Gnostic Wolfe

Kevin J. Maroney · 23 Oct 2002, 00:54 · from urth-v0210.mbox · original

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From: "Kevin J. Maroney" <kjm at panix.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Gnostic Wolfe
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 20:54:39 -0400
Message-ID: <urth-v0210-1909 at digest.urth.net>
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<delurk>

Alga Alice just encouraged me to post this observation I made to her off-li=
st:

It's pretty clear to me that Wolfe didn't have the Short Sun in mind when=20
he started Long Sun, but that he did by the time he finished Long Sun. Pas=20
as demiurge is such a clear image that it's hard to believe that he=20
*didn't* intend for the work to function, in part at least, as an attack on=20
Gnosticism; he may have teased the ideas out further as he composed the=20
later novels.

My biggest metaquestion about Return to the Whorl was "why is there so much=20
narrative effort devoted to burying Scylla's shade?"; if she somehow=20
represents Sophia, then it makes more sense. But it's hard to see how she=20
would be Sophia. The adult Scylla is about as vile a character as Wolfe has=20
limned, and the child is pretty passive.

Here's a connection I've never teased out before: Silk is (in part) St.=20
Francis of Assisi, who lived from 1181 to 1226, in Umbria; his mother is=20
believed to have been Provencal. The Albigensians flourished in Provence in=20
the 12th and 13th centuries; the Albigensians were quasi-Gnostic. The=20
Catholic Encyclopedia doesn't say anything about Francis opposing the=20
Albigensians, but the temporal overlap is striking.

</delurk>
--
Wombat, a. k. a. Kevin J. Maroney kjm at panix.com
New York Review of Science Fiction: <http://www.nyrsf.com>

--=20

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