Severian / Christ / Logos / Apocatastasis

David Stockhoff · 26 Nov 2008, 19:28 · from 2008-November.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:28:16 -0500
Subject: (urth) Severian / Christ / Logos / Apocatastasis
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Witz

Any of the Hainish novels are very good and are on a similar imaginative scale as TBotNS, but more (pel)lucid. Atwood's review describes it a bit. Earthsea was my Golden Book when I was in second grade, so I can't wholeheartedly recommend it to an adult. (I hope it will be my daughter's Golden Book, however!)

Two related thoughts (not sure where they originate in the discussion):

Doubt: From what I understand about Catholic theology, doubt is significant to faith. And Wolfe must agree that God works in mysterious ways for him to invent or steal so many of those ways. And they are the same point, because doubt tests and creates faith. 

So we have a fictional universe which does not overtly emphasize faith but does introduce heavy doses of doubt. It is clear and opaque; it is dark and light; it is conspiracy and chance; and the bad guys do work toward the ends of the Increate. Severian himself may believe himself not much less evil than Abaia and the other monsters, but it hardly matters---they all do the work of the Increate. "Dupe" is perhaps too strong a word, but in line with my thesis here---if the 21st century reader sees astrophysics in miracles and a con job in resurrection, then so be it. Any and all doubt is potentially able to lead us to faith. The author's hand may be revealed and his narrative purpose may still be furthered. Take to its extreme, TBotNS could make a science-favoring atheist wonder about what he believes.

Flatness: Milan Kundera said something that always makes me think of TBotNS: the novel must be more intelligent than the author. This suggests that our impressions of TBotNS are more complex than what Wolfe actually did, which was complex enough but no doubt can be reduced to a few simple rules that interact to produce complexity. And this was deliberate; he has said that he threw every trick he knew into TBotNS.

So I'm not bothered by perceptions of flatness behind the mummery---I expect it. (I know a mortal wrote it.)

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:20:19 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: Re: (urth) Severian / Christ / Logos / Apocatastasis
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <W229252812146321227723619 at webmail22>
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> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: David Stockhoff [mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net]
> >Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 09:47 AM
> >To: urth at lists.urth.net
> >Subject: Re: (urth) Severian / Christ / Logos / Apocatastasis
> >
> >I guess one way to sum this up is to say that the theme of BotNS is not morality but myth itself and its ability to approach the Divine. Once you accept that, then the "slippery" questions about Christ/not Christ go away completely. And you're left with a literary retelling of Christian myth---which, as pointed out, is an old tradition, though probably never pulled off with such, as you put it, balls. But the "balls" are really just deep understanding and affection of myth.
>   

Yes.  This is how I feel. I don't care much about the moral questions that the Christ issue brings up.

> >Maybe Wolfe sees myth as being in some way higher than religion, because he believes the Divine is most accessible through it. In that case, rather than recasting pagan myth as Christian, as he usually does, in this book he recasts Christian myth as science fiction---the highest form of myth, obviously.  ;) 
>   

Truly.  At least it's the highest form our Scientific Materialist culture can accept at this point.

> >Science fiction has been observed to be the last refuge of theological speculation, as Atwood observed in a review of a Le Guin collection: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15677.
>   

Phillip K. Dick's works shines in that regard.
Whats a good starting point with Le Guin?  Something about that Earthsea title makes me want to avoid it. but I haven't read any of her work.

~witz

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