The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Jerry Friedman · 18 Mar 2009, 03:57 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:57:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <11498.67.142.130.31.1237346584.squirrel at brunians.org>
Message-ID: <607743.68972.qm at web50706.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

--- On Tue, 3/17/09, brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:

> From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
> Subject: Re: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 9:23 PM
> What did he say about pedophilia exactly again? That
> well-raised boys
> wouldn't put up with that kind of crap, they'd kick
> and fight and you
> couldn't actually rape them quitely?

That's how I remember it.  Not that the problem had been
exaggerated.

> I thought it was sort of a normal
> reaction from someone who was forcibly raped twice in his
> boyhood, then no more.

Me too.

> You don't think kids should be trained to fight when
> someone tries to molest them?
...

I do, but I'm not a Christian.  As the statement came from
a Catholic priest, it surprised me greatly.  Jesus says in
the Sermon on the Mount that you shouldn't resist evil
(Matt. 5:39).

I take it I missed an interesting discussion on whether
Wolfe presented Chris as a relatively decent fallen human
being trying to deal with near-impossible circumstances,
or as a "half-human monster" who, once he leaves the
monastery, becomes horrifyingly evil and stays that way
despite working as a priest.

I also take it that the jokes about the rest of Matt. 5:39
have been made to the extent necessary.

Jerry Friedman

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