Wolfe the closet Gnostic.

James Wynn · 24 Jun 2005, 18:41 · from 2005-June.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Fri Jun 24 18:41:40 2005
Subject: (urth) Wolfe the closet Gnostic.
Message-ID: <32130921.1119663698372.JavaMail.root at wamui-hybrid.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

>>Crush said
>>If Wolfe were determined to avoid the chance of people thinking he was 
>>endorsing the
>>Gnosticsm then he should have avoided making Silk so appealing or 
>>naming his hero
>>in The New Sun after a Gnostic sect.

Kieran says
>It is this sort of postmodern meta-analysis that I find most 
>annoying.

I seem to have found my way under a lot of people's skins today. 

I'll take your points out of order.

>Third, do you think Wolfe, the author of such works as "The 
>Detective of Dreams" and "Westwind," would write a pro-Gnostic set of 
>novels?

I don't thinks so. I said so. However, those novels are not *anti-Gnostic*
either. A Gnostic Christian might very happily write those stories. 
That's why Gnosticism was so difficult for Apostolic Christians to
tamp out. Christian systematic theology among the apostolic probably
florished originally just to deal with the Gnostics.

However, I doubt that a Gnostic Christian would attempt to show the
*reasonableness* of the Trinity. And I think Wolfe did that in The Book
of the Short Sun. So there you have it.

>Fifth, name play gets a bit silly.   Silk was common in New 
>Testament times, and was called "damask", since it was manufactured in 
>Damascus.  No doubt by choosing the name "Silk", Wolfe was making an 
>allusion to the role Syria plays in international terrorism.

ho hum. Are you saying that one should not make too much of Severian's
name? When Wolfe clearly was so careful in selecting all his characters' 
names in the Sun Cycle? Heck, when it comes to name-games Wolfe
started it right in the pages of The Long Sun: Tussah->Silk->Chenille.
Silk sits around contemplating the curious connection between his
name and that of the chem soldier Sand! Wolfe certainly created the 
Vironese naming convention just to encourage name-play. 
He was careful in every circumstance in assigning designations to things.
I don't find anything silly about name-play in the Sun Cycle.
Not to do it to some degree is to totally miss a large part of the story.

>Second, Severian's name was chosen 13 years before Silk was 
>created.   Do you think that when Wolfe set out to create a character 
>that people whose wardrobe fans would emulate at sci-fi cons, he 
>intended to write a pro-Gnostic work over a decade later?

Severian is named after a Gnostic cult. Silk is an "enlightened" 
[that's a term used by Gnostics to describe how Jesus became the
Christ] savior in a world made by a demiurge...the savior is contacted
by the true God *outside* the world. That seems to suggest a
knowledge of Christian Gnostic heresies and a deliberate riffing on it
for whatever purpose. 

>First, Gnostic is such a syncretic and malleable tradition that it 
>is possible to read it into almost anything in which a powerful ruling 
>figure is overthrown by appealing to a more benign, more powerful 
>figure.

There's a good deal more to the connection than a ruling figure
being overthrown. But you are are right to an extent, and I posted
something similar today.

>Fourth, why should having an appealing hero make him necessarily 
>pro-Gnostic?   Isn't Silk closer to Moses than to Christ?

In some ways, yes. But then, the Rajan, who has Silk's face, breaks
communion with Olivine. Severian...there's that name again...
relives the Temptation of Christ with Typhon as Satan. 

But I was responding to Chris saying that Wolfe would NEVER want
people to think he was promoting Gnosticism. My point was that he 
could have done a better job if that were his intention. Silk is a Gnostic
hero, I'm not saying that's all he is, but he is that. I don't know *what*
exactly Wolfe is driving at with the Gnostic setting, but he was not 
trying to *attack* Gnosticism.  He seems pretty lackidaisical about it
to me.

~ Crush

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