A very interesting interview indeed

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com · 08 Sep 2006, 11:04 · from 2006-September.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com (thalassocrat at nym.hush.com)
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 21:04:37 +1000
Subject: (urth) A very interesting interview indeed
Message-ID: <20060908110438.CFC30DA824 at mailserver7.hushmail.com>

On Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:36:38 +1000 Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> 
wrote:
>I was reading the recently-posted Larry McCaffery interview, in 
>which  
>the mystery of 5HC is "given away" (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/ 
>interviews/wolfe46interview.htm)
>
>There's the following quotation in it too:
>
>"The fact that you stand there and let someone hit you in the face 

> 
>doesn't do anything to eliminate violence (it may even contribute 
>to  
>further violence) ?which is one of the underlying themes in The 
>Book  
>of the New Sun."
>
>That seems a very explicit repudiation of one of the more 
>memorable  
>passages in a book that's generally considered to be a pretty huge 

> 
>influence on Wolfe's work generally and BotNS in particular.

The most striking manifestation of this to me is Sev's behavior 
when he's arrested in UOTNS. He messes up  bunch of soldiers, and 
then he kills the prison governess almost immediately upon meeting 
her. If I were a Christian, I'd find those pretty disturbing events 
in Sev's "ministry". 

I can never make up my mind whether (a) Wolfe thinks Jesus was a 
wuss & that Sev is showing how a non-wuss handles this kind of 
situation (b) it's another indication that the universe of New Sun 
isn't ours, in line with theories I've posted previously (c) Wolfe 
thinks the Bible got it wrong and that, in fact, Jesus went down 
fighting (d) some other damn thing.

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