This week in Google Alerts

Lee Berman · 02 Nov 2011, 20:12 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 16:12:39 -0400
Subject: (urth) This week in Google Alerts
Message-ID: <SNT123-W9A30F5C4C5AD893652E45CFD40 at phx.gbl>

>Craig Brewer: In the end, I prefer it to be "a really long time" and not knowing 
>exactly is a more appropriate sense of history that Severian has throughout most of 
>the book.

I tend to agree. While Wolfe does a great job using state-of-the-art 70's science to
back up his story, I think the deeper underpinnings of the story are more social and 
religious. As a work of literature, the story must take precedence over science.

>Gerry Quinn: The question of whether Urth had a Christ is one that you find significant, 
>but it is only in your theory that it has any relevance to the which cycle of the universe 
>Urth exists in. There is plenty of textual evidence, particularly in Long Sun, suggesting 
>that Urth did indeed have a Christ.

As has been noted in the past, I think the evidence is more for a Jesus than a Christ.
I think you understand the difference.

>Maytera Marble: "When we were outside like him [The Outsider], living in the Short Sun Whorl 
before this one was finished and peopled, we worshipped him. No doubt you knew that already, 
Patera...."It wasn't called manteion, either. Something else."

>Gerry Quinn: In Typhon?s empire, Christianity has retreated to the downtrodden and disparaged: 
>that is to say, it is mainly to be found among the chems.

That is a reasonable theory, Gerry. I respect it even while finding it less probably than other 
theories. As previously noted, The Outsider is persistently presented as a dark (not evil) god. 
Wolfe has said Severian is an aspect of The Outsider and Severian himself has become a dark 
(though not evil) god by the end of UotNS. (and when the dark gods don't come, their "place is
taken by a demon.")

Unless Severian is Jesus or his second coming, I can't see the Outsider as our Jehovah. As a
demiurge, The Outsider would make an ideal god for chems, presumably being more material and 
less of the spirit than a human being. Moreover, the greatest masters of chem programming are,
who else, but the dark mechanics.

Perhaps you were thinking that the word Matera Marble was searching for was "church"? I think 
it was "temple". Manteion is a place for the worship of false gods, Pas and his family. I think 
in Briah the worship of the true god is worship of the dark, mysterious Outsider.

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