Sham War

Lee Berman · 09 Aug 2010, 14:11 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 10:11:34 -0400
Subject: (urth) Sham War
Message-ID: <SNT123-W57FF1CA7E85F62A38246EACF940 at phx.gbl>

>James Wynn- Seeing what North Korea has become, knowing what the Soviet 
>Union was like and what happened 25 years later under Mao, I'm not so 
>sure _I_ feel this way and I have far less skin invested in that war 
>than Mr. Wolfe.

You miss my point. I would guess that, as a participant, Gene Wolfe would 
care very deeply about who won the Korean and Cold Wars. The question is, 
who did God want to win?

Surely the Cold War stalemate and Korean division that dominated most of
Gene Wolfe's life would be disturbing to him. If ever there was a war God would
play favorites on it would be the war against the godless Communists. Yet
they were not vanquished (esp. circa BotNS writing). 

Perhaps this helped inspire him to create a story in which war has a higher 
purpose than the simple human illusion of good triumphing over evil.

Regarding Hierogrammates, you say- 

>The war continued only because it was a minor annoyance to them (at least), or *it
>served their purpose in some way*.

I would agree, especially with the latter possibility.

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