Digest urth.v008.n005
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 12 Mar 1998
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/414

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Alice Turner — 12 Mar 1998, 06:28

Peter,

> As a fan of both Wolfe and W.B. Yeats, I've been struck by some
> parallels.  I could easily be convinced that they are simply
> parallels, and not direct influences, but they seem to be close enough
> to be interesting.

Don't forget the rose imagery. Yeats is chock-full of it, Wolfe only
somewhat less so.

-alga-

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Paul C Duggan — 12 Mar 1998, 08:49
  follows, by subject match Alice Turner

> On Thu, 12 Mar 1998 urth-errors at lists.best.com wrote:
> Even if this isn't what happens in this particular episode, it's
> certainly striking how quickly Severian `falls off' in any episode
> where he is somehow fleetingly put up against Christ...  In the first
> example I hazarded, which looked a bit like Christ before Pilate, the
> chapter ends with Severian demonstrating his torturing skills on one
> of the soldiers (at the lochage's suggestion, it should be said).  In
> the last, he ends up by killing Typhon/Piaton (though if he's somehow
> the Devil in this episode then my weak theology has run out of
> exegetic steam).  These sort of references seem like little pieces in
> a mosaic, which is a suitably Byzantine image.

While your first example of Severians failures rings ture, I'm not so sure
abotu the second. It seemed analogous to what happens in C.S. Lewis's
_Perelandra_, where the devil is defeated by



SPOILERS








physical force, after Ransom realizes that the argumentation phase was at
a close.







END SPOILERS

usually, people either love Lewis' solution at that point, or hate it. I'm
one of the ones who likes it a great deal.

"I am an impure thinker. I am hurt, swayed, shaken, |  paul           + | +
elated, disillusioned, shocked, comforted, and I    |                 --|--
have to transmit my mental experiences lest I die." |                 + | +
                     --  Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy    |  pduggan at world.std.com

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