ATTENDING DAEDALUS

Chris · 28 Jan 2006, 12:14 · from 2006-January.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 12:14:48 +0000
Subject: (urth) ATTENDING DAEDALUS
In-Reply-To: <000e01c623dd$e0e0a0c0$6f3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F18C806CD0E6C691D77639C86170 at phx.gbl>

It has been a little while since I read that book, but it was interesting 
and thoughtfully put together regardless of questions of whether Wright's 
interpretation is "right". My general opinion was that he was overly fixated 
on a particular theme, and proceeded to force all of the data to fit his 
theory, which in a couple of places led to almost self-contradictory 
results.

But one place to start in the way of critique, as I recall, is that Wright 
leans on a couple of premises pretty heavily:

1) Wolfe intended his meaning to be clearly understood and so planned from 
the beginning to provide all the keys necessary for understanding;

2) Some of the most crucial elements for understanding the series as a whole 
are provided in the fifth book, UotNS.

The first premise by itself might be unobjectionable, but putting the two 
together causes obvious problems. As far as I know Wolfe did not intend to 
write that fifth book when he published the first four, and furthermore I 
seem to recall that Wolfe's take was that UotNS didn't add anything at all 
to the original theme, just added an additional perspective.

And I wouldn't bring this up just to nitpick, because if anything I'd want 
to encourage people to read Attending Daedelus. But in context - and I would 
be hard pressed at this point to explain specifically why - his main 
argument relies so heavily on this picture of UotNS that it doesn't hold 
together very well without it.

I'd be interested in discussing it further, though. It is a short enough 
book that I could dig it out and look up the passages in question. And I 
recall bookmarking a couple pages where Wright adds some really 
thought-provoking quotes from Wolfe that I hadn't seen anywhere else; those 
might be worth a post, if I didn't already do so a while back.

Chris

>Last spring I argued, largely with Adam Stephanides, in large part about 
>the
>role of the Hierogrammates in the Increate's designs for humanity. Simply
>put, I contended that the Hierogrammates were doing the Increate's bidding
>when they did whatever they did to or for Urth's sun, and therefore to that
>branch of humanity affected by the coming of the New Sun. By "Increate" I
>meant God, more specifically the Judeo-Christian God, as I believe the term
>has been commonly understood, aka "Pancreator" and "Outsider".
>
>Recently I received and read Peter Wright's _Attending Daedalus: Gene 
>Wolfe,
>Artifice and the Reader_. The book was written by 1999, but wasn't 
>published
>until 2003, so the SHORT SUN books were not discussed.
>
>It is unfair to the author to summarize a whole book in a few lines, but it
>seems to be his contention that the Hierogrammates were selfish 
>manipulators
>of humanity, that Severian was a hapless, rather foolish puppet, sans
>divinity in his orchestrated role as Conciliator. He believes that Wolfe
>wrote the Urth Cycle to be understood this way, that Wolfe played an
>elaborate mind game with the reader, playing on reader expectations to
>hoodwink the careless reader into believing otherwise. He even holds that
>"Increate" doesn't refer to God; it refers to the Hieros.
>
>Wright goes further, suggesting that the LONG SUN and SOLDIER series, and
>even PANDORA, serve as "metafictional commentary" on the Urth Cycle. If
>Wright is right, then I've been wrong. Surely others of you have read
>ATTENDING DAEDALUS. Nigel? I would be interested in hearing other's
>comments.
>
>-Roy
>
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