DOORS: The Hero, The Otherworld, The Ending

Andy Robertson · 17 Jan 2003, 17:03 · from urth-v0301.mbox · original

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From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) DOORS: The Hero, The Otherworld, The Ending
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:03:14 -0000
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---- Original Message -----
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>

>>>Mmm. I don't know enough about "tutelary angels" to answer
this. I am quite certain, however, that Lewis's use of the
term "gods" wrt the Oyarses was not intended to suggest that
they were gods, but that humans would take them for gods.

I should explain that reading C S Lewis's books converted me to Christianity
when I was young (but I got better) , and I was an obsessive fan of Lewis,
Tolkien and the Inklings for years.

I think, however, that you are fearing a word here.

When Lewis wrote (at the triumphant climax of PERELANDRA) that his hero was
no longer going to regard Malacandra and Perelandra as eldilia, but as "Mars
and Venus" I believe he fully understood everything that you are worried
about and more.

I invite you to reread that bit.

Whether or not this is heresy does not concern me, much.   I am an
Asatruistic pagan nowadays :).

What I am trying to explain by the coinage "Catholic Fabulation" is that
there is a tradition of storytelling that runs along these lines.

It includes the Inklings' work (Williams too) but does NOT  include such
unambiguously religious works  as, for example,  A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWIZT

The difference lies in the treatment of the supernatural.

CF embraces the supernatural and **enables** it:

It occurs in the stories, but in drag, in disguise.

The keynote is that angels or demons or gods pop up and they pretend to be
aliens.  God pops up, but he pretends to be The Increate or The Emperor Over
The Sea.

I believe Wolfe is writing WITHIN that tradition.

I furthur believe it goes back a long way - and that it is a very European
tradition, enforced by the historical fact that the ancient giants and gods
and fairies had to be fitted into a dominating Semitic/Christian framework.

It occurs in many Arthurian romances, for example, where the ancient Celtic
legends have to be jammed ino the framework of Christian explanation:  and
so in Beowulf.

Tolkien reflexed back on this - he was in love with "The Northern Thing"
like Lewis, but he had to fit it within "The Southermn Thing" -
Christianity - as a worldview.      Wolfe is doing the same thing and may be
taking both Tolkien and Lewis as mentors.

--=20

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