Subject: (urth) extra-textual material

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 18:15:28 +0000

I am very interested in the possibility that Silk is a clone of Typhon (or 
Malrubius) and that Severian and Ymar are genetically related.  However, I 
think ascribing too much weight to details in "King Jesus" might be 
potentially misleading.  Has Wolfe even read it?  Myths tend to survive in 
fragments that are often changed and undergo misprision - perhaps the creative 
misreadings of these old ideas experienced something resembling convergent 
evolution, and the archetypal figures simply resemble each other since they 
are spawned from a common source instead of from a direct progression from 
Graves to Wolfe

Obviously a historical text like Soldier in the Mist can be better understood 
with the real historical documents in hand - like Herodutus, who I believe 
Wolfe mentions in his dedication.  However, the Sun books are not truly 
historical works - (but they are still mythical, if that makes any sense).

If Wolfe had inscribed "for Robert Graves" or given some other direct evidence 
that he had been toying with the ideas of King Jesus explicitly, then we could 
gladly make the comparison and use the earlier work to make intertextual 
interpretations possible, perhaps even likely.

Which is not to say that the relationships you see aren't really there - it's 
just that I don't think we can make use of one novel to make definitive claims 
on the interpretation of another without careful consideration.  Remember that 
Wolfe is, first and foremost, a writer - and a writer needs to write an 
interesting, creative story more than he needs to look up ways to rip off 
descriptions from an earlier writer.  Remember that somewhere in there Wolfe 
creates new things - some of his descriptions are made up on the spot, or else 
he is simply enacting the task of Pierre Menard, rewriting the story of the 
man whose very life has become a dream of the stories that he reads.

Marc Aramini

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 18:48:28 +0000

Marc queries:
However, I think ascribing too much weight to details in "King Jesus" might
be
potentially misleading.  Has Wolfe even read it?

Crush responds:
I'd say Don has found the smoking gun that Wolfe HAS read 'King Jesus': That
is, the color of Silk's and Jesus' beard being explicitly referred in 'King
Jesus' as 'Typhonic". There are plenty of textual clues associating Silk
with Jesus.

Don has not only associated Silk with Typhon but provided an explanation for
the mystery of why Silk was **encouraged** to have himself scanned into the
Mainframe and attached to Pas. That Silk is a **clone** of Typhon is
problematic - considering how Wolfe has presented clones in tFHoC it is yet
to be shown that Wolfe would consider a doner-clone relationship to be a
father-son relationship. He would more likely consider clones to be
essentially the same person. But a father-son model would definitely
parallel that in 'King Jesus'.

Now, if Silk were the son of Typhon and Echidna, it would fit thematically
since there are even more clues associating Silk with Hephaestus, the Maker
God; which brings us back to Jesus, The Word, who made all things and
without him nothing was made (John 1:3).

The question of whether Severian is an heir of Typhon is IMO much less well
established. That, in 'King Jesus', Jesus was the son of Herod who was into
the worship of Set is not the same as Jesus being a son of Set. There's
**something** there but it could be that only that Wolfe is sipping from
this particular well of Graves' rather than swimming in it.

-- Crush

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From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 06:19:18 +0000

> are spawned from a common source instead of from a direct progression 

Don replies:
Though I've been guilty of relying too heavily on Graves for my 
arguments in the past, I think that these latest claims are based 
pretty solidly on clues within the text themselves (typhonic beard 
notwithstanding.)  However, I personally think that Wolfe has read KJ.

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From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 06:29:20 +0000

> this particular well of Graves' rather than swimming in it.
Aw contrail mon friar,

My assertion that Severian is the son of Typhon has very little to do 
with the KJ parallel.  I think the story of Frog establishes pretty 
well the identity of Ymar as the son of Typhon and there are way too 
many parallels between Severian and Ymar for me to think that they are 
anything but the same person (genetically).  Btw, I should have pointed 
out that in KJ, Herod tries to position himself as an incarnation of 
Set/Typhon, going so far as to wear the golden ass mask of Dora in the 
Holy of Holies.  But the KJ reference was only a minor reference to the 
thematic strength of my argument.  It was never meant to carry the 
whole thing.

Don

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 06:34:29 +0000

> notwithstanding.)  However, I personally think that Wolfe has read KJ.

I would be shocked if he hadn't.

.

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