Abaia and the undines

Son of Witz · 06 Dec 2008, 04:28 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org (Son of Witz)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 20:28:01 -0800
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <50CD1F046692403FB2C540234BD53C56@GATEWAY>
References: <W217641043543611228522617@webmail32>
	<50CD1F046692403FB2C540234BD53C56@GATEWAY>
Message-ID: <02307108-3B5A-40A5-AF41-70DC2D6FFCC2 at butcherbaker.org>


On Dec 5, 2008, at 7:47 PM, James Wynn wrote:

>> Does anyone thing a Believer in Christ would write a story this  
>> full of Christian
>> symbolism just to yank the rug out from under you and say "sucker,  
>> you're faith is all a lie"?
>
> I'd be curious to read a point-by-point detailing of all this  
> supposedly explicit Christian symbolism in "The Book of the New  
> Sun". I'm usually pretty good at this sort of thing. But I don't  
> find it especially overwhelming.
>
> I seem to recall that in an interview with James Jordan, Wolfe  
> balked giving any place to Severian a stand-in for Christ. He  
> explicitly corrected Jordan by stating he was a "Christ-figure".  
> Well, Christ-figures are a dime-a-dozen. Raymond Shaw in "The  
> Manchurian Candidate" is a Christ-figure. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Christ- 
> figure.
>
> Yes, there's the who Mediator thing, but that always struck me as  
> more of the Gnostic symbolism rather than Christian (don't get mad  
> Gnostics, you know what people mean by "Christian"). If I were going  
> to designate Severian/Conciliator as something Biblical, it would  
> probably be Elijah or John the Baptist (who was also Elijah in a  
> sense, so Jesus said) or, better, *Adam*.
>
> I meant to ask Wolfe in Chicago--but I completely didn't get around  
> to it, but I did mention it to Nigel--what he would say to someone  
> who stated that his entire Sun cycle of stories is to Gnosticism as  
> The Chronicles of Naria are to Orthodox Christianity.
>
> J.


you know,
I think my ideas about Christ are severely unorthodox & probably  
heretical.
no point in trying to get this across in a rational way

~witz

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