Subject: Too literal on everything?

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 03:21:47 +0000

Very interesting stuff about the Maternal paganism in Wolfe, Nutria.  Thanks 
for sharing your conversation with Wolfe.

Hey Andy, when you say I'm being too literal, do you mean about all my word 
connections or just that Blue/Green time travel thing?  Severian doesn't seem 
to have any problem traveling through time.  The only thing I think is very 
interesting in the text about what whorls we should consider when dealing with 
inhumu is when the narrator claims (with some authority)that there are only 
three whorls involved: the whorl, green, and blue.  Why, then, does Merryn 
have a problem with animals on the Red Sun Whorl (certainly a few thousand 
years would change the constellations, too), and why does Jahlee bring it up? 
What does it mean?  I've just found it interesting how Wolfe can infuse 
repetitive words with associations that they normally do not have (for 
example, read The Book of the New Sun and look at how many times water and 
healing are mixed, as well as flooding and salvation -> it happens over and 
over and over ad nauseum. Obviously, salvation requires a big flood -> and you 
didn't really have to read Urth of the New Sun to make that association)  I'm 
just exploring those word associations, and whether they are fruitful or not.  
I have always felt that was a good way to read Wolfe (like that whole elm tree 
being associated with death in Peace, or noticing in the Book of the New Sun 
that every time a scary beast shows up, Hethor shows up, too -> I think Wolfe 
only provides the exposition half the time).  Certainly I am not even 
confident in most of my explorations -> I'm just drawing weird connections. 
And you must admit that in a book about a journey home, it does not seem very 
off the wall that there might be some way to reconcile Blue and Green with 
that homeward journey (especially since their orbits pass within 30,000 
leagues of each other).  And if you've ever read Books in the Book of the New 
Sun which equates a masters thesis with the story of Theseus or the BINDING OF 
A BOOK with the upcoming appearance of Dorcas, then you know that Wolfe is 
entirely capable of making the most bizarre and surprising connections in the 
universe.
Marc Aramini

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 10:31:56 +0000

I mean primarily the Green/Blue thing, but it has applicability elsewhere.

The question about whether Green and Blue are Lune and Ushas or even St Anne
and St Croix in literal truth is irrelevant.   They are figures, archetypes,
of something inside Wolfe.      Perhaps he had a dream once.

So in one sense they are Ushas/Lune, and in another they are not.   Wolfe
would not be able to answer the question because he does not yet "know"
himself.

I am sure that if we knew the story of Severian's visit to Lune we would
understand better.  But Wolfe has not written it down yet, so it hasn't
happened, so even Wolfe does not know the answer.

It just seems to me that Wolfe is playing it by ear and sometimes has no
clear idea of what is going on himself.    He has these massively mythic
figures and he combines them and recombines them at his whim.    He relies
on instinct.   Sometimes he is really writing about a sort of dreamspace.
Sometimes it is literal.  But always it is the mythic import, the moral
meaning, that counts, and worrying about things like can inhumi actually
swim through space is not relevant.

If Wolfe wants them to, they will.

I am not criticising your attempts to pick up clues.   That is part of the
joy in reading Wolfe.    But I will note that if you start looking at
anything with a number tagged on to it as a clue you are sure to  be misled.
Wolfe is never *quanitative* in any meaningful way.    His universe is too
dreamy and  fluid.

    Andy R

----- Original Message -----
From: "maa32" <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
> connections or just that Blue/Green time travel thing?

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 22:08:46 +0000

At 08:21 PM 1/2/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>to have any problem traveling through time.

         Yes, but that's only after he's travelled to the sub-heaven of 
Yesod, and died (again) and been brought back (again) on the Ship. Severian 
has a fairly unique gift and calling, to be the Conciliator, to be a kind 
of Christ-Apollo to Urth. (He's not Christ; that's the "theoanthropos" of 
ancient time.) I don't think we can transfer Severian's unique gifts, and 
especially those gifts as transformed through his deaths and resurrections, 
to other people in the Urth universe.
         BTW, does anyone else see a hint of *Perelandra* in Green? A 
"fallen Perelandra" perhaps? Lush and verdant and corrupt, and needing a 
"Ransom" to at least begin to set things right -- to go underground and 
fight "un-men" and remove the sewage? Of am I streaming my consciousness 
too much? If this guess is anywhere near the mark, perhaps the Neighbor 
really is a kind of "angel" to guide "Ransom/Horn" to do this initially 
redemptive work. The Neighbors want to redeem Green.

>I've just found it interesting how Wolfe can infuse
>didn't really have to read Urth of the New Sun to make that association)

         Well, as I'm sure you got, this is all reflections on the 
sacrament of Holy Baptism, beginning with Severian's initial baptismal 
drowning and resurrection. There are lots of reflections on the Holy 
Eucharist throughout also. And these were quite deliberate, as Gene 
affirmed to me.
         Severian's baptismal death and resurrection at the beginning 
simply foreshadows (and in-personates, since he is the "messiah" who walks 
the path before the rest of us) the baptism of Urth into Ushas at the end, 
and tells us how we should consider that flood.

Just a coupla thoughts.

Nutria

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 22:29:43 +0000

>of something inside Wolfe.      Perhaps he had a dream once.

         I don't think they correspond, save they each is a duality that 
invites reflection. Lune is green in anticipation of the Green Man, where 
Green is green in a primordial and fallen way. They are at opposite ends of 
the temporal/eschatological spectrum. In other words, Lune relates to Urth 
eschatologically, while Green relates to Blue protologically. The two 
worlds in *Fifth Head* are tyrant and slave, exploiter and exploited.
         The fact that each pair is joined as a pair, somehow, has 
something to do with society. Humans need to relate to abos with kindness, 
not exploitation. Humans on Blue must also redeem somehow the inhumi of 
Green -- Horn/Silk makes a start of this on Green and on Blue, and the Book 
of Horn will carry forth his story and that programme.
         I think Lune is just kind of up in the sky, in the heavens, an 
image of Yesod in a way. If the humans of Urth could ever learn to rule 
their own little world, they might grow up to rule a universe like Briah, 
and become like the sub-angels of Yesod -- when they have become Green Men.
         But I don't think these double planets are supposed to BE the same 
places (obviously not), nor that they mean the same things in the three 
novels.

>Wolfe is never *quanitative* in any meaningful way.    His universe is too

Hmm. Not sure about this. Wolfe rewrites his big hypernovels several times, 
and I think he works to make them internally consistent. The problems are 
(a) that his "universe" is bigger than the modern secular universe, with 
angels (fallen and unfallen), ghosts, a living God, prophets and prophetic 
dreams, etc.;  (b) that his narrators definitely have "limited omniscience" 
and may even be deceptive at points;  (c) that there are correspondences 
between myths, archetypes, earlier events, and present events; (d) etc. But 
as a trained engineer, Wolfe has surely figured out how the inhumi get to 
Blue. If he makes mistakes in the area of science and engineering, they are 
accidents, not the result of writing a dreamscape. Or so it seems to me.

Nutria

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 10:39:29 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Jordan" <jbjordan4 at home.com>
> invites reflection. <snip>          I think Lune is just
> kind of up in the sky, in the heavens, an  image of Yesod
> in a way. If the humans of Urth could ever learn to rule

Very wisely put.

I wish even more that we had seen that visit of Severian to Lune.  And I
agree about Perelandra showing through in the Green worlds, just a bit.
Ransom in the caves.

One other pattern of Green and Blue in the deep strata of SF - Earth/Moon in
Hothouse.  But Earth is "Green".

>  Wolfe has surely figured out how the inhumi get to

He hasn't because there is no way they can.  As a trained physicist, trust
me on this.

I'm not accusing Wolfe of doing anything more than the average SF writer
does.

Energy beam weapons, blasters, FTL of any sort, are all nonsense in terms of
real scientific practicality, but are familiar SF tropes.

Wolfe employs them all but allows a little mysticsim rather then bullshit
pseudosience into his "explanations".

The inhumi's ability to fly through space is of a part with this: it is no
more possible than FTL flight would be in the real universe.

It exists because Wolfe's dreams demand thet the evil inhumi come from Green
and come **naked**, flying through space like the spirit-ghost-dream-images
of humanity they are

(and there's another echo:  Lovecraft's night-gaunts)

    Andy R