Subject: (urth) RTTW Chras writings

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 16:11:29 +0000

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:

"A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible fantasy, nor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ..."

Anybody know where this comes from? Google has let me down. 

It 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.

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 17:25:29 +0000

On Tue, 7 Jan 2003, Andrew Bollen wrote:

> 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:

> "A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible
> fantasy, nor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ..."

> It 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.

Could easily be "Hamlet's Mill".

J.

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 14:26:10 +0000

A -->quick<-- scan of the introduction to âThe Greek Mythsâ did not find
this one. Nor did I find it in Gravesâ introduction to Bullfinchâs âThe
Fabled Age.â  The more I think about it, the less it sounds like something
Graves would say.

I didnât find it in Frazerâs âThe Golden Bough,â albeit I was only
scanning â still, it is surely post-Jungian considering the âpsychologyâ
reference. I really really wanted to find it in C.S. Lewisâ âMyth Became
Factâ but itâs not there. But Lewis talks a lot about the meaning, purpose,
and value of myth so there is a lot of places to look there.  Hmmm, I didnât
check Tolkienâs essay introducing âLeaf by Niggle.â

So ends (for now) my determined search for this quote.

-- Crush (who is hoping hoping hoping it is not a quote from Joseph
Campbell)

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Bollen [mailto:abollen at internode.on.net]
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 10:11 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: (urth) RTTW Chras writings

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:

"A simple way would be to admit that myth is neither irresponsible fantasy,
nor the object of weighty psychology [etc] ..."

It 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.

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 11:20:49 +0000

Crush the sleuth writes:

A quick scan of the introduction to "The Greek Myths" did not find this one.
Nor did I find it in Graves' introduction to Bullfinch's "The Fabled Age."
The more I think about it, the less it sounds like something Graves would
say.

I didn't find it in Frazer's "The Golden Bough," albeit I was only
scanning - still, it is surely post-Jungian considering the "psychology"
reference. I really really wanted to find it in C.S. Lewis' "Myth Became
Fact" but it's not there. But Lewis talks a lot about the meaning, purpose,
and value of myth so there is a lot of places to look there.  Hmmm, I didn't
check Tolkien's essay introducing "Leaf by Niggle."

------------------

Those were the kind of places I'd been thinking of, too & I agree - *please*
let it not be Campbell! I think C.S. Lewis is a good bet.

The second sentence starts: "It [myth] is wholly other ..."  That "wholly
other" phrase is suggestive, being apparently a common term in in theology
for the Godhead. It seems to be most closely associated with the writing of
Rudolf Otto, esp. "Idea of the Holy". This is a work which influenced C.S.
Lewis, who of course saw Christianity as being a myth of the same kind as
the classical myths, except for being *true*. For Lewis et al, and maybe
Wolfe, it would seem that the territory of myth is the same numinous, wholly
other realm inhabited by the Godhead.

This from a commentary site on Otto:

"The Natural mystery indicates a secret or a mystery that is alien to us,
incomprehensible, and unexplained. Like Sherlock Holmes, we may clear up
this level of natural mystery. Religious mystery is of a higher order. It
can never be solved, cleared up or otherwise resolved. It is in some sense
Wholly Other, something "which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the
intelligible, and the familiar, which therefore falls quite outside the
limits of the 'canny', and is contrasted with it, filling the mind with
blank wonder and astonishment." One frequent response is the human attempt
to rationalize or explain away the Mystery with theories. This transforms
Mystery into a problem. Otto points out that this is invalid: "The truly
mysterious object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only
because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we
come upon something inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are
incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a
wonder that strikes us chill and numb." Mystery is something we can feel,
"without being able to give it clear conceptual expression."

And this brief commentary on a work by John Crossan (of all people) kind of
ties things together:

Myth ... is rooted in extra-ordinary encounters with that which is Wholly
Other than the world as we know it. When we read of the Paradise that is in
Eden from which we are barred by "the cherubim and a perpetually revolving,
flaming sword" (Gen 3:24), we know that the writer speaks of a realm that is
Other, the Garden of God from which man has been expelled. By definition,
this place cannot be found in our world. This does not say, however, that
Paradise is not actual; merely that it does not exist in the world of
objects around us the way women baking bread do

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 12:11:23 +0000

I really do think it is from "Hamlet's Mill".

Anyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read
Hamlet's Mill.

J.

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From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 14:30:02 +0000

> Anyone who enjoys Gene Wolfe's fiction owes it to themselves to read

Tks - I'll check it out if I can find a copy.

As an aside: I think the hacks who put together the Chras writings would
have had an abundance of material to work with. There's a snippet in UOTNS
which I think reveals that Typhon was the ruler of Cyriaca's tale, who
founded the library of Nessus. The doctor in the Typhon-era version of the
Matachin Tower, to Severian: "This coast is quake-prone, as the old records
indicate clearly enough - praise to our monarch, by the way, for having them
brought here ...".

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 17:14:14 +0000

Andrew Bollen wrote:

Crush epiphanys:
I just realized that Adam and Eve were separated from the Garden by a
**whorl**!!!

That is, a "perpetually revolving sword."  The Hebrew used here is "haphak"
which according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance means "to turn about or
over" and by implication "to pervert."  Sounds like our Whorl.

-- Crush (with his imagination working overtime)

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 20:47:27 +0000

Josh Geller adamanted:

Crush probes:
What in this work makes you think of this quote? I'm not familiar with
"Hamlet's Mill", but I'm interested now.

Maybe you're right, but I've been increasingly thinking...Chesterton.

-- Crush

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 21:12:34 +0000

The book is called "Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating Myth And The
Frame Of Time", and it is by Giorgio di Santillana and Hertha von Dechend,
who were professors of the history of science at MIT and Goethe
Universitaet, Frankfurt respectively.

I will perhaps try to explain what it is about at another time.

J.

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 21:13:57 +0000

Chesterton is an obvious root of Wolfe's writing.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 15:43:52 +0000

Crush wrote:

Andy Robertson added:

Crush concurs:
True. And Chesterton frequently wrote on myth AND contemporary psychology. 

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