{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3770", "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": 3770, "subject": "I wonder...", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-01-18T10:35:39+00:00", "last": "2003-01-20T11:07:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus", "address": "zibethicus at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-01-18T10:35:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) I wonder...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You have provoked me into public musing...\n\nThe way _I_ read TAD, there was no suggestion that Green was necessarily \ngoing to his death. As to the general issue of the 'reality' of the \nGoddess, if I remember correctly, Mr. Wolfe stated in I/V that he felt that \nthe Greek gods in the Soldier series were _real_ enough, all right, but not \nnecessarily gods per se...something which the late Mr. Lafferty also \ndeclared in 'Fourth Mansions'...\n\nAltogether, it makes me wonder about how much of an author's religious \noutlook we should be reading into their fiction, assuming they have declared \nan explicit outlook..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "from where\nLewis sat, it would seem quite important - the difference\nbetween harmless or even \"wholesome\" fabulation and heresy, in fact." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A very important difference, I would say...but, in the juvenile Narnia \nfictions, he has Tash as a god in 'The Last Battle', a _real_ god as I read \nit - at any rate, he exterminates someone who has called on him in vain - \nbut an evil god. My reading, anyway...perhaps the confusion here is between \nthe terms 'god' and 'deity'? Should we define, Socratically, before \nproceeding further?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It includes the Inklings' work (Williams too)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Finally! Someone who remembers that Williams was there! And this helps to \nmake my point a little clearer; in 'The Place of the Lion', Williams has - \nmore-or-less, and speaking very loosely - certain Jungian 'archetypes' (I'm \nstarting to dislike that word) come to life, and examines their effect upon \na community. Does this make Williams any less of a sincere Christian, \nalthough it is hardly orthodox theology? (We shall pass over his early \nmembership of the Golden Dawn in judicious silence...)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I believe Wolfe is writing WITHIN that tradition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know whether Mr. Wolfe's works fit neatly within a single framework. \n From my reading of them, I would guess that he is indulging in speculative \nfiction - he advances many ideas, 'good', 'bad', and otherwise, for the sake \nof their fictive value rather than for specifically theological purposes per \nse. I would imagine that Mr. Wolfe, like C S Lewis, would be quite capable \nof writing a theological text if he so desired.\n\nAnd I would further suspect that dealing with religious issues and questions \nin and through fiction is a very different process to that of the \nadvancement of theological opinion...at least, for authors of deep religious \nfaith..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Incidentally, I'm always surprised at how often people claim to have >been\nconvinced of the Gospel by CSL's non-fiction. I've found his fiction (for\nexample, \"Til We Have Faces\") to be so much more compelling." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Without wishing in any way to hurt the feelings of any of the Christians on \nthis list, I feel obliged to say that I, personally, find both CSL's fiction \nand non-fiction less than compelling on this matter...purely personal \nopinion of a non-Christian religious person... I have read the story of his \ngradual journey to belief, and find that, in itself, much more interesting \nthan the subsequent statements, but I, personally, find his after-death \nappearance to an unsuspecting Christian minister who had been an \nacquaintance in his life to be the most interesting thing he ever did \nregarding religion, if you will allow that 'he' did it...\n\n->Zx<-\n____________________________________________________________\n\nConsciousness will always be one degree above comprehensibility.\n\n- G.C.H. Ehrensvard\n____________________________________________________________\n\nWeep at least once to see God.\n\n- Sri Ramakrishna" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Spectacled Bear", "address": "spectacled.bear at pobox.com" }, "date": "2003-01-20T11:07:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) I wonder...", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At 10:35 2003-01-18, ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus wrote:\nIt includes the Inklings' work (Williams too)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Finally! Someone who remembers that Williams was there! And this helps to make my point a little clearer; in 'The Place of the Lion', Williams has - more-or-less, and speaking very loosely - certai\nPlatonic, surely?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I believe Wolfe is writing WITHIN that tradition." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know whether Mr. Wolfe's works fit neatly within a single framework. From my reading of them, I would guess that he is indulging in speculative fiction" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this is a very important thing to remember. \"Speculative fiction\"\nand \"framework\" do not sit well together. \"If Rules are a Framework for\nthe Mind, Why Should the Mind not Climb Right Out? writes the Sage of\nDissolution\" - to quote another story with a confusing timeline!\n\nI'm reading DOORS again for this discussion, and have reached ch 6.\nIn the first chapter, how come the buck-toothed doctor does not know\nhis name, but then says she has been worried about him? Has she just\nbeen reading his file up till then? Or maybe the suggestion of a\nretrospective change is right. Certainly he hasn't passed into another\nworld, because this all takes place within one conversation in one place.\n\nWhat is \"Malicapata\"? An Otherworld disease, or something else?\n\nSpectacled Bear." } ] } ] }