# Small g, Big G *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 19 Jan 2003* > 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. --- ### ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus *19 Jan 2003, 06:33* Nigel thus: > Williams is such a wonderful but odd writer, isn't he? I confess to an > intense love-hate relationship with his books. Mystical, baffing and worth re-reading... > If I may make so bold about such a complex and mystical book, can I > suggest that the primary thing going on in "The Place of the Lion" is > that the archetype of each of the nine orders of angels is let loose >in > the world. (bows) This is a much better way of describing it...my only excuse, which is not a valid one, is that I was writing under conditions of some haste and lamentable fatigue. > Remember that the heroine's thesis in "The Place of the Lion" is - if >my > memory serves me - on "Neoplatonism in the Court of Charlemagne". >> Archetypes were Platonic and then Neoplatonic commonplaces long before >> Jung reapplied the idea of psychology. ...mmm...that's right...I'll havta re-read it...(sighs, slings it on top of the 'Urgent Reading' pile...) > Which is not to say that that idea may not also be present in >Williams, > but I really don't believe that it's primary. To be sure! I should know better than to post in haste (post-haste?) on _this_ list! Nothwithstanding this, I think that my point about retaining a cautious distinction between theological and fictional intentions is still, possibly, a partially valid one. > consider how much he may too have > been playing with similar ideas to Williams. Interesting to see that he > explicitly mentions reading Charles Williams in the interview which he >did > with Nutria. Hmmmm...that's right... ->Zx<- ____________________________________________________________ Consciousness will always be one degree above comprehensibility. - G.C.H. Ehrensvard ____________________________________________________________ Weep at least once to see God. - Sri Ramakrishna --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *20 Jan 2003, 17:06 · follows ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus* >> Williams is such a wonderful but odd writer, isn't he? I >> confess to an >> intense love-hate relationship with his books. > Mystical, baffing and worth re-reading... For those who do like CW, may I recommend (if you do not already know his work) Tim Powers? The closest living writer to "carrying on the Williams tradition," except that he is, in my humble, a better prose stylist than Williams ever managed to be. Williams was a fine poet, but in the writing of fiction ... I wish I knew who first said it, but I've always agreed with this: "He wrote potboilers, but he always boiled an honest pot." Anywho, Powers is an astonishing writer ... ---