Subject: (urth) the Castle

From: Peter Cash <cash at rsn.hp.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 10:15:54 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net> wrote:

> ...I initially took Anne Schildler (Castleview) in a
>negative light, but she's looking for the Castle (church; kingdom of God)
>also. Thus, I think it is mainly a matter of Wolfe's writing primarily
>about male protagonists. 

The castle is the Church? That hadn't come into my mind at all. What
indications are there in CASTLEVIEW that this is so? I would have
thought that the Castle represented the power of imagination and of
myth, and served as a reminder that reality is not necessarily as we
think it is. What Christian symbolism did you see in the Castle? How can
it be the Kingdom of God if it is inhabited by such signally
un-Christian personages as Morgana and Thor (leading the Wild Hunt)? 

Hmmm. There _were_ gargoyles...I'll grant you that. And how many candles
were there in the empty room? 

-- 
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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 07:07:12 +0000

>un-Christian personages as Morgana and Thor (leading the Wild Hunt)? 

	Sorry. E-mailish briefitudinousness overcame me. The castle clearly varies
according to perspective: for some it is a spaceship; just as the wild
ride/hunt is perceived differently. I take it as the kind of ideal home,
connected to the transcendent, of which the Church is the purest and proper
form. But perhaps I should re-read.

	Does that help?

Nutria