Merger

Lee Berman · 01 Feb 2011, 03:20 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:20:21 -0500
Subject: (urth) Merger
Message-ID: <SNT123-w3092414BD12446FF3AAD7DCFE50 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: The autarch is *not* an androgyne, although Severian mistook him for one 
>when they first met.  He is neuter.  Those are quite different things.

Been checking under the old Appian robes, eh wot? He's been "unmanned". Are you SURE he
wasn't endowed with some ovaries in the process? Definitions of "androgynous" and include
"ambiguous in gender". Moreover, even if Severian used the wrong word I think you'll need 
to explain why WOlfe has Severian use that word. Mistaken or not, once used, the concept has
been invoked for the reader.

>Is there a lot of other androgyny in BotNS?  Hardly.

Hm. I think I came up with 8-10 examples previously. How many are needed to be "a lot"? I 
guess it is all what you are used to. That seems like a lot to me. What other books are 
you comparing it to?

>I could walk down a street of any city today and spot more androgynity than this lot.

Oh you are comparing to the real world. Well, I'd say your statement depends on which street, 
or which bar you happen to be doing your spotting. As I said, it is all what you are used to. 
But you are just arguing to argue here. It wouldn't be Gerry if there weren't a sneering line 
tossed in there somewhere ;- ).

>Where is the evidence for a Dionysus-like demiurge anyway?

Not where you can see it, obviously. But you have denied there is any mythological gnostic basis 
to the mysteries in Wolfe's work so this is not surprising.

>Presumably every cosmic cycle was created by the same entity, including that of Urth and our 
>own if it is different.  This entity is known on Urth as the Increate or the Pancreator.  No special 
>characteristics are ascribed to him; in particular there is no suggestion in the text of androgyny.

Unless you know where to look. You may think of God as an incorporeal, distant being who never 
gets personally involved in human affairs but not everyone does and in the mythological past almost
everyone assumed there were godly appearances on earth in human form. I think this happens in BotNS.

>It's also suggested that Ah Lah is an alternative name for the Outsider.  It can hardly be doubted 
>that Increate and Pancreator are also alternate names.

Correct. However the name "Jahweh" or even "God" is suspiciously absent. Present is the suggestion that 
The Outsider is the God of Wine, Son of Thyone. Can't get a more direct reference to Dionysus than that. 
And you correctly deduce that he and the Pancreator are one and the same. I'm not so sure about the 
Increate who was "not created". But Pancreator and demiurge are synonymous enough for me. 

Using these terms independently as though the Increate and Pancreator might not be the same being suggests 
to me that BotNS is set in a gnostic universe. In such a place, the true spiritual God and the pancreator 
of all the material substance we see are not the same thing.

Moreover, we find Dionysian associations, androgyny, witches, snakes, bull, green man etc. in BotNS. If 
you don't see any transubstantial meaning to them, it is fine to restrict one's self to the plowman's 
interpretation. It is a crackling good story read at face value. Who cares if there are a few stupid 
dreams and stories with mythological symbolism. We can ignore them, as we can ignore our own dreams.

>Finally, why link Dionysus to the concept of a demiurge?  Are they classically identified?  

Yes, they are. You can Google "Dionysus" and "demiurge" and "Plato" and "Zoroastrianism" and "Great God Pan" 
and "The Green Man" and "Nietzsche" etc. as easily as I have done. It is just a matter of wanting to.

>Is the universe of Urth especially Dionysian in aspect?  I don't see anything especially Dionysian about 
>it at all.

That's because you are not trying very hard to see it from that perspective. In fact, you are trying very 
hard not to see it. Such efforts do not go unrewarded. If you were more easy-going you'd just ignore it.
But the effort is noted.

Anyway, you have apparently missed a substantial number of posts in the past few months identifying not only 
the Dionysian aspects of BotNS but also the Apollonian counterparts. Very interesting philosophical and 
literary concepts these Apollonian and Dionysian themes. You should check them out. (in fact, Gerry, you
personally would seem to lean very heavily toward one side of this spectrum; guess which one).

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