the great god Pan

James Jordan · 24 Jan 2003, 02:24 · from urth-v0301.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) the great god Pan
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 20:24:53 -0600
Message-ID: <urth-v0301-2793 at digest.urth.net>
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Russell rote:


>>This raises the wider question of Wolfe's ambiguous and often quite
>>terrifying presentation of the Greek deities.

         A whole lot of what we are brought up on about ancient Greek and=20
Roman religion has been cleaned up. You never hear about the human=20
sacrifices offered before important battles, so that human entrails could=20
be read. Stories about the gods have often been cleaned up too. In reality,=20
they were a pretty frightening bunch, which is why they had to be appeased=20
and bought-off all the time. Happily, modern scholarship seems much more=20
open about such matters, not writing books for children and for 19th c. pru=
des.

>>  I think we are to view
>>them as actual gods, not just Latro's hallucinations, but Wolfe says in
>>one interview that they were "not worthy of being worshipped." Would
>>that make them demons?

         Probably. Fallen angels.

>>  What is the orthodox Catholic position these days
>>on rival religions and their supernatural beings?

         I think Wolfe would agree that when Adam gave the world to Satan,=20
and put his posterity under Satan (though he probably does not take the=20
story literally), he gave the world and humanity over to the demonic realm.=20
He is clearly "conservative" on the general matter, anyway, since he does=20
not demythologize demons and "gods" into "aspects of human consciousness"=20
or some such thing.
         I don't know that Wolfe would say, "There was a demon named=20
Athena, and another named Baal." But I think he would say that demons did=20
occasionally interact with people, who then concocted names and stories=20
about them.

>>Certainly the
>>underlying logic of the Latro novels thus far is the move from
>>Earth-worship to Father-worship, and as usual in Wolfe all the major
>>evil characters are either female (or in one case) become female.  (Not
>>that he's totally misogynistic: the Amazons are portrayed entirely
>>positively, and Io the slave girl is the brightest and best of all his
>>characters.)

         I think that's right. Latro is on his way to some kind of contact=20
with Israel -- which doubtless will be muted and concealed in the text,=20
providing Wolfe lives to write it. The evil female characters have to do=20
with worshipping the creature (earth) rather than the creator (God). Wolfe=20
shows us where he thinks such an orientation leads, to cruelty and horror.

Nutria


--=20

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