{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/431", "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": 431, "subject": "holy alga-rhythm!", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-09-09T21:30:00+00:00", "last": "1997-09-11T00:13:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-09-09T21:30:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) holy alga-rhythm!", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rostrum,\n\nOf course I like the creative ambiguity of Wolfe's work, too. I\nmean, I actually enjoy looking at how in a certain reading Severian\nis closer to an Anti-Christ than he is to a Christ. That one (well\nthis one at least) can easily entertain such a thought shows the\ndegree of ambiguity at work. (\"So, you intend this court to believe\nthat you honestly mistook the Prince of Light for the Prince of Peace?\"\n\"Well, it was a dark room and I didn't have my glasses on . . . \")\n\nAnd Nutria wants somebody from the \"Gnostic camp,\" as it were, to\nexplain to him how the Gnostic interpretation of THE BOOK OF THE NEW\nSUN (which Nutria says he himself originally took to be the\nprimary/privileged/whatever-you-wanna-call-it reading) holds up in\nlight of the non-Gnostic, i.e., Catholic (in the subsets where\nCatholicism and Gnosticism have no intersection) reading which Nutria\nnow believes to be the primary reading of the text.\n\nIf I may be so bold, I think that Nutria is very interested in how\nGene Wolfe can be writing such material that seems so utterly non- or\neven almost anti-Catholic, yet this material turns out to be, under\ncertain readings or interpretations, to be quite Catholic after all.\n(Unfortunately, as interesting as I myself find it to be, this sort of\ndebate quickly becomes thorny and theological!)\n\n(If alga could read Wright's essays then maybe she would be\ninterested in arguing their point to Nutria--now =that= would be\nsomething!)\n\nAs for the author's interpretation of the art. We went through some\nof this before around here--I believe it was Talon who wrote that we\nshouldn't let Gene Wolfe's opinions alone divorce us from our\nfavorite pet theories. I understand the notion and applaud it to a\ncertain degree, but speaking for myself (the only person I'm\nnominally qualified to speak for) I do tend to give some weight to the\nauthor's opinion. Not god-like weight, no; maybe just twice as much\nas I'd give to a John Clute reading.\n\nSo what is my own reading like, an internalized consensus? Sometimes\nit is. For example, alga had pinned me down and gotten me to admit\nthat Quetzal was certainly the vampire stalking Viron because he was\nthe only vampire in the text and there was a lot of circumstantial\nevidence as well. I didn't =like= it, it felt somehow off, I kept\nwatching for the slimmest of clues for other vampires, but I had to\nadmit that she was right. Then Wolfe said there were others on\nboard, and I was able to reclaim my original reading (which I had\ncravenly supressed? ) while still admitting that alga was right.\n\nIn the other direction, I still find it hard to believe that the\nMarble/Mint merger was just the two typos Wolfe says it was. Even though\nI don't know what a Marble/Mint merger would mean, let alone how it\ncould be done!\n\nNot that I want to bring either the vampires or the Marble/Mint\nissues back up for discussion at this time--I don't! Just to show\nhow I myself have dealt with them in my own muddied reading.\n\nWombat,\n\nNo, to the best of my knowledge Amazon.com does not sell magazines.\nChris Drumm is a mail order bookseller specializing in genre material\nand he does carry magazines, especially small press. (He =does=\ncarry some issues of NYRSF--catalog No. 106 lists: 17, 18, 19, 25,\n47, and 74. How about \"Foundation\"? Doesn't look like it.) He has been\nworking on a web-page for some time now. In the meantime, phone/fax\n515-984-6749; e-mail cdrummbks at aol.com.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-09-11T00:13:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) holy alga-rhythm!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:30 PM 9/9/97 GMT, Mantis wrote:\n\nAnd Nutria wants somebody from the \"Gnostic camp,\" as it were, to\nexplain to him how the Gnostic interpretation of THE BOOK OF THE NEW\nSUN (which Nutria says he himself originally took to be the\nprimary/privileged/whatever-you-wanna-call-it reading) holds up in\nlight of the non-Gnostic, i.e., Catholic (in the subsets where\nCatholicism and Gnosticism have no intersection) reading which Nutria\nnow believes to be the primary reading of the text." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tMy reason for reading it Catholicly is Wolfe's own statements to me in\ncorrespondence. He seemed shocked that I took it gnostically and saw\nSeverian as another Number Five antichrist. Once again this raises the\nquestion of whether Wolfe is really being all that ambiguous, or if he\nscatters so many seeds and so few clues that he defeats his readers. I'm\ninclined to believe the latter, and I see it as a weakness in his writing\nat some points." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If I may be so bold, I think that Nutria is very interested in how\nGene Wolfe can be writing such material that seems so utterly non- or\neven almost anti-Catholic, yet this material turns out to be, under\ncertain readings or interpretations, to be quite Catholic after all.\n(Unfortunately, as interesting as I myself find it to be, this sort of\ndebate quickly becomes thorny and theological!)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, if Severian were an antichrist figure, it would still be Catholic\nfiction, but just \"presenting\" Catholicism by negation as it were. If the\nuniverse of the New Sun were a genuinely closed gnostic universe, it would\njust add another layer of interpretation. But from his comments in my\ninterview with him, Wolfe did not (for instance) intend the use of \"Yesod\"\nand \"Beriakh\" to indicate a fully Qabbalistic universe, but was just using\nthem for \"heaven\" and \"earth.\"\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }