Jordan Interview

Sergei SOLOVIEV · 23 Oct 2011, 15:51 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: soloviev at irit.fr (Sergei SOLOVIEV)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:51:37 +0200
Subject: (urth) Jordan Interview
In-Reply-To: <6743119799054FF1BDC80D5B23D350C4@Rover>
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	<6743119799054FF1BDC80D5B23D350C4@Rover>
Message-ID: <4EA43809.5020307 at irit.fr>

Just one remark:

 >  Why is the Outsider repeatedly and strongly characterized as a dark god?

The medieval Christian mystics (Meister Eckhart, Ruysbroeck) often told 
that God
is "creative void" or "creative darkness" or even "creative 
nothingness"  - I am sure
Wolfe knows this very well. When Lee says "dark god"  - I have an 
impression -
he refers to modern mythology, where "dark" means "bad", "light" means 
"good".

cheers

Sergei


Gerry Quinn wrote:
>  
>  
> *From:* Lee Berman <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
> > I do think The Increate mentioned in BotNS might be the Judeo-Christian
> > god, Jaweh (or perhaps the God of the Trinity, which some consider 
> to be
> > different than Jaweh).
>
> >  On the other hand, I don't think The Pancreator is the Christian 
> God, nor
> > the Outsider. They seem to be more along the lines of demiurge to me
>  
> Why?  Doesn?t PanCreator just mean ?creator of all? while Increate 
> means ?existing without having created??  Both are attributes of the 
> Christian God (and the Muslim God, who is referenced in BotLS, so we 
> know Islam existed in Urth?s past too).  I think PanCreator and 
> Increate both refer to the same monotheistic tradition, though it may 
> well have evolved new scriptures and iconography.
>
>
> > For those who think The Outsider is meant to be our "one, true God" 
> of all
> > universes I would pose a question:
> >
> >  Why is the Outsider repeatedly and strongly characterized as a dark 
> god?
>
> I don?t see that he is.  What examples do you have in mind?  Of course 
> Silk does think of him as being linked to the darkness beyond the 
> Whorl;  but Silk is trapped in a decaying microcosm, and the only hope 
> of salvation is to flee into that spangled darkness. 
>  
> The descriptions of the Outsider in the casts of characters at the 
> start of the latter three books are interesting:
>  
> Lake: the minor god who enlightened Silk.
> Calde: the god of the broken and disparaged, whose realm lies outside 
> the Whorl
> Exodus: the god of gods
>  
> Given that the writer is Wolfe, and taking into account other events 
> such as Silk?s vision of Jesus, I don?t think this leaves very much 
> room for doubt about the identity of the Outsider.  (One might 
> speculatively identify the three descriptions with the Persons of the 
> Trinity, but that is not essential to the main reading.)
>  
> - Gerry Quinn
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
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