Subject: (whorl) Rostum & Nutria

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 19:22:00 +0000

[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #7943197 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Gentlemen!

I don't want to sound alarmed, but I think you are both needlessly
painting yourselves into antagonistic corners.

To whit: Nutria writes "[Wolfe] has to come on-line and tell us
point-blank: the Outsider is God!"

Well no, he doesn't =have= to, unless I've missed something (and I
admit freely that I might have); he didn't even bring it up himself,
it was the question(s) posed by others that he answered.  He's not
trying to convert anyone, to the best of my understanding.  (Even
Clinton had to answer some questions from the MTV crowd regarding
underwear that he would not have otherwise blurted out in the middle
of an average press conference.)

And Rostrum replies: "we should be forced to evaluate the narrator's
experiences for ourselves."

Gosh, this conjures up visions of voluntary/involuntary dungeons!
Granted, I myself like to hear and read all sorts of different angles
and datapoints, even those that I don't particularly believe at all; and
somewhere there must be my polar opposite, an authentic self-reader
unsullied by the readings, researchings, or regurgitations of others,
hermetically sealed away in the sterile environment of a corklined room,
eschewing all intercourse with the community of Wolfe readers.

Or this seems like a desire for Wolfe to be as secretive as Pynchon
or Salinger.  "Please don't answer any questions or do any
interviews!  Please disappear!"

I trust that these extremes are just mirage-like distortions brought
on by the contortions of debate and do not represent the real beliefs
of Nutria or Rostrum.  So come on guys, play nice!

Hey, Nutria!  If you're going to get photocopies from alga (that
NYRSF piece) maybe you should offer in exchange a photocopy of Peter
Wright's essays from "Foundation No. 66"?

=mantis=

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 16:09:01 +0000

At 07:22 PM 9/8/97 GMT, you wrote:
>it was the question(s) posed by others that he answered. 

	Well, I asked the question, and only because there was so much debate
about it right here!
	I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I was only pointing out that some of
the clues in Wolfe are found in Christianity and the Bible, two sources
that many modern readers are strikingly unfamiliar with; or with which they
are only marginally familiar, with the result that they miss important
clues and chase rabbits. 
	If you don't know the history of philosophy, you will miss some of the
cute things in Asimov's *I, Robot.* Asimov might have been disappointed in
readers who missed such things, regarding the history of philosophy as
something people should generally know. That was my only point.

	Now, "Wolfe is not trying to convert anybody." Hmmm. Well, that's going to
depend on what you mean by "convert." In "The Detective of Dreams," a
stealthy invasion of the gospel is presented as the corrective to tyranny.
I think that's pretty much what is going on in both the Severian and Silk
narratives also, and elsewhere. Sure, that's just how Wolfe looks at
things. But, when a Christian communicates his ideas and worldview, that
CAN be called "evangelism" in some broad sense, no? Tyranny (statism),
idolatry, and Christianity are major themes and concerns in most of Wolfe's
serious work. But of course, he is not writing tracts, any more than
Shakespeare was writing tracts when he wrote plays to try and teach
England's rulers how to rule.

	Just some grist for your mill.

Unantagonistically,

Nutria

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From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 17:30:35 +0000

>Wright's essays from "Foundation No. 66"?

Hmm. Well, I don't want to be *too* picky, but all of these works *are*
copyrighted.... 

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Outsider is both God and a burst
blood-vessel in Silk's head. While it is true that the Outsider shows Silk
many things that Silk could not possibly have know, remember always that
_The Book of the Long Sun_ is a *composed* text, written by a human being,
who wants to make it look like Silk had a real revelation.

I don't put much credence in the idea that the Outsider is Severian,
incidentally, even despite the multigendered polyphony. The entire
Enlightenment experience is polyphonous; of course the Outsider "is", as
well. I think we might be looking for connections where none are present.
(What? Can it be?)
--
Wombat

Kevin Maroney		kmaroney at crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor	New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:46:15 +0000

On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:

> blood-vessel in Silk's head. 

Is there any evidence other than Crane's speculation that Silk burst a
blood-vessel?

> While it is true that the Outsider shows Silk

Kind of like the Gospels.  What I was trying to say in the post that
caused Mantis to put my name on this thread is that I loved the way Wolfe
presented a story with strong evidence that God exists, but then makes it
clear that the story is narrated by people whose trustworthiness we need
to evaluate for ourselves.  Do we think Silk's story contains hagiography,
or are Horn & Nettle giving us the facts as best they know them (and how
well do they know them)?  It seems to me that you have to take their story
on faith in much the same way I take the Gospels on faith. 

But then to have Wolfe say in an interview that the Outsider really is God
is sort of like me having a vision from God telling me the Gospels are
authentic.  It might be nice if it happened in real life, but it kind of
ruins the ambiguity for me when Wolfe does it, closing off interpretations
that Wolfe had taken great pains to allow in the story itself.

Perhaps I can take Wolfe's comment to mean that *he* believes Horn and
Nettle's (and Silk's) story, but that I need to decide for myself.

As for the title of this thread, I didn't really think I was disagreeing
with Nutria so much as making a follow-up comment to something he said.
I'm sorry  if I came across as antagonistic.

-Rostrum

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 14:51:21 +0000

>Is there any evidence other than Crane's speculation that Silk burst a

Well, as in Real Life, if someone has a vision or numinous experience, that
can be interpreted as the de facto evidence that they "burst a blood
vessel" or whatever. Of course, the believer will explain the experience in
supernatural terms. The point is that the ambiguity can exist. In the
Whorl, which is set in the same universe (or a similar cycle) as the Urth
series, the ambiguity is less concrete. Basically, in the universe of the
Whorl, we can take it that God exists, while in Real Life it's a moot
point. 

lasrach

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