Subject: (urth) Wolfe as crypto-Mormon

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 21:09:00 +0000

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

Without much effort we might see TBOTNS as containing strong elements
of Mormonism.

If we take Severian as Christ-like; if we assume Apu-Punchau
(Severian in a different time frame) to be the authentic Apu-Punchau of
Earth's Inca peoples (begining, shall we say, circa AD 1000); if we note
the widespread Christian European belief that Jesus would return to Earth
in the year AD 1000, and subsequent confusion when He did not; if we
recall the Aztec belief that a white guy from the east would come visit,
which made it easier for Cortez; and cap it off with the Mormon belief that
Jesus visited the New World sometime after the Old World tour.

I'm not claiming Gene Wolfe is Mormon or crypto-Mormon, yet I hope it is
quite easy to see how such inferences could be legitimately made from
a close reading of the text (and ignorance of Wolfe's stated
religious belief).  (I'm only bringing it up because we always
seem to run around the two bushes of Is it Christian and Is it Gnostic.)

=mantis=