The Wizard

Daniel Petersen · 28 Feb 2012, 17:47 · from 2012-February.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:47:41 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
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Ah!  Thanks for pointing this out.  To be honest, Wizard-Knight was what
got me properly into Wolfe and I hadn't yet really read the Solar Cycle and
other works to see his themes and how they work.  (I had actually read
3/4ths of New Sun some years before, but was mostly baffled - both
intrigued and fatigued.)  I'm sure I'll see so much when I re-read
Wizard-Knight.

It's funny if some find that too overt.  I often find Wolfe most poignant
when most overt on Christian themes (perhaps especially Eucharistic ones).
They usually don't make me cringe at all but come across like a wise old
desert father or something.  (I do share his Christian faith, but overt
Christian themes in fiction can make me squirm more than anything else when
done poorly.)  Then again, what I took to be some pretty obvious moments
(e.g. wine and bread rituals coinciding with a theophany of the Outsider in
Short Sun), some seem to perplexingly read as being mainly about
referencing Dionysus myths or what have you!  So there ya go.

-DOJP

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:12 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>  At the end of The Wizard, Able feeds his blood to Disiri until she is
> raised to his level, from an Aelf (her true form being mud and sticks and
> leaves) to human. This is a very eucharistic theme, I think. A very overtly
> Christian theme and IIRC some on this list considered it too overt for
> their tastes.
> J.
>
> On 2/28/2012 4:11 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
>
> Sorry, I should clarify that I didn't detect any overt Judeo-Christian
> elements (especially compared to other major Wolfe works) except Michael.
> But, yes, as has been mentioned, the very concept of a Most High God is
> lifted straight from Old Testament scripture (and other ancient
> Mesopotamian texts?).  And yes, Michael's position to the Oden figure is
> surely significant (symbolised by size-proportion to tingling effect, I
> thought).  And yes, I was trying to say that I suspected Wolfe wove his
> Catholic worldview deeply into the fabric of Wizard-Knight through various
> means other than (what seems to me the mostly absent) way of direct
> allusion.  I can't remember the ending of The Wizard, but the way The
> Knight ended seemed fairly Christian 'eternal reward'/'heaven'-ish (and
> again probably subsuming other myths of afterlife).
>
> I guess I'm fairly shocked not to detect a eucharistic element, which
> usually seems central to Wolfe's epic works.  But maybe that's the point?
>
> -DOJP
>
>
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