The Best Introduction To The Mountains

Andy Robertson · 02 Jan 2002, 14:53 · from urth-v0031.mbox · original

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From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: The Best Introduction To The Mountains
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 14:53:54 -0000
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Stephanides" <adamsteph at earthlink.net>

> Thanks for putting this essay on your website, Andy; it's a great service.
> I agree that it's an important essay for Wolfe scholars, even if you don't
> care about Tolkien, as I don't.  (Has Wolfe ever mentioned Tolkien in
print
> before?)

Not as far as I know.

> Some aspects of his work definitely need to be reconsidered in
> light of it, such as the presentation of the Autarch's rule in BOTNS as
the
> best possible under the circumstances, and of rebellion against it as
> "Satanic"; and the portrayal of Silk and Silkhorn as "natural leaders."
And
> I may have been too quick, earlier, to dismiss the poster who argued that
> BOTSS presented examples of "good rule."  But then, those elements of the
> books never appealed to me.

Me neither, frankly.  I always thought Wolfe undermined Severian's moral
authority at every turn.

>
> I haven't looked at MEDITATIONS ON MIDDLE-EARTH, but possibly Wolfe's
essay
> was rejected because the image of Tolkien as propagandist for a society in
> which the lower orders cheerfully obey and serve their betters was not one
> the editor wanted to project.

But no, no, no, Wolfe is not propagandising for feudalism.

<quote>
There is one very real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of
times, and it is this: that they were times of defined and definite duties
and freedoms.
</quote>

I understand that could be a mistake one would make reading this essay, but
he is talking about something much more like libertarianism:  freedom,
liberty and *property*. .   This has absolutely nohing to do with supporting
tyranny, (and if conservatism is about supporting tyranny, Wolfe is not a
conservative)

<quote>
We might have a society in which the laws were few and just, simple,
permanent, and familiar to everyone -- a society in which everyone stood
shoulder-to-shoulder because everyone lived by the same changeless rules,
and everyone knew what those rules were. When we had it, we would also have
a society in which the lack of wealth was not reason for resentment but a
spur to ambition, and in which wealth was not a cause for self-indulgence
but a call to service.
</quote>

>
> Between this and Wolfe's comments on 9-11 I'm learning more about Wolfe's
> politics than I think I want to know, and I fear for THE WIZARD KNIGHT.

Wolfe is a Conservative Catholic Christian right-winger.   Deal With It!!!!

All his writing from THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS onward (apart from the odd
potboiler) has embodied this view of right and wrong.

>
> And Terry Brooks again!  First Pullman praises him, then Wolfe criticizes
> his detractors.  I've never read him, but can it be that his bad
reputation
> is not entirely deserved?
>

This I cannot believe, even from the hand of the Wolfe.

    --- *** ---

But where are Wolfe's comments on 9/11, pray?   I want to read them.

Yours in Conservative hufpuffery

    Andy Robertson

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