Wolfe as Heretic

Lee Berman · 19 May 2010, 18:28 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 14:28:52 -0400
Subject: (urth) Wolfe as Heretic
Message-ID: <SNT123-W63267E1D9CF421C7B7D2EECFE20 at phx.gbl>

Well, I did a quick search and didn't find mention of "monolatrism"
elsewhere on this list. Can't remember it in any other analysis so
it looks like David Stockhoff might be elevated from last to first
in the Lupine universe to catch the likely intended connection between
that term and the Soldier. Much credit to John Watkins for dredging up
the term.

I wasn't seriously arguing that Wolfe should be branded a heretic. It
was mostly a jest aimed at Dan'l's worry above about "Very deep heresy".
Plus a bit of poetic license. "Wolfe as non-conventional Catholic thinker"
just didn't have the same ring for a subject title.

So monolatrism allows for Apollo and Hermes to be the Greeks' 
misinterpretation of angels while Typhon and Medusa or Lamia were the
misinterpretation of fallen angel demons, etc. But I still get the 
impression Gene Wolfe had more on his mind than the straight
religious interpretation, especially with the Sun series.

Wolfe is Catholic but he is more than just Catholic. Science and SF are  
also obviously very important to him. The decade during which Shadow of 
the Torturer was written featured a great popularity of the notion that
alien travellers had visited Earth and strongly impacted the ancient
peoples and civilizations. Not to suggest Wolfe is a "trendy" thinker but
neither did he live in a cave.  These ideas combined with monolatrism
may had been part of the impetus for that theme in the series, allowing
for Abaia and Hierodules and The Cumaean etc. to have their impact on Urth. 		 	   		  
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