travelling north

James Wynn · 03 Jun 2010, 23:12 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:12:11 -0500
Subject: (urth) travelling north
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I think the contention (for me) is that although #1 is true I do not 
think...

3) Wolfe necessarily sees Severian as a *figurative* stand-in for the 
Jesus he believes in.

The figurative worlds of Severian and Silk are Gnostic ones not 
Judeo-Apostolic ones. Those protagonists act, and achieve, within their 
worlds as the Gnostic Christ does. Not as the Johanine Christ acts.

On 6/3/2010 5:21 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> I think it's #2 that gives some people heartburn.
>
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 3:19 PM, John Watkins<john.watkins04 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I think this has been covered, right?
>>
>> 1)  Obviously there are intentional parallels between Severian and Jesus.
>> 2)  Obviously Severian is not a literal stand-in for or equivalent to Jesus.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Jerry Friedman<jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>      
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>
>>> On 6/3/2010 2:56 PM, James Wynn wrote:
>>>        
>>>>> On 6/3/2010 2:54 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>>>>>            
>>>>>> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:49 PM, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com>    wrote:
>>>>>>              
>>>>>>> Wolfe has said that Severian is a "Christ-figure".
>>>>>>>                
>>>>>> Actually, Wolfe has specifically _denied_ that any of his heroes are
>>>>>> Christ-figures, and prefers the term "Christian figure."
>>>>>>              
>>>>> Well, even more so then.
>>>>>            
>>> Here's the quotation (or one version).  The "you" is James Jordan.
>>>
>>> "And as you've said in your letters, I don't think of
>>> Severian as being a Christ figure; I think of Severian as being a
>>> Christian figure. He is a man who has been born into a very
>>> perverse background, who is gradually trying to become better. I
>>> think that all of us have somewhere in us an instinct to try and
>>> become better. Some of us defeat it thoroughly. We kill that part
>>> of ourselves, just as we kill the child in ourselves. It is very
>>> closely related to the child in us."
>>>
>>> http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfejbj.html
>>>
>>>        
>>>> On the other hand, the intended parallels do pile up. To once again
>>>> quote Castle of the Otter/Castle of Days:
>>>> "Many of us have read so often that he was a "humble carpenter"...The
>>>> man who built the built the cross was as much a carpenter too...The only
>>>> object we
>>>> are specifically told he made was not a table or a chair, but a
>>>> whip...Christ knew not only the pain of torture but the pain of being a
>>>> torturer..."
>>>>          
>>> That's a good one, which I'd forgotten.  But it doesn't mean Severian is
>>> like Christ or that he did for his universe what Wolfe believes Jesus did
>>> for ours.  Severian is far from perfect.
>>>
>>> Wolfe also points out a parallel to someone who was presumably not a
>>> savior at all, the carpenter who made the cross.
>>>
>>> Jerry Friedman
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>

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