{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/428", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 428, "subject": "Rostum & Nutria", "messages": 5, "voices": 5, "first": "1997-09-08T16:09:01+00:00", "last": "1997-09-09T14:51:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-09-08T19:22:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Rostum & Nutria", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #7943197 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nGentlemen!\n\nI don't want to sound alarmed, but I think you are both needlessly\npainting yourselves into antagonistic corners.\n\nTo whit: Nutria writes \"[Wolfe] has to come on-line and tell us\npoint-blank: the Outsider is God!\"\n\nWell no, he doesn't =have= to, unless I've missed something (and I\nadmit freely that I might have); he didn't even bring it up himself,\nit was the question(s) posed by others that he answered. He's not\ntrying to convert anyone, to the best of my understanding. (Even\nClinton had to answer some questions from the MTV crowd regarding\nunderwear that he would not have otherwise blurted out in the middle\nof an average press conference.)\n\nAnd Rostrum replies: \"we should be forced to evaluate the narrator's\nexperiences for ourselves.\"\n\nGosh, this conjures up visions of voluntary/involuntary dungeons!\nGranted, I myself like to hear and read all sorts of different angles\nand datapoints, even those that I don't particularly believe at all; and\nsomewhere there must be my polar opposite, an authentic self-reader\nunsullied by the readings, researchings, or regurgitations of others,\nhermetically sealed away in the sterile environment of a corklined room,\neschewing all intercourse with the community of Wolfe readers.\n\nOr this seems like a desire for Wolfe to be as secretive as Pynchon\nor Salinger. \"Please don't answer any questions or do any\ninterviews! Please disappear!\"\n\nI trust that these extremes are just mirage-like distortions brought\non by the contortions of debate and do not represent the real beliefs\nof Nutria or Rostrum. So come on guys, play nice!\n\nHey, Nutria! If you're going to get photocopies from alga (that\nNYRSF piece) maybe you should offer in exchange a photocopy of Peter\nWright's essays from \"Foundation No. 66\"?\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-09-08T16:09:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:22 PM 9/8/97 GMT, you wrote:\n\n[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]\n\nReply: Item #7943197 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nGentlemen!\n\nI don't want to sound alarmed, but I think you are both needlessly\npainting yourselves into antagonistic corners.\n\nTo whit: Nutria writes \"[Wolfe] has to come on-line and tell us\npoint-blank: the Outsider is God!\"\n\nWell no, he doesn't =have= to, unless I've missed something (and I\nadmit freely that I might have); he didn't even bring it up himself,\nit was the question(s) posed by others that he answered. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, I asked the question, and only because there was so much debate\nabout it right here!\n\tI'm not trying to be antagonistic. I was only pointing out that some of\nthe clues in Wolfe are found in Christianity and the Bible, two sources\nthat many modern readers are strikingly unfamiliar with; or with which they\nare only marginally familiar, with the result that they miss important\nclues and chase rabbits. \n\tIf you don't know the history of philosophy, you will miss some of the\ncute things in Asimov's *I, Robot.* Asimov might have been disappointed in\nreaders who missed such things, regarding the history of philosophy as\nsomething people should generally know. That was my only point.\n\n\tNow, \"Wolfe is not trying to convert anybody.\" Hmmm. Well, that's going to\ndepend on what you mean by \"convert.\" In \"The Detective of Dreams,\" a\nstealthy invasion of the gospel is presented as the corrective to tyranny.\nI think that's pretty much what is going on in both the Severian and Silk\nnarratives also, and elsewhere. Sure, that's just how Wolfe looks at\nthings. But, when a Christian communicates his ideas and worldview, that\nCAN be called \"evangelism\" in some broad sense, no? Tyranny (statism),\nidolatry, and Christianity are major themes and concerns in most of Wolfe's\nserious work. But of course, he is not writing tracts, any more than\nShakespeare was writing tracts when he wrote plays to try and teach\nEngland's rulers how to rule.\n\n\tJust some grist for your mill.\n\nUnantagonistically,\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1997-09-08T17:30:35+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:22 PM 9/8/97 GMT, you wrote:\nHey, Nutria! If you're going to get photocopies from alga (that\nNYRSF piece) maybe you should offer in exchange a photocopy of Peter\nWright's essays from \"Foundation No. 66\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm. Well, I don't want to be *too* picky, but all of these works *are*\ncopyrighted.... \n\nAnyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Outsider is both God and a burst\nblood-vessel in Silk's head. While it is true that the Outsider shows Silk\nmany things that Silk could not possibly have know, remember always that\n_The Book of the Long Sun_ is a *composed* text, written by a human being,\nwho wants to make it look like Silk had a real revelation.\n\nI don't put much credence in the idea that the Outsider is Severian,\nincidentally, even despite the multigendered polyphony. The entire\nEnlightenment experience is polyphonous; of course the Outsider \"is\", as\nwell. I think we might be looking for connections where none are present.\n(What? Can it be?)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat\n\n\nKevin Maroney\t\tkmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor\tNew York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1997-09-09T09:46:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:\nAnyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Outsider is both God and a burst\nblood-vessel in Silk's head. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there any evidence other than Crane's speculation that Silk burst a\nblood-vessel?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "While it is true that the Outsider shows Silk\nmany things that Silk could not possibly have know, remember always that\n_The Book of the Long Sun_ is a *composed* text, written by a human being,\nwho wants to make it look like Silk had a real revelation." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Kind of like the Gospels. What I was trying to say in the post that\ncaused Mantis to put my name on this thread is that I loved the way Wolfe\npresented a story with strong evidence that God exists, but then makes it\nclear that the story is narrated by people whose trustworthiness we need\nto evaluate for ourselves. Do we think Silk's story contains hagiography,\nor are Horn & Nettle giving us the facts as best they know them (and how\nwell do they know them)? It seems to me that you have to take their story\non faith in much the same way I take the Gospels on faith. \n\nBut then to have Wolfe say in an interview that the Outsider really is God\nis sort of like me having a vision from God telling me the Gospels are\nauthentic. It might be nice if it happened in real life, but it kind of\nruins the ambiguity for me when Wolfe does it, closing off interpretations\nthat Wolfe had taken great pains to allow in the story itself.\n\nPerhaps I can take Wolfe's comment to mean that *he* believes Horn and\nNettle's (and Silk's) story, but that I need to decide for myself.\n\nAs for the title of this thread, I didn't really think I was disagreeing\nwith Nutria so much as making a follow-up comment to something he said.\nI'm sorry if I came across as antagonistic.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Cleary", "address": "kierannwn at tinet.ie" }, "date": "1997-09-09T14:51:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Outsider is both God and a\nburst\nblood-vessel in Silk's head. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is there any evidence other than Crane's speculation that Silk burst a\nblood-vessel?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, as in Real Life, if someone has a vision or numinous experience, that\ncan be interpreted as the de facto evidence that they \"burst a blood\nvessel\" or whatever. Of course, the believer will explain the experience in\nsupernatural terms. The point is that the ambiguity can exist. In the\nWhorl, which is set in the same universe (or a similar cycle) as the Urth\nseries, the ambiguity is less concrete. Basically, in the universe of the\nWhorl, we can take it that God exists, while in Real Life it's a moot\npoint. \n\nlasrach\n\n----------" } ] } ] }