Subject: (urth) Hello, I'm a Newb

From: Nicholas Jost <nickjost at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:28:30 +0000

Since Gene Wolfe was mentioned in an article appearing in First Things recently 
and was recommended through a friend I decided to pick up some of his books.  I 
read "An Evil Guest" first, and once I realized I had missed pretty much the 
whole book, I picked up the New Sun series (including the fifth book) and 
promised I would pay more attention.  I have read some of the archive and the 
notes on the Gene Wolfe Wiki (which I _think_ is maintained by one of you 
folks?).  

I am now going to add my entirely wild musings to the mix.

1.) Is Severian Albion?  He becomes the "Storm God" in the end and the servitors 
of Albion also "serve" him especially when he is saved.
2.) Is he the same Storm God as is in an "Evil Guest"?  If they both exist on 
the same timeline then "An Evil Guest" would be well within the period in which 
the new sun is in transit (I'm assuming Apu is pre-colonial South American).
3.) Has anyone else had difficulty explaining the plot to his aged grandmother 
and consciously skipped over the Dorcas character?
4.) Is Severian a proto(/post)-Christian (not -like) figure in a Mormon 
universe?  That is it seems to have an endless hierarchy of gods.  The concept 
of an "uncreate" blows this theory but the robots seem to have an endless 
hierarchy topped (roughly) by a race.  Am I missing something?

Nicholas Jost

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:55:32 +0000

>
> 1.) Is Severian Albion?  He becomes the "Storm God" in the end and the 
> servitors of Albion also "serve" him especially when he is saved.

Are you referring to William Blake's mythology?

> 2.) Is he the same Storm God as is in an "Evil Guest"?  If they both 
> exist on the same timeline then "An Evil Guest" would be well within 
> the period in which the new sun is in transit (I'm assuming Apu is 
> pre-colonial South American).

I don't think so. I don't think Severian and Cassie are in the same 
literary universe. The Storm God is described as an ancient alien who 
has been on Earth since before the evolution of mankind. He seems to be 
a sort of Cthulhu squid god. See "The Tree is My Hat" for a story set on 
Cassie's island. See "Endangered Species" and "Starwater Strains" for 
stories set in Severian's universe. Also the Long/Short Sun series.

> 3.) Has anyone else had difficulty explaining the plot to his aged 
> grandmother and consciously skipped over the Dorcas character?

You were able to explained the plot to someone?

> 4.) Is Severian a proto(/post)-Christian (not -like) figure in a 
> Mormon universe?  That is it seems to have an endless hierarchy of 
> gods.  The concept of an "uncreate" blows this theory but the robots 
> seem to have an endless hierarchy topped (roughly) by a race.  Am I 
> missing something?

I suggest you review the threads from a couple weeks ago on this. 
There's not much of a consensus on this. But _I_ ascribe the generations 
of gods to the Sun Cycle universe being a Christian Gnostic one with 
it's layer upon layer of generational aeons.

u+16b9
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From: Jane Delawney <jane_delawney at sky.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:01:23 +0000

First of all please forgive if I seem to change the message header for 
no reason; I already mentioned somewhere on list that my ISP's mail 
server simply /will not/ (no matter how I fiddle with the settings) 
return my list mails to me unless I start a new thread. This is very 
annoying, obviously! Please Nicholas take this as a direct response to 
your post of 22:28 tonight.

> of Albion also "serve" him especially when he is saved.
It's stated somewhere I think in the 5th book (can't be more specific 
right now, don't have the time frankly) that what is done on Urth at 
Severian's time (whether that is during his apprenticeship, wanderings, 
Autarchy, return out of time as the Conciliator, or indeed as the 
Sleeper Awakened upon Ushas) may 'echo' somehow back down the ages. 
Also, the deeds of those around him may do much the same thing.

In this context we find Urth/Ushas echoes/prefigurings (from the 
Hierodules' point of view, their time-sense runs backward vs. ours) of 
such popular and legendary myth-tropes as Dracula, Frankenstein (kind of 
backwards here, with the 'Monster' ie Baldanders as the master), Robin 
Hood (Vodalus is a somewhat perverted version of the 'good bandit'), 
Storm-gods (Severian seems to be in the role of Thor and similar 
deities, as well as that of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, when he 
quietens the storm on Gyoll - though the idea that this storm is based 
within his out of control anger is more Thor-like than Christ-like by a 
very long way ... and possibly even more Marvel-Thor than 
Norse-Deity-Thor, for that matter), Sun-gods (Apu-Punchau is a name for 
the Inca solar deity Inti) and Fish-gods such as Oannes (or even Jesus 
again, though I do realise that the 'fish' thing has more to do with 
early Christian need for concealment (the ICHTHOS glyph) than with any 
real connection with the man Jesus.
> and consciously skipped over the Dorcas character?
Duh. No actually :) Why did you need to explain the plot to your Grannie?
> hierarchy topped (roughly) by a race.  Am I missing something?
That's 'increate'. And as for Mormons, you tell us? I doubt there are 
many Mormon experts on this list.

cheers

JD

> Nicholas Jost
>
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From: David Duffy <davidd at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:29:14 +0000

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, Nicholas Jost wrote:

Welcome, Nicholas!

> whole book,

Perhaps not the best place to start ;)

> I picked up the New Sun series (including the fifth book) and

Yes.

> the new sun is in transit (I'm assuming Apu is pre-colonial South American).

Almost certainly not.  Either it is well in our future, or in a different 
(cycle of the) universe.  Severian muses that racial type (and I guess 
culture) is strongly determined by climate/geography, so that his future 
South America has ended up with similar cultures.  Plus the conceit that 
he has translated future cultures into modern day equivalents: someone 
recently commented on the frisson encountered realising Frodo is actually 
Froda, similar to realizing what destriers look like, or what "petrol" is 
in Press's _Soldiers of Paradise_.

> and consciously skipped over the Dorcas character?

It hasn't come up ;) but the aged grandmother might quite like the idea.

> hierarchy topped (roughly) by a race.  Am I missing something?

The fact that the setting is bang-gnab cyclical universes, so any type of 
christian model has to handle multiple incarnations etc.  That in early 
Western thought, and in SF, there is plenty of room in the great chain for 
higher beings than humankind.  The Increate may be outside all these, like 
Stapledon, but Wolfe implies he may be poking around.  In Stapledon's 
setup, there is evolution from universe to universe, so one could 
postulate less optimal Christs in earlier iterations.  After saying that, 
Wolfe has explicitly said that Severian is -like.

This kind of stuff has been hashed over endlessly on this list and in a 
couple of books. Wolfe is deliberately ambiguous - not to mention that 
_UotNS_ may represent an (some say unhappy) evolution of ideas.  The Long 
Sun books are (more) Gnostic at a miniature scale, which may be a case of 
_as above, so below_.  But the Short Sun books are ...revisionist.

Basically, it comes down to whether you think BotNS has a happy ending or 
not.  You might reread _the Cock, the Angel and the Eagle_.  That is, the 
Hieros are doing as best as they can.

Cheers, David.

-- 
| David Duffy (MBBS PhD)                                         ,-_|\
| email: davidD at qimr.edu.au  ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101  /     *
| Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research   \_,-._/
| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia  GPG 4D0B994A v

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:54:42 +0000

> 3.) Has anyone else had difficulty explaining the plot to his aged grandmother and consciously
> skipped over the Dorcas character?

Not me, but thanks for the smile.

Jerry Friedman

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From: Josh Caswell <jandcaswell at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:06:28 +0000

> James Wynn

> You were able to explained the plot to someone?

Hahaha,  my feelings exactly.  I recently tried to explain the plot to one
of my best friends and success was marginal at best.  Before that I
attempted an explanation to my father......  ...... ..... .... (can't put
enough dots here).  I eventually conceded defeat and settled for "it's just
an interesting book."
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:11:36 +0000

Good heavens, explaining the plot isn't _that_ difficult.

"A young man is exiled from the Torturer's Guild for the crime of
mercy. He meets many interesting people, has a variety of adventures,
and ultimately becomes the ruler of his nation." The rest is details.

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 11:06 AM, Josh Caswell <jandcaswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hahaha, ?my feelings exactly. ?I recently tried to explain the plot to one
> of my best friends and success was marginal at best. ?Before that I
> attempted an explanation to my father...... ?...... ..... .... (can't put
> enough dots here). ?I eventually conceded defeat and settled for "it's just
> an interesting book."
>

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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From: Josh Caswell <jandcaswell at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:27:25 +0000

I'll grant you that much of it, but I was trying to give a feel for the
nuances and fell into a downward spiral of complexities.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:16:46 +0000

Hey Nicholas! Welcome to the Monkey House.

> grandmother and consciously skipped over the Dorcas character?

My mother is also an aged grandmother, but she ended up explaining the 
plot of The Boy Who Hooked The Sun to me without knowing it, as part of 
her Hawaiian vacation slide show.

> universe? That is it seems to have an endless hierarchy of gods. The
> concept of an "uncreate" blows this theory but the robots seem to have
> an endless hierarchy topped (roughly) by a race.

The Mormon cosmology has some sophisticated nested structure, and there 
are indeed similar structures in the ascendancy of the Hieros and the 
supervision of the Urthly galaxies from the superior beings of Yesod, 
but the works maintain there's still one eternal Increate outside all of 
it. The exultant class *might* be a comment on the LDS' Exalted Man 
concept of an embodied God among many such, but it might equally likely 
be a coincidence.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >