Bringin' it back to Wolfe by the long road

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 17 Apr 2007, 15:43 · from 2007-April.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 08:43:32 -0700
Subject: (urth) Bringin' it back to Wolfe by the long road
In-Reply-To: <E1HdiPA-0004sd-GD at oceanus.uk.clara.net>
References: <947734.92039.qm at web32404.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<E1HdiPA-0004sd-GD at oceanus.uk.clara.net>
Message-ID: <1f7617370704170843o8f558aal86912a3d6e426a29 at mail.gmail.com>

On 4/17/07, Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Not realy.   Michael here is not precisely a Christian figure in a christian
> universe: rather he's a being of a certain rank, in a non-Christian
> universe, who is explained/derived in terms of Christan myth much as the
> Overcyns are explained/derived in terms of Nordic myth.   He is of higher
> rank than Odin but other beings of non-Christian derivation like Parka are
> of higher rank than him,. There is no Christ in Mythgarthyr - the Outsider
> was far more explicitly Christian in his function and relationship to
> humanity.

I must disagree. This *is* a Christian universe -- or, rather, a Universe
created by the Christian God. Much of Wolfe's work involves what I
suppose you could call "baptising" non-Christian (or, in the case of
_Long Sun_, Christian-but-heretical) worldviews, embedding them into
a more-or-less explicitly Christian context.

_Long Sun_, as I have argued at length elsewhere, is a quite overt
baptism of a Gnostic (specifically, Valentinian) creation, embedding
the Whorl, a creation fo the evil Demiurge (Pas), _into_ the "real"
creation of Christian belief.  The "Latro" books seem to baptize the
gods of Greece, Egypt, and the ancient Middle-east, portraying them
as creations of the one God, more powerful than humans but still
creatures. And WK seems to baptize the "worlds" of the Eddas.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations,
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salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards
reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.

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