're right, but I've been increasingly thinking...Chesterton.\n\n-- Crush\n\n\n\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-01-08T21:13:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Chesterton is an obvious root of Wolfe's writing.\n\n\n \n----- Original Message ----- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \n\nMaybe you're right, but I've been increasingly thinking...Chesterton.\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-09T15:43:52+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) RTTW Chras writings", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush wrote:\nMaybe you're right, but I've been increasingly thinking...Chesterton.\n\nAndy Robertson added:\nChesterton is an obvious root of Wolfe's writing.\n\nCrush concurs:\nTrue. And Chesterton frequently wrote on myth AND contemporary psychology. " } ] } ] }