Subject: (urth) everyone gets one good book

From: turin <turin at hell.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:15:47 +0000

Forgot to mention Dan'l, I was completely hundred percent thinking of Starship Troopers when you said military science fiction.  How many times have we seen space marines since Heinlein?  The film could have been a harsher juvenelian satire of Nazi germany than what it was, but it did an okay job I guess.  Verhoeven drops the ball on it I think.  

I don't think Hyperion is as complex as Briah, but I really liked Hyperion, the other books get steadily worse, but The Canterbury Tales plus neuromancer, the terminator, star wars with any other bits of scientistically cool and grotesque things we expect from a space opera future. I would say it's the best space opera novel, but I haven't read any, and I dont know if any of you consider Wolfe to be space opera. I really like the way the Shrike pins everyone to his tree and jacks them into the matrix, William Gibson's term actually.  Is that the first time people were forcibly inserted into the internet by machines?

Also I liked what Eric said about the Agon.  That was a good metaphor, and not trying to reconstruct anyone's biography.  The author and the person behind the author are different entities.  Shakespeare's work says everything about Shakespeare the author and nothing about Shakespeare as a person.  That is difficult distinction to make though, I've been talking about Tolkien's biography ad nauseam, but mostly about his letters. It is not that I think biography is irrelevant like Heidegger said when he said all he need to know about Aristotle is that he loved, wrote, and died, I see his point, but Derrida interprets Heidgeer in this way. He says rigorous interpretation of a philosopher's work is the truest biography over someone who knows the whole story. In other word's the best way to know a writer is to read his work, not that what we are doing isn't valuable, but it's secondary to reading.

And finally, I think everyone only has one story and they keep telling it over and over again.  Tolkien's story seems to be about the destruction of great civilizations.  Yes I did use entropy, but when he talks about a fallen world, he is obsessed with the passage of time, and that reads arrow of time, heat death.  For instance, in the future, elves will not have the energy to stay embodied in middle-earth and will be "houseless spirits".  The rings slow time, less time passes in Lorien than in the rest of Middle-earth.  It's like Rip Van Winkle, the world of faerie is about relativistic effects on time, usually time is fast here and slow there but not always.  Wolfe employs this convention in The Wizard Knight, and Vallee talks about it as well in Passport to Magonia and ideas of "missing time". Galadriel call's history, a "long defeat".  Or as Stephen Dedalus says in Ulysses, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake"

Wolfe's story is about finding God.  He was angry when people though Severian was Christ, I know I did, and he said in an interview with a Protestant Christian book publisher or something like that, that Severian was a bad person trying to become a Christian.  I thought it was kind of cool that Severian was Christ and Legion.  T torturer metaphor made me think back to The Last Temptation and the Catholic occupation with suffering.  Well, Mr. Wolfe, you could have fooled me.  This is why I like letters but often distrust them.  It seems that The Book of the Long Sun was a rewrite of the Book of the New Sun in which Silk was Severian only very moral and a priest rather than a savior or saint and is more overtly Catholic and Christian.  Did Silk try to kill himself when Hyacinth died, is that why we has the knife and is covered with blood?  I guess so, but this seems out of character for him in the Book of the Long Sun, except when he is about to jump off the airship.  Severian also contemplates suicide a few times.  Dan'l, it's true that Wolfe won't narrate the things the narrator does not want to witness. It can be a tease, sometimes it is pleasurable and sometimes annoying, but usually I like it. 

I don't see how Wolfe could top TBOTNS.  I see how he has improved things and even developed a clearer writing style, but why would he want to top his own achievements in the same way?  And I don't think his later books are pale images of his earlier work, like maybe the Stephen King ater the golden age in the late 70s and early 80s, but maybe some people feel that way about Wolfe too.  I like the Wizard Knight, it's fun, and the man is 70s years old.  It's a little late for a comeback, not that I think he needs to.  He also writes about more likable characters.  Most everyone in TBOTNS is a terrible person, Severian is only really less terrible. It's not like you could invite him to your house for coffee and cake.  I wish I had a dog as good as Gylf.  

Not only do I think an author gets one true story, they only get one great book if any and one influential book but they don't have to be the same one.  These are just some of my ideas about people we've talked about.  Ulysses (at least in English, Finnegan's Wake is not in English), Lord of the Rings, The Book of the New Sun, Childhood's End ( for me but that's debatable I think), Hyperion.  I can't decide with Gibson or Stephenson.  Till We have Faces is Lewis's.  I don't know for Chesterton or the rest of the Victorian fantascists. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for Dick.  My favorite Stephen King is Wizard and Glass, but I think the best book is The Shining, and the scariest Pet Semetary.  I read a lot of Stephen King in high school. I haven't read the Lathe of Heaven. My favorite of Neil Gaiman's comics, which are very good, despite what I've said of him, is The Kindly Ones, Sandman 9, I also think it's his best work.  Lord of Light for Zelazny. We can fight about all of these Is that better than the Left Hand of Darkness?  What other authors do you guys talk about on this list besides Wolfe or have I been killing the mood with non Wolfe related material.

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 11:22:56 +0000

The story you attribute to Tolkien is really a synthesis of mythologies, 
some elements of which are more straightforward than others. The "entropy" 
aspect you're talking about is an echo, at the very least, of the Old 
Testament and more generally, the Hebrew myths. Anybody familiar with the 
Bible knows that the lifespans get shorter and shorter in succeeding 
generations. Fewer people are aware that in the myths, Abraham for example 
was absurdly powerful and destroyed an entire army.

I think the themes of broken civilizations and decline are simply inherent 
in the raw materials Tolkien is working with, particularly in the 
Silmarillion. In order to have a fertile mythology, you have to imagine that 
things were once more fabulous and magical than they are now, which leaves 
you the necessary problem of explaining why it's not that way now.

I don't agree that Wolfe's story is about finding God in general, although 
it may well be impossible for him to not put that into his longer works 
somewhere. The themes he returns to over and over are the problems of 
identity and problems of memory (usually with the two bound tightly 
together). Try Fifth Head of Cerberus for a Wolfe story that has everything 
to do with these two issues, little or nothing to do with finding God.

As far as your take on Severian and torture, all I can say is that I don't 
see Severian as a Christ-figure, because he doesn't have all the necessary 
elements - he lacks certain redemptive dimensions. Without delving too far 
into qabbalistic oddities present in the New Sun series (which others here 
are more qualified to talk about than I), I would say that an examination of 
the concept of "geburah" would help to understand better what Wolfe was 
getting at with Severian - geburah is commonly translated as "severity", 
though perhaps "necessity" would also be a helpful word.

I do think if you're looking for truly grand scope, it's hard to beat BotNS 
and I don't expect he will even try to. But there are a lot of different 
kinds of story, and some of his simpler one-shot novels are just outstanding 
in their own right. As far as series, I have high hopes for the Soldier 
books, if he ever gets the time to finish them.

Turin said:
>And finally, I think everyone only has one story and they keep telling it 
>over and over again.  Tolkien's story seems to be about the destruction of 
>great civilizations.  Yes I did use entropy, but when he talks about a 
>fallen world, he is obsessed with the passage of time, and that reads arrow 
>of time, heat death.  For instance, in the future, elves will not have the 
>energy to stay embodied in middle-earth and will be "houseless spirits".  
>The rings slow time, less time passes in Lorien than in the rest of 
>Middle-earth.  It's like Rip Van Winkle, the world of faerie is about 
>relativistic effects on time, usually time is fast here and slow there but 
>not always.  Wolfe employs this convention in The Wizard Knight, and Vallee 
>talks about it as well in Passport to Magonia and ideas of "missing time". 
>Galadriel call's history, a "long defeat".  Or as Stephen Dedalus says in 
>Ulysses, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake"
>
>Wolfe's story is about finding God.  He was angry when people though 
>Severian was Christ, I know I did, and he said in an interview with a 
>Protestant Christian book publisher or something like that, that Severian 
>was a bad person trying to become a Christian.  I thought it was kind of 
>cool that Severian was Christ and Legion.  T torturer metaphor made me 
>think back to The Last Temptation and the Catholic occupation with 
>suffering.  Well, Mr. Wolfe, you could have fooled me.  This is why I like 
>letters but often distrust them.  It seems that The Book of the Long Sun 
>was a rewrite of the Book of the New Sun in which Silk was Severian only 
>very moral and a priest rather than a savior or saint and is more overtly 
>Catholic and Christian.  Did Silk try to kill himself when Hyacinth died, 
>is that why we has the knife and is covered with blood?  I guess so, but 
>this seems out of character for him in the Book of the Long Sun, except 
>when he is about to jump off the airship.  Severian also contemplates 
>suicide a few times.  Dan'l, it's true that Wolfe won't narrate the things 
>the narrator does not want to witness. It can be a tease, sometimes it is 
>pleasurable and sometimes annoying, but usually I like it.
>
>I don't see how Wolfe could top TBOTNS.  I see how he has improved things 
>and even developed a clearer writing style, but why would he want to top 
>his own achievements in the same way?  And I don't think his later books 
>are pale images of his earlier work, like maybe the Stephen King ater the 
>golden age in the late 70s and early 80s, but maybe some people feel that 
>way about Wolfe too.  I like the Wizard Knight, it's fun, and the man is 
>70s years old.  It's a little late for a comeback, not that I think he 
>needs to.  He also writes about more likable characters.  Most everyone in 
>TBOTNS is a terrible person, Severian is only really less terrible. It's 
>not like you could invite him to your house for coffee and cake.  I wish I 
>had a dog as good as Gylf.
>
>Not only do I think an author gets one true story, they only get one great 
>book if any and one influential book but they don't have to be the same 
>one.  These are just some of my ideas about people we've talked about.  
>Ulysses (at least in English, Finnegan's Wake is not in English), Lord of 
>the Rings, The Book of the New Sun, Childhood's End ( for me but that's 
>debatable I think), Hyperion.  I can't decide with Gibson or Stephenson.  
>Till We have Faces is Lewis's.  I don't know for Chesterton or the rest of 
>the Victorian fantascists. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for Dick.  
>My favorite Stephen King is Wizard and Glass, but I think the best book is 
>The Shining, and the scariest Pet Semetary.  I read a lot of Stephen King 
>in high school. I haven't read the Lathe of Heaven. My favorite of Neil 
>Gaiman's comics, which are very good, despite what I've said of him, is The 
>Kindly Ones, Sandman 9, I also think it's his best work.  Lord of Light for 
>Zelazny. We can fight about all of these Is that better than the Left Hand 
>of Darkness?  What other authors do you guys talk about on this list 
>besides Wolfe or have I been killing the mood with non Wolfe related 
>material.
>_______________________________________________
>Urth Mailing List
>To post, write urth at urth.net
>Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

---

From: Eric Mattingly <eric_mattingly at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 20:21:05 +0000

But first, Dan'l.  I think you are right and if I was (and I was) obtuse, it 
was my fault and was a result of the orgiastic rush to present the ideas I 
had been sitting on for about two years.  Maybe I can clarify my point 
better if I say that I believe Christianity to be a phenomenon that does not 
escape the bounds of history.  So many things in human culture (like, for 
instance, "humanism") cannot be explained outside of the actual processes 
they exhibit.  This, of course, is part of my general critique of the idea 
of transcendence.  To put it simply: if a thing is transcendent we cannot 
know it.  If we know it has become immanent and thus has become part of the 
"world" which implies partiality, prejudice (in Gadamer's sense), 
limitation, and, finally, definition in terms of the world.  Even if there 
is a God that at one time existed outside of the cosmos, the fact that we 
can even speculate on it means that he must have joined the cosmos.  Anyway, 
to stay on point, Wolfe may accept the idea of transcendence but that 
doesn't mean that it is justified.  No one can truly be "christian" in the 
sense that "Christianity" implies unworldliness-- which cannot be expressed 
(or known, I would argue).  I appreciate your comments, especially since 
they helped me to clarify myself.

And now, about the One Good Book.  For Wolfe, I think that tBotNS is the 
framework from which he ironed out the other two series'.  As I said in my 
other email, I interpret that novel (I will call the whole thing one novel, 
since you did and I agree wholeheartedly) as a mythos toward gnosis and 
restoration (which become one and the same-- salvation through knowledge, 
the ultimate heresy in early Christianity).  The succeeding two novels 
emphasize different aspects of the ascent-- like epicycles traveling around 
their original.  The Book of the Long Sun is, I believe, a meditation on the 
specific moment of knowing ("Patera Silk received enlightenment on the 
ballcourt: nothing could ever be the same"), while the Book of the Short Sun 
is concerned with the struggle to conform oneself with the knowledge gained. 
  The Book of the Short Sun is also the most personal thing of Wolfe's I've 
read since it concerns the struggle of a regular man to conform himself to 
an impossible ideal (the ideal held in his book, though not necessarily in 
Calde Silke).  God, while obviously the idea to which all the heroes aspire, 
also remains curiously distant.  He remains always the outsider (see above 
re transcendence).  I think that the Book of the New Sun is definately 
Wolfe's one commanding book.  But, I like the Book of the Long Sun better 
than any fantasy/sci fi. I've read that's not Wolfe, Tokien, or Lewis, and I 
think that The Book of the Short Sun is utterly fantastic (I am still 
reading Return To the Whorl, and that is impressing me more than the other 
books in the series).  Also, we cannot forget about "Fifth Head of 
Cerberus."

I agree with you on Joyce.  For Chesterton, probably "The Man who was 
Thursday."  Tolkien, yadda. Lewis, any one of the Chronicles of Narnia or 
"Out of the Silent Planet" (not a fan of the other two space novels at all). 
Proust, yadda. Borges "Ficciones." And it goes on.

This is great stuff.  Has anyone read Borski's book yet?  I think I might 
buy it for myself for Christmas.

Dei, sive natura, give you good rest.

eric

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

-- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

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---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:15:24 +0000

>"Out of the Silent Planet" (not a fan of the other two space novels at all)

I gotta disagree about "That Hideous Strength". I found it to be an untamed
genre busting imagination-orgy of the sort that Wolfe has made his stock and
trade.

The head of a murderer set up by demon possessed scientists as their god,
who dig up Merlin in a war with Lords of the five planets (who are just like
their Greco-Roman counterparts and have their actual elemental counterparts
on Earth). One of the scientists wants to mow down all the trees and cover
the Earth in stainless steel. The opposite side of the Moon (which when this
novel was written was still unseen and unchartered) is a paradise outside
the realm of the revolutionary lord of Earth; the Earth-side was blasted
during the war with that same revolutionary. The textual parallels to the
King Arthur legends *and* the book of Revelation....hot-diggedty! This one
is a killer.

~ Crush

---

From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:58:59 +0000

On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 11:15 PM, turin wrote:

>
> Forgot to mention Dan'l, I was completely hundred percent thinking of 
> Starship Troopers when you said military science fiction.  How many 
> times have we seen space marines since Heinlein?  The film could have 
> been a harsher juvenelian satire of Nazi germany than what it was, but 
> it did an okay job I guess.  Verhoeven drops the ball on it I think.

Verhoeven's not satirizing Nazis.  He's satirizing the Bush One (and 
scarily enough, Bush 2) administration and mocking the filmgoer at the 
same time.  I've said it to many people, we're living that film.  Sorry 
for heading further ot.

Don

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:15:05 +0000

I've read Borski's book. He did some very good work with it, but it's hard 
not to be frustrated with it - especially if you don't agree with his 
interpretations. And a good portion of the time, I didn't. That said, he 
brings up all sorts of references in the books that often you won't even 
remember... and he cites them, which provides a great prod for the reader to 
go back and re-read that section of BotNS, which is always worthwhile.

So I'm somewhat torn: I think Borski's work should be supported, and I 
respect the work he's done, but on the other hand I have a hard time 
recommending it to read for its own sake. I guess what I'd suggest is that 
you should buy it if you are planning on re-reading BotNS, and you can use 
Borski's book as you go.

>But first, Dan'l.  I think you are right and if I was (and I was) obtuse, 
>it was my fault and was a result of the orgiastic rush to present the ideas 
>I had been sitting on for about two years.  Maybe I can clarify my point 
>better if I say that I believe Christianity to be a phenomenon that does 
>not escape the bounds of history.  So many things in human culture (like, 
>for instance, "humanism") cannot be explained outside of the actual 
>processes they exhibit.  This, of course, is part of my general critique of 
>the idea of transcendence.  To put it simply: if a thing is transcendent we 
>cannot know it.  If we know it has become immanent and thus has become part 
>of the "world" which implies partiality, prejudice (in Gadamer's sense), 
>can even speculate on it means that he must have joined the cosmos.  
>Anyway, to stay on point, Wolfe may accept the idea of transcendence but 
>that doesn't mean that it is justified.  No one can truly be "christian" in 
>the sense that "Christianity" implies unworldliness-- which cannot be 
>expressed (or known, I would argue).  I appreciate your comments, 
>especially since they helped me to clarify myself.
>
>their original.  The Book of the Long Sun is, I believe, a meditation on 
>the specific moment of knowing ("Patera Silk received enlightenment on the 
>ballcourt: nothing could ever be the same"), while the Book of the Short 
>Sun is concerned with the struggle to conform oneself with the knowledge 
>gained.  The Book of the Short Sun is also the most personal thing of 
>Wolfe's I've read since it concerns the struggle of a regular man to 
>conform himself to an impossible ideal (the ideal held in his book, though 
>not necessarily in Calde Silke).  God, while obviously the idea to which 
>all the heroes aspire, also remains curiously distant.  He remains always 
>the outsider (see above re transcendence).  I think that the Book of the 
>New Sun is definately Wolfe's one commanding book.  But, I like the Book of 
>the Long Sun better than any fantasy/sci fi. I've read that's not Wolfe, 
>Tokien, or Lewis, and I think that The Book of the Short Sun is utterly 
>fantastic (I am still reading Return To the Whorl, and that is impressing 
>me more than the other books in the series).  Also, we cannot forget about 
>"Fifth Head of Cerberus."
>
>"Out of the Silent Planet" (not a fan of the other two space novels at 
>all). Proust, yadda. Borges "Ficciones." And it goes on.
>