Subject: (urth) Hanging Out with the Dream King

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:10:38 +0000

A book that just came out, _Hanging Out with the Dream King: Conversations
with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators_ by Joseph McCabe (pub. by
Fantagraphics Books) has a six-page interview with Gene Wolfe (and a
photo!). The interview doesn't confine itself to Gaiman or his collaboration
with Wolfe (_A Walking Tour of the Shambles_, iirc), but discusses Wolfe's
own writing. The most interesting thing Wolfe said, to me, was "It seems to
me that it is wrong to write propaganda that is not clearly propaganda."
This in response to a question on Wolfe's use of religious themes, iirc.

--Adam

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From: maru <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 17:27:56 +0000

Could you give some context there Adam?
I'm not quite sure how to take that comment: does it mean he
regrets even a little not making it glaringly obvious the religious
content, and his fringey religious beliefs in particular (I think
I'm justified in saying fringy; I've heard time and again that his Catholic
viewpoints are practically pre-Vatican II. But I haven't gleaned enough
on my own to appraise this view, so if someone wants to correct me, go 
ahead.)
Or should I take it as a barb against the C.S. Lewis type writers?

~Maru

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 08:01:02 +0000

> Could you give some context there Adam?

The interviewer mentions Wolfe's use of the "concept of the messiah" as a
theme, and asks him how he has been able to keep his "emotions ... [from]
block[ing] the intellectual examination [of the concept] ... where so many
other writers failed to do so."

Wolfe answers in part: "I'm not sure that it's anything that I have done; I
think it's part of my character. It's innate. It seems to me that it is
wrong to write propaganda that is not clearly propaganda. I teach writing
from time to time, and you get a certain number of people who basically want
to write what's basically propaganda for some cause or other. Or some church
or other -- I have a Mormon friend, and when he tries to write fiction, his
characters lecture on Mormonism when the lectures on Mormonism have nothing
to do with the story, frankly. Someone asked Avram Davidson, 'Why aren't any
of your characters Jewish?' ... He said, 'They all are.'  He wasn't pushing
Judaism, but he was writing with what he was, which was a Jew. And I think I
write as what I am."

While his meaning isn't totally evident, he's drawing a distinction between
writing as a Catholic (for example), which is desirable if you're a
Catholic, and writing Catholic propaganda in the guise of fiction. I'd say
his practice as a writer bears this out as far as religion is concerned,
except for a couple of short stories where the devotional aspect is pretty
obvious: I've never been convinced by claims that his novels are intended to
illustrate or proselytize for Catholic doctrine. On the other hand, when it
comes to politics it's a lot harder to reconcile his practice with what he's
saying here.

> on my own to appraise this view, so if someone wants to correct me, go

He has said that his Catholicism is pre-Vatican II, iirc, but I wouldn't say
that makes him fringey. That's the Catholicism he was raised in, after all,
and I would imagine that even today there are a substantial number of
Catholics who by and large prefer the pre-Vatican practices. (There's a book
called _The Smoke of Satan_, iirc, which is an entertaining look at some
genuinely fringey Catholics: people who believe that the popes from John
XXIII on have been illegitimate, for example.)

> Or should I take it as a barb against the C.S. Lewis type writers?

You could certainly convict Lewis of "writ[ing] what's basically
propaganda," at least in some of his novels. But it's not clear to me that
this is any less true of Chesterton, whom Wolfe admires.

--Adam

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From: Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 08:57:49 +0000

Sounds like he's thinking of Orson Scott Card there.  Or at least,
that's the only prominent Mormon writer who brings his religion into
discussion that i can think of, anyway.
But when I said 'fringe-y' I was thinking Mel Gibson & pater type.
Incidentally, what do you mean by: 
>On the other hand, when it

~Maru

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:05:40 -0600, Adam Stephanides
<adamsteph at earthlink.net> wrote:
.... snippity....

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:22:31 +0000

>> comes to politics it's a lot harder to reconcile his practice with what he's

I was thinking of stories like "The Blue Mouse," "Bluesberry Jam," and the
fairly recent one, whose title I forget, where the protagonist is on the run
from a female IRS agent.

--Adam