The Wizard

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 08 Mar 2012, 21:09 · from 2012-March.txt.gz
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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 13:09:09 -0800
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
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But what's different at the end is that Able's blood is given voluntarily.

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> "But some have pointed out that potentially eucharistic symbolism is
> brought in right at the end"
>
> Is the portion you had in mind when Desiri drinks Able's blood until she
> becomes "real"?  The drinking of blood for power / healing / transformation
> showed up several times earlier, I remember.  When Able is wounded in *The
> Knight* he drinks either Uri or Baki's (I don't remember which) blood to
> become healed.  This sort of "blood sacrifice" that pops up a few times is
> less a form of thanksgiving and more of a pagan transference of power;
> blood as a source of rejuvenation is a particularly common theme in
> pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures.  The fact that the blood of *several*characters seems to have some type of inherent power (the Ael and Able)
> strikes me as another parallel to Aztec religions (where both human and
> divine blood has power when offered as a sacrifice).
>
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Daniel Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think maybe this is the classic interview where Wolfe talks directly
>> about some of his Christian beliefs in relation to his fiction.  The
>> interview's conveniently broken into links, one labelled 'religion'.
>>
>> http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/gwjbj.html
>>
>> Or you can go straight to the religion bit here:
>>
>> http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/gwjbj1.html#relig
>>
>>  I would just point out that the Most High God seems quite absent from
>> the lower worlds and that "he" struck me as a remarkably deist being,
>> especially considering how active the "gods" of other realms interact with
>> the worlds below them.  It seems that it is easy to go a world "up" or
>> "down", but going farther than that is rarer (perhaps a "two-world jump" is
>> even impossible), so perhaps the Most High God's influence is mainly in the
>> world second from the top.
>>
>> Yeah, I noticed this too.  In that sense, this work seemed more nearly
>> Gnostic than any other.  I wondered if he was being even more obliquely
>> ironic and subversive than usual (a world without Christ keeps us distant
>> from the Most High).  But some have pointed out that potentially
>> eucharistic symbolism is brought in right at the end - so maybe Christian
>> redemption is hinted at.
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Haha, a valiant attempt, Daniel. [?] Can anyone link to an interview(s)
>>> in which Wolfe talks about his faith in relation to his writing?  I have
>>> read a fair number of his interviews but they were mostly focused on his
>>> philosophies of writing, etc.  Also, if I can bring it back to *The
>>> Wizard* for a minute, I would just point out that the Most High God
>>> seems quite absent from the lower worlds and that "he" struck me as a
>>> remarkably deist being, especially considering how active the "gods" of
>>> other realms interact with the worlds below them.  It seems that it is easy
>>> to go a world "up" or "down", but going farther than that is rarer (perhaps
>>> a "two-world jump" is even impossible), so perhaps the Most High God's
>>> influence is mainly in the world second from the top.  Can anyone refresh
>>> my memory of where Parka is from?  Was she an entity of Elysion, or Kleos?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Daniel Petersen <
>>> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey, I thought you didn't want to discuss this! :)
>>>>
>>>> The *larger* summary of the doctrine of God from the entire OT could
>>>> not possibly be accurately represented by a summary of the (alleged)
>>>> doctrine of God one garners merely from the orders to exterminate the
>>>> Canaanites.  Wolfe, in Long Sun for example, is surely drawing on a
>>>> doctrine of a merciful, enlightening, liberating God culled partly from
>>>> themes in Genesis and Exodus in terms of God's grace toward Abraham 'lost'
>>>> in idolatry and then the Israelites in slavery.  Sure, Wolfe needs the NT
>>>> development of the doctrine of God in addition - but humanly understandable
>>>> divine revelation and the provision of a leader to lead an oppressed people
>>>> out of idolatry and slavery are already powerfully embodied in the Torah.
>>>>  Thus, the God in the fiction of Gene Wolfe echoes the God who is
>>>> progressively revealed from Old into New Testaments (on the orthodox
>>>> Christian understanding.)  That's my thesis.  Seeing the God of the OT
>>>> merely as a genocidal tryant does violence to the theology found in Wolfe's
>>>> fiction, I think.  Maybe Wolfe's wrong in his understanding.  I, at least,
>>>> do not think he is.  (Trying to keep us *slightly* on topic here, heh.)
>>>>
>>>> -DOJP
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2012/3/8 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>> Daniel Petersen wrote (08-03-2012 16:30):
>>>>>
>>>>>> Your summary of the OT God as genocidal and
>>>>>> whatnot just is unsophisticated in its reading of the library of
>>>>>> texts (...)
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The key word is *summary*. Otherwise there's just no way to go around
>>>>> all the clear, insistent and absolute *orders* to fully exterminate the
>>>>> Canaanites.
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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