Urth & Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe")

John Watkins · 04 Jun 2010, 19:23 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 15:23:36 -0400
Subject: (urth) Urth & Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous
	thoughts on Wolfe")
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Well, no, obviously not...

I guess what I'm asking is, do that parallels between the Chapter and the
Catholic Church rise to the level that within the fictive universe there
must be a cause-and-effect relationship between them, or can they be
interpretted as merely have a metafictive causal relationship, i.e., the
author is a Catholic with something to say and playing around with ideas
that are familiar to him?

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 3:21 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> You could just as well ask "How Catholic is the Catholic Church?" Obviously
> there are parallels with other religions in this or that aspect. It's the
> whole package that is at issue. I can't imagine that any reader has said,
> "Oh! You think the Chapter seems like a twisted version of Catholic Church?
> I hadn't thought of that."
>
>  How Catholic is the Chapter, really?
>
> Naturally there are elements in the liturgy and priestly celibacy.  But the
> Catholic liturgy did not spring forth fully formed either, and priestly
> celibacy is not a uniquely Christian practice either (many Buddhist groups,
> um...Vestal Virgins...have to be others as well).
>  On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 3:04 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, it is possible for a "Catholic Church" to have been
>> established in the Commonwealth without a Jesus (complete with crosses)
>> merely in correspondence to the vibrations of our Universe, just as in
>> Green's dimension (There Are Doors) grooms wear black at weddings only
>> because they do it in Lara's dimension.
>>
>> In that case, the Chapter is a parody of an echo. But somehow I find that
>> less satisfying.
>>
>>
>>>> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 10:36 AM, James Wynn<crushtv at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Doesn't Wolfe undermine the idea that Urth's universe has no Jesus in
>>>>> "The
>>>>> Book of the Long Sun"? Lemur told Silk that Scylla founded the Chapter
>>>>> as a
>>>>> "parody of the state religion of her own whorl". I suppose it is
>>>>> possible to
>>>>> claim that that "state religion" was not Catholicism, but I don't know
>>>>> why
>>>>> anyone would bother.
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