{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4236", "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": 4236, "subject": "Sulpicius", "messages": 30, "voices": 15, "first": "2004-10-03T23:39:19+00:00", "last": "2004-12-08T07:05:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<001f01c4a9dc$deb7c020$9f3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2004-10-03T23:39:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In the early hours of Severian's autarchy he was told by the aquastor\nMalrubius that his immediate predecessor, the Old Autarch Appian, had been\nthe only ruler since the first autarch, Ymar, to represent Urth at trial in\nYesod. (IV, p.214)\n\nAt another time, when Sev was trying to recall something, he began \"to\nsearch those veiled lives that lie behind the last, memories that I have\nscarcely mentioned in this narrative, that dim as they grow stranger and\nstretch backwards, perhaps, to Ymar, and behind Ymar to the Age of Myth.\"\n(V, p.294)\n\nI am interested here only in the thousand years between Ymar and Appian.\nAppian, just before his death, told Sev that he contained \"hundreds of\npersonalities. . . .We are many lives.\" (IV, p.202)\n\nNow to my point: Ultan spoke to Sev of \". . . the room we of the library\nhave maintained for three hundred years against the return of the Autarch\nSulpicius (and into which, in consequence, no one ever comes) . . .\" (I,\np.47)\n\nSo, where did he go? Elsewhere on Urth? Off planet? The Corridors of Time?\nWe know from the above that he didn't go to Yesod. The only things that are\nclear are that when he left he was autarch and that he didn't come back. Had\nhe come back, there would have been no point in preserving the room for\nthree centuries and, anyway, he should have been long dead. In any event,\nthe autarchy survived him. Even if we posit that he just disappeared\ninexplicably, dead or alive, how was the chain of autarchial succession\nmaintained and, more importantly, the seemingly unbroken links of memories\nthat stretched from Ymar to Sev?\n\nIt would be easiest to assume that Wolfe just screwed up somewhere, but I\ndoubt that he did. Of the relatively few things that Ultan might have said\nor did say in his only scene in the Urth Cycle, why did Wolfe put those\nwords in his mouth? It doesn't serve the larger plot in any way that I can\nsee, but G.W. must have had an answer. I don't.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001c01c4a9e1$604cd400$3700a8c0@crunchynut>", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2004-10-04T00:11:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<001f01c4a9dc$deb7c020$9f3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In the early hours of Severian's autarchy he was told by the aquastor\nMalrubius that his immediate predecessor, the Old Autarch Appian, had \nbeen\nthe only ruler since the first autarch, Ymar, to represent Urth at trial \nin\nYesod. (IV, p.214)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't have the books handy, but I have a vague recollection that Ymar \ndoesn't get distinguished as the *first* Autarch until UOTNS. (Or no?) If \nthat's right, then I think this is just another place in which UOTNS is a \nnew story, \"based on\" but not exactly a direct extension of, or intended to \nbe totally consistent with New Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "<20041004134725.71285.qmail@web50307.mail.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Nathan Spears", "address": "spearofsolomon at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T06:48:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<001f01c4a9dc$deb7c020$9f3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14332a.htm\nhttp://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/s/su/sulpicius_severus.html\n\nI wish I could say something really intelligent, but I just googled this guy's name.\n\nHere's a couple interesting excerpts from the second link:\n\n\"Sulpicius Severus was an aristocrat of Aquitaine intended for an administrative\ncareer and educated in the classical manner who, after the early death of his wife,\nrenounced his career and entered the monastic life.\"\n\n\"Sulpicius wrote a world chronicle . . .\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41616F44.4010800@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T08:42:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<20041004134725.71285.qmail@web50307.mail.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nathan Spears wrote:\nhttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14332a.htm\nhttp://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/s/su/sulpicius_severus.html\n\nI wish I could say something really intelligent, but I just googled this guy's name.\n\nHere's a couple interesting excerpts from the second link:\n\n\"Sulpicius Severus was an aristocrat of Aquitaine intended for an administrative\ncareer and educated in the classical manner who, after the early death of his wife,\nrenounced his career and entered the monastic life.\"\n\n\"Sulpicius wrote a world chronicle . . .\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Could it be that Sulpicius ordered that the room be kept for him until \nhe came back, as long as necessary, and they have simply followed the \norder, since no other Autarch has bothered to withdraw it?\n\nOr perhaps it foreshadows the memory-transfer, since Sulpicius live on \nin his successors?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nLead Playtester, GURPS Ultra-Tech for 4/e\n< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jason Willard", "address": "funesmem6 at msn.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T09:43:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<001f01c4a9dc$deb7c020$9f3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello! I've been lurking here for a while: but as most here have re-read all of Wolfe _at least_ once, whereas I've only read most of Wolfe _once_, (and my science skills are non-existent) I've been shy about writing. But, I've just finished re-reading SotT and CotC and have been doing a lot of research. A lot of it into dead ends, I'm sure.\n\nBut I was struck by the passage in Ultan's library about Sulpicius as well, and as there is/was a Sulpicius Severus (as well as another Sulpicius, a saint, with whom Sulpicius Severus, from my understanding, is confused), and as as Severian means a follower of Severus (although OED refers to \"the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch (early 5th c.)\"), I have thought for a while that there must be a connection between these two autarchs, Sulpicius and our hero Sev. I have also wondered if Wolfe hasn't set up some elaborate verbal joke on the Pelagian heresy. According to W2, 'Pelagian' is \"a follower of Pelagius\"; 'pelagian' (little 'p') is either an adjective meaning \"pelagic\" (\"the pelagic argosy sights land!\") or a noun: \"A pelagic animal.\" (Like an undine, or something bigger?) Also, as the Oxford Classical Dictionary notes in its entry for Severus, Sulpicius, \"In old age he seems to have passed through a period of Pelagianism.\" Could it be said that Severian has passed through a similar period in his allegiance to Vodalus?\n\nI'm also intent on reading (Time! I need more Time!!!) Severus's history. (Yes, he is, importantly, an influential writer, as Severian is.) His history, again according to the OCD, is \"a universal chronicle to AD 400 which is an important source for the history of 4th-cent. events ... The whole book is an interesting attempt to present a 'breviarium' of history from the Christian point of view: it uses Christian chronographers ... but also pagan writers.\" I'd be very surprised it Mr. Wolfe hasn't come across this work at some point. Or, perhaps, this is yet another dead end.\n\nJason\n ----- Original Message ----- \n From: Roy C. Lackey \n To: urth \n Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 1:38 AM\n Subject: (urth) Sulpicius\n\n\n In the early hours of Severian's autarchy he was told by the aquastor\n Malrubius that his immediate predecessor, the Old Autarch Appian, had been\n the only ruler since the first autarch, Ymar, to represent Urth at trial in\n Yesod. (IV, p.214)\n\n At another time, when Sev was trying to recall something, he began \"to\n search those veiled lives that lie behind the last, memories that I have\n scarcely mentioned in this narrative, that dim as they grow stranger and\n stretch backwards, perhaps, to Ymar, and behind Ymar to the Age of Myth.\"\n (V, p.294)\n\n I am interested here only in the thousand years between Ymar and Appian.\n Appian, just before his death, told Sev that he contained \"hundreds of\n personalities. . . .We are many lives.\" (IV, p.202)\n\n Now to my point: Ultan spoke to Sev of \". . . the room we of the library\n have maintained for three hundred years against the return of the Autarch\n Sulpicius (and into which, in consequence, no one ever comes) . . .\" (I,\n p.47)\n\n So, where did he go? Elsewhere on Urth? Off planet? The Corridors of Time?\n We know from the above that he didn't go to Yesod. The only things that are\n clear are that when he left he was autarch and that he didn't come back. Had\n he come back, there would have been no point in preserving the room for\n three centuries and, anyway, he should have been long dead. In any event,\n the autarchy survived him. Even if we posit that he just disappeared\n inexplicably, dead or alive, how was the chain of autarchial succession\n maintained and, more importantly, the seemingly unbroken links of memories\n that stretched from Ymar to Sev?\n\n It would be easiest to assume that Wolfe just screwed up somewhere, but I\n doubt that he did. Of the relatively few things that Ultan might have said\n or did say in his only scene in the Urth Cycle, why did Wolfe put those\n words in his mouth? It doesn't serve the larger plot in any way that I can\n see, but G.W. must have had an answer. I don't.\n\n -Roy\n\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173704100411203cc301e1@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T11:20:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. I had never thought to connect \"pelagic\" with \"pelagian,\" but\nthere is a kind of sense to it - the Pelagian heresy is, at root, the\nideal of self-sufficiency. Rejecting Augustine's doctirne of Man's\ninherent sinfulness and the resultant absolute need for grace in order\nto be saved, Pelagius taught that humans had the ability to absolutely\nreject evil of their own free will, and so be saved.\n\nIt occurs to me that there is a certain analogy here to the Vodalarian\nbelief (the Vodelarii being the users of the \"pelagic\" password) that\nhumanity can pull itself up by its bootstraps and return to their days\nof glory. (It is in this context not insignificant to note that this\nbelief is encouraged by the demons of the posthistorical period, Abaia\nand his ilk.)\n\nCheers,\n\n--Dan'l " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\nNo president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever \nsay he wants to put anyone on a leash. That's all.\n --Andrew Sullivan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mournings glory", "address": "mourningsglory at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T12:44:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704100411203cc301e1@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From Jeff Wilson:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nAgree, but with some modification.\n\nPerhaps Sulpicius, knowing what lays ahead of him (he will be eaten by his \nsuccessor, though his memories will survive), has merely sought to ensure \nthat one of the places he likes most in the world will survive and that he, \nvia his new host, will still be able to visit it and savor his favorite \nbooks post-corporally. Thecla, after all, \"returns\" to the House Absolute \nand at times her presence is so dominant she takes over the narrative as \nwell as Severian's body language (iirc he's mistaken for a woman a number of \ntimes). Sulpicius may thus be hoping he'll be able to return to the library \nand even be recognized as Sulpicius if he can channel himself through \nstrongly enough. Ultan's riff about how this is not yet happened may speak \nto the ill-fated poignancy of this notion. Nevertheless, his \n300-year-old-edict remains still operational.\n\nThere's also a nice bit of irony here: Severian, as Sulpicius's future host, \n*has* come to the library, foreshadowing both Sulpicius's return and \nSeverian's own rise to the Phoenix Throne. Plus the entire notion of the \nAutarchy as a huge collective volume of personalities, with each chapter \nrepresenting a different Autarch's life.\n\nmsg" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Seth Lombardi", "address": "sethlombardi at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T19:57:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's also a nice bit of irony here: Severian, as Sulpicius's future \nhost, *has* come to the library, foreshadowing both Sulpicius's return and \nSeverian's own rise to the Phoenix Throne. Plus the entire notion of the \nAutarchy as a huge collective volume of personalities, with each chapter \nrepresenting a different Autarch's life.\n\nmsg" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've always wondered: aren't there WAY more subsumed personalities in the \npersonage of the Autarch than there have been Autarchs? Don't know what to \ndo with that. Unless Ymar or someone requested a democratic buffet of brains \nin order to best serve his subjects.\n\nseth" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T20:36:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's a lot more to be troubled about in this. Because at least one of the \nprevious Autarchs bouncing around in there is Severian himself, who at that \npoint would have already been through all of the events described in the New \nSun and also have (within his own memories) the echoes of all the other \nautarchs.\n\nThis is not necessarily a complete snake-eating-its-tale scenario, however. \nWe know that Severian's memory causes him to get a deeper effect from the \nalzabo. My guess is that everyone else, having a normal human memory, would \nnot receive or transmit a precise copy of the memories picked up from their \npredecessor. As a result, what ends up coming to Severian by way of Appian \nis a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... what he perceives of the traces \nof his own memory in this is faded and confusing; events which he knows have \nalready happened take on the appearance of having been through them more \nthan once (case in point is the scene at the beginning where he almost \ndrowns, and his later reflections on it), and events which haven't happened \nyet seem to him to be presentiments of what's to come.\n\nAnother possibility that has occurred to me is that perhaps his memory has \nnever been perfect at all. He has perhaps been given the illusion of perfect \nmemory by having received an infinite number of very-faded copies. For this \ntime travelling thing involves an infinite regress - however many copies of \nhis own memories he receives from Appian, he ends up transmitting that \nnumber plus one to one of his predecessors earlier on in the timeline. An \ninfinite number of imperfect copies laid on top of each other may appear to \nhave perfect clarity, and yet contain errors...\n\nJust dabbling with ideas a bit,\nCivet" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've always wondered: aren't there WAY more subsumed personalities in the \npersonage of the Autarch than there have been Autarchs? Don't know what to \ndo with that. Unless Ymar or someone requested a democratic buffet of \nbrains in order to best serve his subjects.\n\nseth\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000c01c4aa97$feb6e840$403ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2004-10-04T21:58:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Bollen wrote:\nI don't have the books handy, but I have a vague recollection that Ymar\ndoesn't get distinguished as the *first* Autarch until UOTNS. (Or no?) If\nthat's right, then I think this is just another place in which UOTNS is a\nnew story, \"based on\" but not exactly a direct extension of, or intended to\nbe totally consistent with New Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you're looking for internal inconsistencies in the Urth Cycle, here's\nanother. Aquastor Malrubius told Sev, \"If you pass -- if our race is judged\nready to reenter the wide seas of space -- such a white fountain will be\ncreated in the heart of our sun.\" (IV, p.214)\n\nThat's not the way it happened in Book V, where a white fountain was created\nat an unknown distance from Urth and took thousands of years to _travel_ to\nthe Old Sun. It was the passage of this heavenly mass close enough to Urth\non its journey to the sun to cause geological upheavals and massive tidal\nwaves, resulting in the inundation of low-lying Nessus two days before\nreaching its destination.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001401c4aa9b$950c98a0$403ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2004-10-04T22:24:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<000c01c4aa97$feb6e840$403ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Civet wrote:\nThere's a lot more to be troubled about in this. Because at least one of\nthe\nprevious Autarchs bouncing around in there is Severian himself, who at that\npoint would have already been through all of the events described in the\nNew\nSun and also have (within his own memories) the echoes of all the other\nautarchs." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, I'll bite. Which of the previous autarchs was Severian, and when?\n\nIf you're referring to the \"first Severian\" scenario outlined by Sev on\np.270 of CITADEL, that doesn't count. That Severian was replaced at some\npoint by our Sev, and history was rewritten, so to speak. Sev _did not_\ncontain the memory of that \"first Severian\" becoming autarch and receiving\nthe memories of Appian and the rest.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T22:46:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "<001401c4aa9b$950c98a0$403ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It could be that, considering the white fountain as an \"anti-black-hole\" and \nsome of the odd statements about time made by the cacogens, that Wolfe is \nattempting to describe the white fountain as coming into being *in* the sun \nat that moment, and then travelling out and away but in a backwards-time \ndirection, ie, from the point of view of someone from Urth, it would start \nfrom far away and then proceed in toward the sun.\n\nThis is a little pseudoscientific and based off the quirky observation that \nanti-particles can be described as particles travelling backward in time. \nBut I don't think it's beyond the realm of what Wolfe might do, especially \nsince he's not writing hard sci-fi anyway." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you're looking for internal inconsistencies in the Urth Cycle, here's\nanother. Aquastor Malrubius told Sev, \"If you pass -- if our race is judged\nready to reenter the wide seas of space -- such a white fountain will be\ncreated in the heart of our sun.\" (IV, p.214)\n\nThat's not the way it happened in Book V, where a white fountain was \ncreated\nat an unknown distance from Urth and took thousands of years to _travel_ to\nthe Old Sun. It was the passage of this heavenly mass close enough to Urth\non its journey to the sun to cause geological upheavals and massive tidal\nwaves, resulting in the inundation of low-lying Nessus two days before\nreaching its destination.\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2004-10-04T22:57:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Sulpicius", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, a couple things. The first is the tomb that Severian plays in as a \nchild, which he later finds out is his own (from one of his many lives as \nthe Conciliator in and out of time). I believe that somewhere it's stated \nthat this is the tomb of an autarch. Secondly, I think Severian himself \nmakes the conjecture that he's been autarch more than once, in UotNS, though \nI don't have a copy to go looking.\n\nNot to be confused with whoever's theory it was that Ymar was actually \nSeverian, which I never really bought into (or the theory that he was \nSeverian's clone).\n\nThe only place that the passing from Citadel you're referring to comes into \nplay is that I think that perhaps Severian comes up with the *idea* of there \nhaving been another Severian from the fact that he had these echoed \nmemories, and had no way at hand to explain them otherwise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you're referring to the \"first Severian\" scenario outlined by Sev on\np.270 of CITADEL, that doesn't count. That Severian was replaced at some\npoint by our Sev, and history was rewritten, so to speak. Sev _did not_\ncontain the memory of that \"first Severian\" becoming autarch and receiving\nthe memories of Appian and the rest.\n\n-Roy\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000801c4b45a$5644c3e0$6501a8c0@NAME>", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2004-10-17T08:04:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Wolfe's short stories", "in_reply_to": "<001f01c4a9dc$deb7c020$9f3ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jason McCready wrote:\nI've been reading the short stories in Endangered Species. Could \nanyone give me some hints on even beginning to understand \nthe three Procreation stories... " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Procreation stories are among my all-time favourite Wolfe short\nstories (admittedly, it's a long list). They're funny, inventive,\nmoving, and wonderfully concise - all things I love about Wolfe's\nwriting. Apologies in advance if I'm just stating the obvious, but: \n\n'Creation' is a jokey skit on Genesis. A scientist accidentally creates\na universe, and each day of its evolution corresponds to a stage in the\nBible story: the land separating from the waters, life, Adam, Eve etc.\nThe fly is the introduction of evil. Is this perhaps 'our' universe? \n\nMost writers would have been happy enough with a story like 'Creation'.\nWolfe, and this is absolutely characteristic of the man, takes the idea\nand runs with it. 'Re-creation' introduces the idea that maybe a second\nuniverse was created at the same time as the first, but one that has\nevolved backwards through time. Sure enough, as it propagates back\nthrough his life, the scientist suddenly finds himself 'remembering'\nencounters with it.\n\nFinally, 'The Sister's Account' ups the ante again. We witness the\nbirth, flowering and death of one of the worlds of this backwards\nuniverse - in barely three pages. But we're no longer in the realm of\nshaggy-god jokes and scientists. There's something very poignant about\nthese little glimpses of a paradise now lost forever, and it's no\ncoincidence that Wolfe makes our narrator a spinster. \"When Gene had\nmarried and it was clear I never would\" is an incredible line - it tells\nyou so much about Sis in so few words, and where she stands in relation\nto this world. As does the image of all the little rockpools on a shore\nteeming with new life, each one reflecting her empty spinster's bed. \n\nThe final sentence raises the bar again, and never fails to send a\nshiver down my spine. Have we been listening all the while to the\nthoughts of a woman who lived and died a whole universe ago?\n\nOne rabbit after another, all pulled from the same unremarkable-looking\nhat. Irreverent tall story; beguiling could-it-work-like-that SF idea;\nelegiac meditation on the mystery and transient nature of life. That's\nhow I understand Procreation, anyway." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-10-28T20:02:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<000801c4b45a$5644c3e0$6501a8c0@NAME>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The fantasy anthology FLIGHTS, which contains a novella by Wolfe (at least\naccording to the editor, though the boundary between a novella and a\nnovelette has never been clear to me) also contains a short story by Neil\nGaiman, called \"The Problem of Susan.\" In general I'm not keen on Gaiman as\na writer, either of comics (I regard SANDMAN is overrated) or prose, but I\nthink this story is a good one, though it functions more as a critique of\nthe Narnia books than as a work of fiction in its own right. As it deals\nwith issues which I know are of interest to several people on this list, I'm\ncurious if anyone else has read it; and if so, what did you think about it?\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4187A140.9000906@link.com>", "from": { "name": "Charles Reed", "address": "cmreed at link.com" }, "date": "2004-11-02T06:57:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've read Gaiman's THE PROBLEM OF SUSAN and have a few thoughts to share. \n\nSPOILERS abound, so be warned.\n\nMy initial reaction to the story was one of anger and disappointment, \nnot so much at the story's visceral imagery as at Susan's lack of \nhope/redemption/salvation at the end. The visceral imagery I mentioned \nwas something that I actually liked quite a bit. Well, \"liked\" isn't \nquite the right word. Let's say I thought it was very effective in its \nattempt to pull the reader into the story. The descriptions of the \nbattlefield, of Aslan's copulation with the White Witch, and especially \nof what Susan endured after the train crash (and what she thought about \nit afterward) are all disturbingly powerful scenes. Of course, it helps \nif you already have an emotional investment in the character, which I \ndo, having been a big fan of the Narnia books ever since my fourth grade \nteacher -- Mrs. Pixler from Jane Long Elementary in Abilene, Texas if \nanyone's interested -- read THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE to \nus. I don't know how emotionally resonant those scenes would be to \nsomeone not familiar with Susan Pevensie.\n\n[Side note on Mrs. Pixler: In addition to introducing me to Narnia, she \nalso read parts of Stephen King's THE SHINING to us, which literally \ngave me nightmares and which planted within me a deep-seated distrust of \ntopiary that I still can't quite shake. All in all, though, Mrs. Pixler \nwas cool, even though I'm sure if she were to read such stuff as obvious \nChristian allegories and nightmare-inducing horror to fourth graders in \ntoday's public schools, she'd have her pants sued off. :-) ]\n\nAnyway. Gaiman does a good job of using that pre-existing emotional \ninvestment to create a grown-up Susan that I was really interested in \nand cared about. I think, however, that he (or more accurately, the \ngrown-up Susan) misinterprets Lewis's (or Aslan's) reasons for not \nallowing Susan to go higher up and higher in. Susan wasn't denied \nheaven because she liked lipstick and boys. She was denied heaven \nbecause she turned her back on and denied the existence of the living \nGod. I desperately wanted some kind of redemption for her at the end, \nwhich I suppose is a testament to how much the story affected me. I \ncertainly can't say that I liked it, and its nightmarish bitterness \nreally left me down in the dumps after reading it, but it is certainly a \nvalid \"take\" on Susan. All stories can't end happily and hopefully, and \na consequence of Christian belief is the idea that some people will \naccept God's love and be saved while others will deny God's love and be \ndamned. Seeing that damnation in practice is a bitter thing, even when \nit applies to a person who exists nowhere but in the minds of those who \nhave read about her.\n\nCharles" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam Stephanides wrote:\nThe fantasy anthology FLIGHTS, which contains a novella by Wolfe (at least\naccording to the editor, though the boundary between a novella and a\nnovelette has never been clear to me) also contains a short story by Neil\nGaiman, called \"The Problem of Susan.\" In general I'm not keen on Gaiman as\na writer, either of comics (I regard SANDMAN is overrated) or prose, but I\nthink this story is a good one, though it functions more as a critique of\nthe Narnia books than as a work of fiction in its own right. As it deals\nwith issues which I know are of interest to several people on this list, I'm\ncurious if anyone else has read it; and if so, what did you think about it?\n\n--Adam\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "mfstraight at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-03T09:48:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<4187A140.9000906@link.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Susan wasn't denied\nheaven because she liked lipstick and boys." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Funny how so many people don't understand this.\n\nFor Lewis,\n\nWonder/Adventure of Narnia:Wonder of Knowing and Loving God::lipstick\nand boys:dull grey mundane world of ignoring God\n\nLewis (following Chesterton) sees the Christian worldview as an\nexciting Romance (in the old sense), like reading Narnia. He sees the\natheistic worldview as dull, like reading a modern romance (in the new\nsense) novel.\n\n-- Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173704110311063b87614f@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-03T11:07:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've been been slowly plodding through FLIGHTS for the past few weeks.\nI'm finding most of it dull: fantasy mostly doesn't work for me at short \nlengths, except for contemporary/dark/urban fantasy, and only about half \nof _that_ in this book is actually any good. So I've avoided this thread \nuntil I got to the Gaiman story. I generally like Gaiman's work, from \n_Black Orchid_ and _The Sandman_ to _American Gods_ and \n_Coraline_, so I was looking forward to this story & didn't want to know\nanything about it in advance.\n\nWell, I read it this morning, and did not like it at _all_. I'm not really\nsurprised; it's currently fashionable to trash Lewis and especially the\nNarnia books, and Gaiman is nothing if not fashionable. In this case,\nI wish he hadn't been.\n\nCharles and Rostrum are quite right in their interpretation of Susan's\nobsession with \"lipstick, boys, and invitations,\" but they miss \nsomething even more important - Susan is most emphatically _not_ \n\"denied Heaven.\" This is the \"Pullman Heresy\" that is, I think, at the\nheart of the trash-Lewis fad.\n\nSusan is not damned; she simply doesn't die in the train crash. The \nbooks neither say _nor imply_ anything about her eternal fate, and \nin the one place that I know of where Lewis had anything to say \nabout it - in a letter to a child - he was of the opinion that God kept\nher alive so that she could come back to Him by some other route.\n(That's from memory, so the wording is probably nowhere near \nCSL's.) \n\nLewis was not a Universalist, but he was (by the standard of most\northodox Christians) almost unbelievably optimistic about God's\nwill that \"all the world be saved\" and His ability to do so; cf. _The\nGreat Divorce_, in which he suggests (albeit in a fictional form\nthat allowed him to avoid, at some level, responsibility for the\nidea) the possibility that even those already in Hell might be \nsaved. The assumption that he fated Susan for damnation would \nalmost cetainly offend him deeply. Like near-'bout eveyrthing else\nin Narnia, the \"lipstick\" bit is there for a polemic point - a point\nfurther driven in by the statement that Susan is \"no longer a\nFriend of Narnia,\" that she regards Narnia as a \"game we used\nto play.\" \n\nPerhaps that last point is the most telling, but it's also one that \nis too easily overinterpreted. The heart of Edmund's betrayal\nin _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ is his pretending,\nafter getting into Narnia, that he and Lucy were \"playing.\" Then,\ntoo, in _The Voyage of the \"Dawn Treader\"_, Eustace believes \nthat the Pevensie children \"play games about Narnia\" until he \nwinds up there himself. So it's easy to see Susan's dismissing \nNarnia as a \"game\" as a sign of ultimate rejection, of damnation.\n\nBut in terms of such symbols, the Narnia books are (to be quite\nfrank) written very sloppily. There is very little real consistency\nfrom one book to the next; each has its own set of polemic\npoints to make, and its own set of allegorical symbols to make\nthem. The only really constant symbol is Aslan himself. \n\nHeck, I'm just sort of wandering on here. The point is, that\nGaiman bases his story on an interpretation of Susan's fate \nthat I believe would be far from the intentions of Susan's \ncreator. I'm sorry he didn't take Lewis's own beliefs into \naccount in writing \"The Problem of Susan,\" because there is\na very real question about Susan's fate; a talented writer who\nwasn't kneejerkingly hostile to Christianity might make an \ninteresting story about what Aslan/God does to bring Susan \nback to Himself, now that Narnia is gone.\n\nBut Gaiman is clearly not the writer to do it." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2004-11-03T15:27:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704110311063b87614f@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\n... it's currently fashionable to trash Lewis and especially the\nNarnia books, and Gaiman is nothing if not fashionable. In this case,\nI wish he hadn't been.\n\nCharles and Rostrum are quite right in their interpretation of Susan's\nobsession with \"lipstick, boys, and invitations,\" but they miss\nsomething even more important - Susan is most emphatically _not_\n\"denied Heaven.\" This is the \"Pullman Heresy\" that is, I think, at the\nheart of the trash-Lewis fad.\n\nSusan is not damned; she simply doesn't die in the train crash. The\nbooks neither say _nor imply_ anything about her eternal fate, and\nin the one place that I know of where Lewis had anything to say\nabout it - in a letter to a child - he was of the opinion that God kept\nher alive so that she could come back to Him by some other route.\n(That's from memory, so the wording is probably nowhere near\nCSL's.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am irresistibly reminded of Luther explaining how dogs also go to\nheaven: \"Be comforted, little dog, thou too in the Resurrection shalt\nhave a tail of gold.\" ;)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f761737041103165826a5c29e@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-03T16:58:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You know, this is almost the only thing I've ever heard about Luther that\nI liked..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 09:22:10 +1000 (EST), David Duffy wrote:\nI am irresistibly reminded of Luther explaining how dogs also go to\nheaven: \"Be comforted, little dog, thou too in the Resurrection shalt\nhave a tail of gold.\" ;)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-05T14:23:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704110311063b87614f@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll confess that when I started this topic I was being a bit of a\nprovocateur (though there's at least one person on the list who iirc shares\nGaiman's view), so I appreciate both Charles and Dan'l's thoughtful\nresponses.\n\nSpoilers follow.\n\nI see Gaiman as making two criticisms of the Narnia books. The first is that\nLewis casually consigned Susan, a major character in the series, to a cruel\nordeal (by which I'm referring to what would happen to her on Earth after\nher family's death, rather than her eternal fate--see below), seemingly\nwithout being aware that he had done so; or if he was aware, no trace of\nthis awareness appeared in the books. Hence Lewis here displayed a lack of\nimagination and empathy. This criticism hadn't occurred to me before, but\nnow it seems obvious.\n\nThe second is that the books perpetuate views of men and women that are\npsychologically damaging to both sexes. Gaiman doesn't make this criticism\nexplicitly; it's implicit in the reference to \"the role of children's\nfiction in creating the belief systems we adopt as adults\" (398), and in\nGreta's dream, in which the girls are eaten while the boys are transformed\ninto a \"twisted thing\" (401). Whether this criticism is true or fair, I\ncouldn't say without rereading the Narnia books, but it's a powerful image\nat any rate." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Charles Reed wrote:\nSusan wasn't denied\nheaven because she liked lipstick and boys. She was denied heaven\nbecause she turned her back on and denied the existence of the living\nGod." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That interpretation is consistent with the theological allegory, and it may\nbe what Lewis intended, but it's not what the text says. None of the\ncharacters say that her fault is to have denied Aslan, but Jill and Lady\nPolly, who have the last words on the matter, do say that her fault is to be\ninterested in \"'nothing ... except nylons and lipstick and invitations'\"\n(End of ch. 12, in THE LAST BATTLE). In any case, it's because Susan is too\ninterested in nylons and lipstick and invitations that she's turned her back\non Narnia." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nit's currently fashionable to trash Lewis and especially the\nNarnia books," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it? I know Pullman ciriticized them prominently; I'm not aware of any\nother prominent figures who have done so recently." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and Gaiman is nothing if not fashionable." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, I hadn't particularly noticed this. He writes in popular genres, but\nso does Wolfe (not that Gaiman is anywhere near Wolfe's level as a writer).\nIn any case, I think Gaiman's critique of Lewis here is too deeply felt to\nbe just an effort to be \"fashionable.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Susan is most emphatically _not_\n\"denied Heaven.\" This is the \"Pullman Heresy\" that is, I think, at the\nheart of the trash-Lewis fad." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If I give all your brothers and sisters candy, and I don't give you any,\nthen I've denied you candy, even though I still have the option to give you\ncandy later." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Susan is not damned; she simply doesn't die in the train crash. The\nbooks neither say _nor imply_ anything about her eternal fate, and\nin the one place that I know of where Lewis had anything to say\nabout it - in a letter to a child - he was of the opinion that God kept\nher alive so that she could come back to Him by some other route.\n(That's from memory, so the wording is probably nowhere near\nCSL's.) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip] " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Like near-'bout eveyrthing else\nin Narnia, the \"lipstick\" bit is there for a polemic point - a point\nfurther driven in by the statement that Susan is \"no longer a\nFriend of Narnia,\" that she regards Narnia as a \"game we used\nto play.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I, and I suspect most others who criticize Lewis, certainly \"get\" Lewis's\npoint. Our point is that as his exemplar of someone who had turned their\nback on God, Lewis chose a girl whose \"fault\" is to be preoccupied with just\nthose things that most adolescent girls in his society were preoccupied\nwith. No doubt you'll retort that it was just by chance that his exemplar\nwas a girl, and has no larger significance; I'm not so sure." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Heck, I'm just sort of wandering on here. The point is, that\nGaiman bases his story on an interpretation of Susan's fate\nthat I believe would be far from the intentions of Susan's\ncreator." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Though Greta does use the word \"damned\" at one point, that's not what the\nstory turns on. It's the naive Greta who is preoccupied with Susan's eternal\nfate; Gaiman himself places much more emphasis upon the cruelty of what\nwould happen to Susan on Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm sorry he didn't take Lewis's own beliefs into\naccount in writing \"The Problem of Susan,\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually he does incorporate Lewis's belief, though he may not have been\naware it was Lewis's: \"She [Greta's English teacher] said that even though\nSusan had refused Paradise then, she still had time while she lived to\nrepent.\"\n\n because there is" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "a very real question about Susan's fate; a talented writer who\nwasn't kneejerkingly hostile to Christianity" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because Gaiman is hostile to the Narnia books, it doesn't follow that he's\nhostile to Christianity as such, let alone kneejerkingly so.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370411051516624eb6fb@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-05T15:16:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 16:27:31 -0600, Adam Stephanides\n wrote:\nGreta's dream, in which the girls are eaten while the boys are transformed\ninto a \"twisted thing\" (401). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is, for me, probably the single thing I found most distasteful about\nthe entire story: it is based on an actual scene in _LW&W_ in which (as\nI imagine you can guess) neither Aslan nor Jadis destroy any of the \nchildren, nor do they have sexual relations. The scene in question is\nthe one in which Aslan offers his life for Edmund's, which would be in\nmany ways the most important scene of the entire book; rewriting it in\nthis way is one of my reasons for claiming that it is simple Lewis-bashing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "it's currently fashionable to trash Lewis and especially the\nNarnia books," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is it? I know Pullman ciriticized them prominently; I'm not aware of any\nother prominent figures who have done so recently." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If I had to name the three \"big hot\" names in fantasy right now, they'd\nbe Pullman and Gaiman and Mieville. Mieville has also dumped on\nLewis (though not as deeply as Tolkien \"the wen on the arse of \nfantasy literature\" Tolkien). \"The Problem of Susan\" makes the\ntrifecta." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and Gaiman is nothing if not fashionable." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Again, I hadn't particularly noticed this. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You have not, I take it, seen him or read much in the way of\ninterviews. He has the post-punk all-in-black too-cool-for-school \nbit down to a tee. Mind you, I still think he's one hellofa writer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In any case, I think Gaiman's critique of Lewis here is too deeply felt to\nbe just an effort to be \"fashionable.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you misunderstood. I don't mean that he makes efforts\nto be fashionable. I meant that he is a character from the\nDreaming: the Fashion Thing. He _is_ fashionable, he doesn't\nhave to make efforts for it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Susan is most emphatically _not_\n\"denied Heaven.\" This is the \"Pullman Heresy\" that is, I think, at the\nheart of the trash-Lewis fad." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If I give all your brothers and sisters candy, and I don't give you any,\nthen I've denied you candy, even though I still have the option to give you\ncandy later." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The analogy is badly flawed. If you give my brothers and sisters \ncandy, and I'm not there, but you give me some when I show up,\nyou haven't denied me anything. Susan won't \"show up\" until\nshe's dead." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Like near-'bout eveyrthing else\nin Narnia, the \"lipstick\" bit is there for a polemic point - a point\nfurther driven in by the statement that Susan is \"no longer a\nFriend of Narnia,\" that she regards Narnia as a \"game we used\nto play.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I, and I suspect most others who criticize Lewis, certainly \"get\" \nLewis's point. Our point is that as his exemplar of someone who \nhad turned their back on God, Lewis chose a girl whose \"fault\" \nis to be preoccupied with just those things that most adolescent \ngirls in his society were preoccupied with. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, my. You mean a Christian writer illustrated the idea that\nexcessive concern with Things Of The World [tm] is Not \nNecessarily A Good Thing? How shocking! What a sexist!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No doubt you'll retort that it was just by chance that his exemplar\nwas a girl, and has no larger significance; I'm not so sure." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, I don't think it's a coincidence; I think it was a necessary \noutcome of the nature of his characters. There are in all\neight children who've visited Narnia that he could choose \nfrom. \n\no Two (Polly and Digory) are no longer children and so not \n well-suited for example-making in a children's book.\n\no Two (Eustace and Pole) are the onely ones currently allowed\n to visit Narnia, and so neither can be the one who has \n turned away from Narnia.\n\nThis leaves the Pevensies.\n\no Peter is the High King and symbolically tied up with Peter\n the Apostle. Not a good choice.\n\no Edmund might be a candidate, but he's been singled out\n for special salvation and deep conversionin the very first \n book, so it would be very problematic.\n\no Lucy is the series' primary POV character and the one most\n loved by readers (and CSL himself).\n\nThis leaves Susan as pretty much Hobson's Choice, if \nthere's to be an example of turning away." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Though Greta does use the word \"damned\" at one point, that's not \nwhat the story turns on. It's the naive Greta who is preoccupied with \nSusan's eternal fate; Gaiman himself places much more emphasis \nupon the cruelty of what would happen to Susan on Earth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, and that's fair. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'm sorry he didn't take Lewis's own beliefs into\naccount in writing \"The Problem of Susan,\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually he does incorporate Lewis's belief, though he may not have been\naware it was Lewis's: \"She [Greta's English teacher] said that even though\nSusan had refused Paradise then, she still had time while she lived to\nrepent.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I said \"beliefs\" and I meant \"beliefs,\" not this one limited matter. \nThere is room for an interesting story about Susan's life after the\naccident that would remain within the orthodoxy of Lewis' \"mere \nChristianity,\" and I for one wish someone had written that instead\nof this. (Not necessarily a \"how Susan was saved story,\" btw; I\nwould be quite content with one, like O'Connor's _Wise Blood_,\nthat depicts Susan's spiral into damnation, if it were done well\nand honestly. Though I know a lot of readers wouldn't. . . )" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because Gaiman is hostile to the Narnia books, it doesn't follow that he's\nhostile to Christianity as such, let alone kneejerkingly so." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, that statement was a result of reading quite a bit more of\nGaiman than this one story.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "<005d01c4c393$2b318150$4c1e4b0a@vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-05T15:57:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read \"The Problem of Susan\", but I have read \"Narnia\" several\ntimes so I will butt in on only one point." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Like near-'bout eveyrthing else\nin Narnia, the \"lipstick\" bit is there for a polemic point - a point\nfurther driven in by the statement that Susan is \"no longer a\nFriend of Narnia,\" that she regards Narnia as a \"game we used\nto play.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I, and I suspect most others who criticize Lewis, certainly \"get\" Lewis's\npoint. Our point is that as his exemplar of someone who had turned their\nback on God, Lewis chose a girl whose \"fault\" is to be preoccupied with\njust\nthose things that most adolescent girls in his society were preoccupied\nwith. No doubt you'll retort that it was just by chance that his exemplar\nwas a girl, and has no larger significance; I'm not so sure." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The point about the \"lipstick and nylons\" was that she turned her back on\nall things of childhood - such as Narnia (which, in life, only children\ncould enter). \"Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child shall\nnot enter in at all\" (Mark 10:16). This it the reference Lewis seemed to be\nreaching for.\n\nSusan, most significant among all the Narnian heroes as especially\nbeautiful, was an obvious choice for this type of temptation: to reject\nchildhood for the *trappings* of adulthood. Had C.S. Lewis chosen Peter for\nthis role instead, he would doubtless have had him all wrapped up in\n\"business\" or \"science\". But these are less elegant symbols than \"lipstick\"\n(remember that Susan's rejection of Narnia is explained in 3 or 4\nsentences), and anyway the lure of adulthood is profoundly different for\nboys than it is in girls and so I would say that Susan was simply the better\nchoice. She just was. It wasn't misogynistic.\n\n~ Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-07T18:11:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370411051516624eb6fb@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for your courteous reply; I'll try to keep my answer in kind." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 11/5/04 5:16 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at danldo at gmail.com wrote:\nOn Fri, 05 Nov 2004 16:27:31 -0600, Adam Stephanides\n wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Greta's dream, in which the girls are eaten while the boys are transformed\ninto a \"twisted thing\" (401)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is, for me, probably the single thing I found most distasteful about\nthe entire story: it is based on an actual scene in _LW&W_ in which (as\nI imagine you can guess) neither Aslan nor Jadis destroy any of the\nchildren, nor do they have sexual relations. The scene in question is\nthe one in which Aslan offers his life for Edmund's, which would be in\nmany ways the most important scene of the entire book; rewriting it in\nthis way is one of my reasons for claiming that it is simple Lewis-bashing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In fact, I remembered that scene. I was a fan of the Narnia books as a child\nand read them all, most of them more than once." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If I had to name the three \"big hot\" names in fantasy right now, they'd\nbe Pullman and Gaiman and Mieville. Mieville has also dumped on\nLewis (though not as deeply as Tolkien \"the wen on the arse of\nfantasy literature\" Tolkien). \"The Problem of Susan\" makes the\ntrifecta." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Undoubtedly you're more in touch with the current fantasy scene than I am,\nbut are these really the three hottest names in fantasy right now? Hot, no\ndoubt; but hotter than anyone else? (And shouldn't Susanna Clarke be on the\nlist?)\n\nI wasn't aware that Mieville had criticized Lewis (or Tolkien); I've never\nread anything by him, fiction or nonfiction. For that matter, I've never\nread Pullman's notorious attack on Lewis: anybody have a citation?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You have not, I take it, seen him or read much in the way of\ninterviews." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You are correct. As I said, I'm not much of a Gaiman fan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Susan is most emphatically _not_\n\"denied Heaven.\" This is the \"Pullman Heresy\" that is, I think, at the\nheart of the trash-Lewis fad." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If I give all your brothers and sisters candy, and I don't give you any,\nthen I've denied you candy, even though I still have the option to give you\ncandy later." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The analogy is badly flawed. If you give my brothers and sisters\ncandy, and I'm not there, but you give me some when I show up,\nyou haven't denied me anything. Susan won't \"show up\" until\nshe's dead." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I'd been taking it for granted that the other \"friends of Narnia\"\ndidn't just \"show up\" in the afterlife: Aslan caused the railway accident.\nDoes your reading differ?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I, and I suspect most others who criticize Lewis, certainly \"get\"\nLewis's point. Our point is that as his exemplar of someone who\nhad turned their back on God, Lewis chose a girl whose \"fault\"\nis to be preoccupied with just those things that most adolescent\ngirls in his society were preoccupied with." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh, my. You mean a Christian writer illustrated the idea that\nexcessive concern with Things Of The World [tm] is Not\nNecessarily A Good Thing? How shocking! What a sexist!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To be frank, I threw in the paragraph you quoted at the last minute; and the\nissue as a whole is not something I'd given much thought to until reading\nGaiman's story. I'll try to make my point clearer. The stereotype of\nadolescent girls when Lewis was writing, and to a large part today, is that\nthey are preoccupied with \"nylons and lipstick and invitations.\" To the\nextent that a reader accepts in this stereotype (which, like many\nstereotypes, has an element of truth in it), she could reasonably conclude\nfrom THE LAST BATTLE that most teenage girls had, at least temporarily, shut\nthemselves out of Heaven. On the other hand, there is as far as I know\nnothing in any of the Narnia books to suggest that adolescent boys, by\nfollowing their usual interests, are shutting themselves out of Heaven.\nHence, it's easy to see how a female reader might conclude that the Narnia\nbooks denigrate her sex--whether or not that was Lewis's conscious intent.\n\nIn any case, I don't believe that Gaiman's implied critique of the sex roles\nin the Narnia books is based solely upon Susan's temporary or permanent\nexclusion from Heaven (which, as I said in my last post, is not what Gaiman\nis most concerned with). Greta's dream, which expresses this critique most\nvividly, is based on a scene from the first of the books, as you point out;\nand the cover of the Narnia book the professor sees in her dream is also\nbased on a scene from one of the earlier books, iirc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Because Gaiman is hostile to the Narnia books, it doesn't follow that he's\nhostile to Christianity as such, let alone kneejerkingly so." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, that statement was a result of reading quite a bit more of\nGaiman than this one story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've read all of Gaiman's adult novels as well as SANDMAN (for a review of\nAMERICAN GODS, which may or may not ever appear), and I don't recall any of\nthem being hostile to Christianity. Written from a non-Christian viewpoint,\nto be sure, but that's not the same thing. But, as I said, I've only read a\ncouple of his interviews.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173704110812175944ac54@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-08T12:18:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 20:15:03 -0600, Adam Stephanides\n wrote:\nThanks for your courteous reply; I'll try to keep my answer in kind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Looks like you did a better job of it than I; I've been grumpy of late." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If I had to name the three \"big hot\" names in fantasy right now, they'd\nbe Pullman and Gaiman and Mieville. Mieville has also dumped on\nLewis (though not as deeply as Tolkien \"the wen on the arse of\nfantasy literature\" Tolkien). \"The Problem of Susan\" makes the\ntrifecta." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Undoubtedly you're more in touch with the current fantasy scene than I am,\nbut are these really the three hottest names in fantasy right now? Hot, no\ndoubt; but hotter than anyone else? (And shouldn't Susanna Clarke be on \nthe list?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it's a bit soon for that. One hot book does not a hot name make; \nI hesitated even about Mieville. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wasn't aware that Mieville had criticized Lewis (or Tolkien); I've never\nread anything by him, fiction or nonfiction." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mieville is a very political socialist. That he would diss old religious \nrighties (though not what we would call the Religious Right today)\nsuch as the core Inklings really isn't all that surprising. He's pretty\nmuch following in the feetstep of Michael Moorcock here, down to\ntouting Mervyn Peake as the guy who should have got the props\nTolkien did get. (And Peake certailny did deserve more than he got\nin his lifetime.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " For that matter, I've never\nread Pullman's notorious attack on Lewis: anybody have a citation?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "http://books.guardian.co.uk/guardianhayfestival2002/story/0,11873,726818,00.html\nmight be of some use." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "If I give all your brothers and sisters candy, and I don't give you any,\nthen I've denied you candy, even though I still have the option to give you\ncandy later." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The analogy is badly flawed. If you give my brothers and sisters\ncandy, and I'm not there, but you give me some when I show up,\nyou haven't denied me anything. Susan won't \"show up\" until\nshe's dead." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I'd been taking it for granted that the other \"friends of Narnia\"\ndidn't just \"show up\" in the afterlife: Aslan caused the railway accident.\nDoes your reading differ?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let me put it this way. If I tell you that seven people have died and\ngone to Heaven, and one is still alive, do you think that the one has\nbeen punished in some way? To equate a young and violent death\nwith candy strikes me as just a bit wonky.\n\nAgain, I think Lewis was in many ways a sloppy writer. The ending of \n_The Last Battle_ is actually one of the weakest parts of the whole series, \nbecause Lewis clumsily wrapped things up with an \"and they all got run \nover by a truck\" ending. Gaiman _is_ right to point out that, because it \nutterly ignores the effect of the trainwreck on the survivors, this is a bad \nway to pull a happy ending ouf of a hat; I've thought so myself for years. \n\nMy basic problem with it, and I stand by this, is that Gaiman doesn't\ndeal with the problem of Susan at all; Susan Pevensie lived in a \nparticular world where a particular set of things were true, even if she\ncame to deny some of them. Gaiman has written about a vaguely \nsimilar character in a completely different world where those things \nare not true, and so it does not (in my opinion) provide any real\nconclusion to, or even any real commentary upon, \"the problem of\nSusan.\" \n\nThis is vaguely similar to Delany's very apt criticism of Robert \nHeinlein's _Starship Troopers_: It posits a universe with certain \nbasic moral and ethical postulates, and the rest of the book follows\npretty logically from those postulates. But if you don't accept the\npostulates, the whole thing falls apart.\n\nGaiman doesn't accept the fundamentally Christian postulates of\nthe Narnia books, which is absolutely his right. But if you can't\naccept the postulates of a world, you shouldn't write a story set\nin that world. \"The Problem of Susan\" falls apart because it \nsimply doesn't fit logically with the texts to which it nominally \na coda." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Oh, my. You mean a Christian writer illustrated the idea that\nexcessive concern with Things Of The World [tm] is Not\nNecessarily A Good Thing? How shocking! What a sexist!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Please forgive my sarcasm. As I said, I've been rather grumpy\nlately." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[...] I'll try to make my point clearer. The stereotype \nof adolescent girls when Lewis was writing, and to a large part today, is that\nthey are preoccupied with \"nylons and lipstick and invitations.\" To the\nextent that a reader accepts in this stereotype (which, like many\nstereotypes, has an element of truth in it), she could reasonably conclude\nfrom THE LAST BATTLE that most teenage girls had, at least temporarily,\nshut themselves out of Heaven." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to disagree strenuously. \"Most teenage girls\" have not had the \nexperience of Narnia to turn their backs upon. Since the story does not,\nin any case, address the situation of \"most teenage girls,\" but one \nparticular girl, the question then is whether Susan has \"at least\ntemporarily shut [herself] out of Heaven.\"\n\nFrankly, we know almost nothing about Susan at the time of the series,\n_except_ \n\n(a) that she has ceased (or claims to have ceased) to believe that \nher adventures in Narnia ever actually happened, and \n\n(b) that she's become a bit of a social butterfly - something, by the way, \nclearly foreshadowed at the beginning of _The Voyage of the \"Dawn \nTreader\"_, when Lewis explains why Lucy and Edmund are at the \nScrubbs' house without their older siblings.\n\n(a) Not believing in Narnia anymore, while it may be foolish, even \ndelusional, does not seem to me to automatically mean that Susan had \nabandoned the Christian faith (which is clearly what the children are \nexpected to follow in the \"real\" world: viz. Aslan's words at the end of \n_Dawn Treader_, to the effect - since I don't have the text at hand I'm \nquasi-quoting from memory - that \"I brought you here so that you would \nknow me better when you met me in your world.\") \n\n(a.1) Since Narnia is not their world, Aslan is not, in that name, their \nsavior; their path to Heaven is through \"the name of Christ Jesus.\" (That \nthis name is never directly invoked at any point in the books is part of \nLewis's overall plan and intent, which was to sneak Christian ideas and \nimagery past children's intellectual cynicism and into their imaginations.) \n\n(a.2) Further, it's clear that Aslan isn't the only path into Heaven, given\nthat the Pevensie parents, who (so far as we know) never met Aslan, are \nwaiting for them in Heaven at the series' end.\n\n(a.3) At any rate, Susan at the end of the Narnia books for all we know be \na completely faithful,churchgoing Anglican. \n\n(b) Which leaves the question of whether being a social butterfly is a vanity\nsufficient (in Lewis's mind) to shut oneself out of Heaven, an idea I find \nextremely dubious, and which I very much doubt you could support from \nthe text. \n\nAs a final note on the \"lipstick and invitations\" thing - it should be \nnoted that the remark is made by a younger child, who seems to \nrather resent the older child's having abandoned their clique, and\nwhile Lewis was a rather sloppy writer, he was .generally pretty good\nabout keeping straight the points of view of his various characters." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the other hand, there is as far as I know nothing in any of the Narnia \nbooks to suggest that adolescent boys, by following their usual interests,\nare shutting themselves out of Heaven." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This would be relevant only if. I might add, however, that if we had a\npicture in the series of an adolescent boy following \"their usual interests\" \n- which, based on my own experience as an adolescent boy, are mostly \nsex - it would doubtless be, ah, rather problematical whether that boy\nwas Heaven-bound." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hence, it's easy to see how a female reader might conclude that the Narnia\nbooks denigrate her sex--whether or not that was Lewis's conscious intent." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. \"You forgot Poland\" - or in this case, Lucy, who is far and away \nthe series' most important child-character, the most identified-with of the\neight children who visit Narnia. She is also the most loved of Aslan. If\nSusan is a \"problem,\" Lucy is almost the opposite problem, a woman-on-\na-pedestal. Fortunately, we have the additional cases of Polly and \nPole, both of whom are quite normal, if a bit tomboyish, girls, neither\nas allfired holy as Lucy nor \"taken up with lipstick\" like Susan - though\nPolly, at least, is likely to have gone through that phase, and still winds\nup in Aslan's Paradise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In any case, I don't believe that Gaiman's implied critique of the sex roles\nin the Narnia books is based solely upon Susan's temporary or permanent\nexclusion from Heaven (which, as I said in my last post, is not what Gaiman\nis most concerned with). Greta's dream, which expresses this critique most\nvividly, is based on a scene from the first of the books, as you point out;\nand the cover of the Narnia book the professor sees in her dream is also\nbased on a scene from one of the earlier books, iirc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unfortunately, by completely reimaging the scene, Gaiman makes any\ncritique of Lewis based on that dream problematic. If he had stuck to\nwhat actually happened in that scene, and shown how it was \"sexist\" -\nwhich it is not, really, though the book as a whole _is_, rather - he'd\nhave been playing a bit more fairly. But the scene he chose to present\nsimply has no real bearing on what Lewis actually wrote.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-19T17:52:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704110812175944ac54@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry it's taken so long to reply; I was out of town. Actually, on the\nquestion of sex roles in Narnia, either in general or as regards \"the\nproblem of Susan\" in particular, I don't really have anything else to add.\nBut there are a few things in Dan'l's last post that I wanted to respond to,\nif only for clarity's sake." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 11/8/04 8:17 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at danldo at gmail.com wrote:\nTo equate a young and violent death\nwith candy strikes me as just a bit wonky." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not the way Lewis depicts the \"young and violent death.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "My basic problem with it, and I stand by this, is that Gaiman doesn't\ndeal with the problem of Susan at all; Susan Pevensie lived in a\nparticular world where a particular set of things were true, even if she\ncame to deny some of them. Gaiman has written about a vaguely\nsimilar character in a completely different world where those things\nare not true, and so it does not (in my opinion) provide any real\nconclusion to, or even any real commentary upon, \"the problem of\nSusan.\" " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Gaiman isn't interested in discussing \"the problem of Susan\" in Lewis's\nterms. He's rejecting these terms, and in so doing criticizing Lewis. I\ndon't think this is necessarily an illegitimate thing to do." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But if you can't\naccept the postulates of a world, you shouldn't write a story set\nin that world. \"The Problem of Susan\" falls apart because it\nsimply doesn't fit logically with the texts to which it nominally\na coda." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm a bit confused now. Do you believe that the professor is Susan or not\n(as the paragraph I quoted earlier seems to imply)? I lean towards the view\nthat she isn't. To be sure, there are obvious hints (too obvious, I'm\ntempted to say) that she is. But afaik, there's nothing in the professor's\nthoughts, as we're shown them, to indicate that she's Susan (I could be\nwrong about this, since it's been a long time since I read the Narnia\nbooks.) And of course, there's the problem of how, if the Narnia books are\ntrue, did Lewis know about the events in The Last Battle, since all the\nwitnesses died without returning to Earth? No, I think that for once in\nGaiman's work, the professor is just who she seems to be: a woman who, as a\nchild, went through a few of the mundane experiences that Susan did, and who\nlater came to dislike the Narnia books.\n\nIf you do think that the professor is Susan, then your dislike of the story\nis more understandable. While I don't think, as you apparently do, that it\nwould be illegitimate for a writer to try and continue Susan's story while\nrejecting Lewis's Christian worldview, I agree that \"The Problem of Susan,\"\nif read as such, doesn't continue Susan's story in an interesting way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(a) Not believing in Narnia anymore, while it may be foolish, even\ndelusional, does not seem to me to automatically mean that Susan had\nabandoned the Christian faith (which is clearly what the children are\nexpected to follow in the \"real\" world: viz. Aslan's words at the end of\n_Dawn Treader_, to the effect - since I don't have the text at hand I'm\nquasi-quoting from memory - that \"I brought you here so that you would\nknow me better when you met me in your world.\")\n\n(a.1) Since Narnia is not their world, Aslan is not, in that name, their\nsavior; their path to Heaven is through \"the name of Christ Jesus.\" (That\nthis name is never directly invoked at any point in the books is part of\nLewis's overall plan and intent, which was to sneak Christian ideas and\nimagery past children's intellectual cynicism and into their imaginations.)\n\n(a.2) Further, it's clear that Aslan isn't the only path into Heaven, given\nthat the Pevensie parents, who (so far as we know) never met Aslan, are\nwaiting for them in Heaven at the series' end.\n\n(a.3) At any rate, Susan at the end of the Narnia books for all we know be\na completely faithful,churchgoing Anglican." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course, if Susan's denying Narnia is not meant to be equivalent to\nrejecting Jesus, then there is no \"problem of Susan.\" But, as I said before,\nthat doesn't seem to fit with the quotation from Lewis you gave earlier. It\nalso leaves Susan's absence without an allegorical interpretation, in a book\nin which (even more than in the other Narnia books iirc) everything is\nallegorical." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As a final note on the \"lipstick and invitations\" thing - it should be\nnoted that the remark is made by a younger child, who seems to\nrather resent the older child's having abandoned their clique, and\nwhile Lewis was a rather sloppy writer, he was .generally pretty good\nabout keeping straight the points of view of his various characters." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But it's seconded by Polly." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Unfortunately, by completely reimaging the scene, Gaiman makes any\ncritique of Lewis based on that dream problematic. If he had stuck to\nwhat actually happened in that scene, and shown how it was \"sexist\" -\nwhich it is not, really, though the book as a whole _is_, rather - he'd\nhave been playing a bit more fairly. But the scene he chose to present\nsimply has no real bearing on what Lewis actually wrote." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see I expressed myself poorly. I didn't mean to imply that Gaiman was\nbasing his critique on that particular scene from LtWatW, which, as you\npoint out, is radically different from what Gaiman wrote. I just meant that\nthe fact that the dream refers to other books besides The Last Battle\nindicates that Gaiman's complaint is not solely with The Last Battle, even\nthough that's what Greta and the professor discuss. And it was probably\nmisleading to call Greta's dream a critique of the Narnia books, even an\nimplied one. It's a metaphorical representation of a certain response to the\nNarnia books.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173704112716111a27339a@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-27T16:11:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam -\n\nI too have been travelling & so have a HUGELY full in box & not much\ntime in which to reply ... but ...\n\nYes, I did take it as NG's intent that \"the Professor\" was Susan. I\ncan't see how the story makes _any_ sense at all otherwise. And\ncertainly that's the only element that would give it any legitimate\nplace in a collection of fantasy stories." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[...] there's nothing in the professor's\nthoughts, as we're shown them, to indicate that she's Susan (I could be\nwrong about this, since it's been a long time since I read the Narnia\nbooks.) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I read it thus: The Professor has continued in the line of denial \nthat some think is the only meaningful interpretation of the last\nwe hear of her in _TLB_. Because she still denies Narnia there\nwould be no such hints in her thoughts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And of course, there's the problem of how, if the Narnia books are\ntrue, did Lewis know about the events in The Last Battle, since all the\nwitnesses died without returning to Earth? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's pretty much true for all the Narnia books ... nothing in them\nsuggests that any of the children ever talked to Lewis at all..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you do think that the professor is Susan, then your dislike of the story\nis more understandable. While I don't think, as you apparently do, that it\nwould be illegitimate for a writer to try and continue Susan's story while\nrejecting Lewis's Christian worldview, I agree that \"The Problem of Susan,\"\nif read as such, doesn't continue Susan's story in an interesting way." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmmph. Not what I said. I said " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gaiman doesn't deal with the problem of Susan at all; Susan Pevensie\nlived in a particular world where a particular set of things were true, even\nif she came to deny some of them. Gaiman has written about a vaguely\nsimilar character in a completely different world where those things are\nnot true, and so it does not (in my opinion) provide any real conclusion\nto, or even any real commentary upon, \"the problem of Susan.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Note that I did not say it would not be acceptable to reject the Christian\nworldview in such a sequel - but if you are to reject it, you must \nacknowledge and deal with its influence on what has gone before, not\nsimply decide that Aslan and the White Witch were lovers with no \nexplanation offered at all. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a dream sequence.\nIt's also the most blatant example of what I'm talking about.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, if Susan's denying Narnia is not meant to be equivalent \nto rejecting Jesus, then there is no \"problem of Susan.\" But, as I \nsaid before, that doesn't seem to fit with the quotation from Lewis\nyou gave earlier. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To be sure, I agree; and I therefore think that the \"problem\" at that\nlevel is somewhat exaggerated _to begin with_. Nonetheless, it is\nthere and is a real problem: but a writer who wants to deal with the\n\"problem of Susan\" needs to deal with the problem in the rules in \nwhich it was stated (so to speak), or else they're simply waving a\nwand and saying \"Here's a problem I like better.\"\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-11-29T07:01:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173704112716111a27339a@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A couple of comments before we lahy this to rest (as we seem to have reached\nthe point of talking past each other):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "on 11/27/04 6:11 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at danldo at gmail.com wrote:\n[...] there's nothing in the professor's\nthoughts, as we're shown them, to indicate that she's Susan (I could be\nwrong about this, since it's been a long time since I read the Narnia\nbooks.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I read it thus: The Professor has continued in the line of denial\nthat some think is the only meaningful interpretation of the last\nwe hear of her in _TLB_. Because she still denies Narnia there\nwould be no such hints in her thoughts." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Gaiman could have figured out some way to have the Professor's thoughts\nreveal that she had been to Narnia without admitting to herself that Narnia\nwas real; after all, he's a clever writer, and likes to do that sort of\nthing. Or he could have put some other sort of clue in her thoughts that\nwould show she was Susan, which again he didn't, as far as I can tell. His\nnot doing either of these is, to my mind, indirect but fairly strong\nevidence that the Professor is not intended to be Susan." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you do think that the professor is Susan, then your dislike of the story\nis more understandable. While I don't think, as you apparently do, that it\nwould be illegitimate for a writer to try and continue Susan's story while\nrejecting Lewis's Christian worldview, I agree that \"The Problem of Susan,\"\nif read as such, doesn't continue Susan's story in an interesting way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "H'mmmph. Not what I said. I said" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Gaiman doesn't deal with the problem of Susan at all; Susan Pevensie\nlived in a particular world where a particular set of things were true, even\nif she came to deny some of them. Gaiman has written about a vaguely\nsimilar character in a completely different world where those things are\nnot true, and so it does not (in my opinion) provide any real conclusion\nto, or even any real commentary upon, \"the problem of Susan.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Apologies for misinterpreting you; I took the \"particular set of things\"\nthat Gaiman denies to be the Christian world-view, and Aslan as the\nequivalent of Christ. If that isn't what you meant, it's not clear to me\nwhat you did mean." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Note that I did not say it would not be acceptable to reject the Christian\nworldview in such a sequel - but if you are to reject it, you must\nacknowledge and deal with its influence on what has gone before, not\nsimply decide that Aslan and the White Witch were lovers with no\nexplanation offered at all. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a dream sequence.\nIt's also the most blatant example of what I'm talking about.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whether or not the Professor is Susan, Greta's dream is not real. If Narnia\nisn't real in Gaiman's story, then of course Greta's dream isn't real; and\nif the Professor is Susan, then Greta's dream can't be real, because in it\nSusan gets eaten as a child (I take it we can exclude the possibility that\nNarnia being real but the professor isn't Susan.) The dream is a\nmetaphorical \"critique\" (see my last post) of the Narnia books, not Gaiman's\nversion of \"what really happened in _TLtWatW_.\"\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f761737041129121713fa1df@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2004-11-29T12:18:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: The Problem of Susan", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam wrote:\nA couple of comments before we lahy this to rest (as we seem to have\nreached the point of talking past each other):" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeh, I think you're right." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I read it thus: The Professor has continued in the line of denial\nthat some think is the only meaningful interpretation of the last\nwe hear of her in _TLB_. Because she still denies Narnia there\nwould be no such hints in her thoughts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But Gaiman could have figured out some way to have the\nProfessor's thoughts reveal that she had been to Narnia without\nadmitting to herself that Narnia was real; after all, he's a clever\nwriter, and likes to do that sort of thing. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "H'mmm. No doubt _Wolfe_ could have done so; but I can't see\nGaiman doing it. I've only read four novels, a scattering of\nshorts, and some funnybooks, but I've never seen anything in \nGaiman's work that suggested he was capable of the kind of \nsubtlety required to pull off this kind of \"unreliable point of \nview\" trick. (Note that I said the _kind_ of subtlety, not the \n_degree_; there is some very subtle stuff in his work, but of a \ndifferent sort.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or he could have put some other sort of clue in her thoughts \nthat would show she was Susan, which again he didn't, as far His\nas I can tell. not doing either of these is, to my mind, indirect but \nfairly strong evidence that the Professor is not intended to be\nSusan." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or, perhaps, that he intended the reader to make up his or her\nown mind on that question (that being another \"problem of\nSusan,\" so to speak). One thing Gaiman clearly _does_ do in \na lot of his work is leave certain matters open to contradictory\ninterpretations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Apologies for misinterpreting you; I took the \"particular set of things\"\nthat Gaiman denies to be the Christian world-view, and Aslan as the\nequivalent of Christ. If that isn't what you meant, it's not clear to me\nwhat you did mean." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, you're within an inch but a very important inch of what I meant.\nThe inch of difference is this: within the fictional construct up to the\npoint at which Lewis left off, the evidence appears to point to this\nbeing a world in which (a) basic (\"mere\") Christianity is true and \n(b) Aslan is Christ-in-Narnia. Taking this point:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Note that I did not say it would not be acceptable to reject the Christian\nworldview in such a sequel - but if you are to reject it, you must\nacknowledge and deal with its influence on what has gone before, not\nsimply decide that Aslan and the White Witch were lovers with no\nexplanation offered at all. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a dream sequence.\nIt's also the most blatant example of what I'm talking about.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "further, it would be possible, for example, to write a perfectly \nacceptable sequel in which it turns out that Aslan's claims to be\nChrist - well, he never direclty claims it, but he hints at it very \nstrongly in several places - are _lies_, and that the various other\nbits of the text that point to this interpretation are part of his\noverall deception. (Indeed, one of the \"Narnia is evil!\" type \nChristians could write a very interesting book in which Susan is\nthe _only_ one saved because Aslan is a lying demon... though \nthat book would have to somehow deal with the apparent ascent\ninto Heaven at the end of _TLB_.) But what you can't reasonably \ndo is simply ignore those claims and other bits of the text; you\ncan't simply start with another interpretation and leave the\nexisting meaning-structure lying on the floor. Which in the end\nis what it seems to me Gaiman has done, and I respect him the\nless as a writer for it.\n\nTo put it in somewhat more concrete terms: one of the things \nthe British comic writers were famous for was reinventing \nmoribund characters - Alan Moore was the best at this, but \nGaiman, Delano, and Morrison all did it, Moore most famously\nwith the Swamp Thing (which included reinventions of Cain and\nAbel, the Geek, and others), Gaiman with Black Orchid and\nothers, Morrison with Animal Man and the Doom Patrol, etc.\nBut what was important, and what Moore was especially good\nat, was maintaining and even respecting the existing continuity.\nHis most spectacular job of this was _Miracleman_, which \nturned Captain \"Shazam!\" Marvel inside out but kept the \nentire mythology intact (with, to be sure, the serial numbers\nfiled off for legal reasons) even while wiping it out. \n\nGaiman proved himself able to do this on some occasions,\nnotably with his reworkings of Matthew Cable, the Witches\nThree, Hector and Lyta Hall, and ... oh, hell, what was her\nname, the Element Girl ... but at times he utterly refused to\nacknowledge what had gone before. And that is more or less\nwhat I'm complaining about with \"The Problem of Susan.\"\n\nI think it's necessary for the Professor to be Susan for the \nstory to make any sense _as fantasy_.\n\nBut if the Professor is Susan, then the whole thing fails for\nme, because it ignores the existing continuity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Whether or not the Professor is Susan, Greta's dream is not real. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, we can agree on that. What I can't agree with is that this\ntakes it out of the center of the story's meaning.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer\n\"Saddam would still be in power if he were the President\nof the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.\"\n -- The Forty-Third President, 10/8/04" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2004-12-08T07:05:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Unreliable Gaiman", "in_reply_to": "<1f761737041129121713fa1df@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "on 11/29/04 2:17 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at danldo at gmail.com wrote:\nBut Gaiman could have figured out some way to have the\nProfessor's thoughts reveal that she had been to Narnia without\nadmitting to herself that Narnia was real; after all, he's a clever\nwriter, and likes to do that sort of thing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "H'mmm. No doubt _Wolfe_ could have done so; but I can't see\nGaiman doing it. I've only read four novels, a scattering of\nshorts, and some funnybooks, but I've never seen anything in\nGaiman's work that suggested he was capable of the kind of\nsubtlety required to pull off this kind of \"unreliable point of\nview\" trick." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Upon thinking about it some more, Gaiman doesn't do it as often as I'd had\nthe impression he did. In fact, the only real example I can think of is\n\"Murder Mysteries,\" which is in his collection \"Smoke and Mirrors.\" But that\nstory does show that Gaiman is capable of doing it.\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }