(urth) Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis

[Zachary Kendal]

On 22/09/2009, at 3:34 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> --- On Mon, 9/21/09, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 4:26 PM,
>> Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seems like a worthwhile thesis, although I wonder whether
>> those 2
>> priest archetypes are quite so universal - such a
>> categorization would
>> have difficulty with Frank Herbert, I think.
>>
>>
>> ... and Arthur Clarke ("The Star")
>
> It's been a long time, but I have the impression the
> narrator's faith was shaken, not stirred.
>
> Do the priests or monks in "The Nine Billion Names of
> God" count?
>
>> ... and Dan
>> Simmons (Hyperion) ... and Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow)
>> ... and Peter F. Hamilton (the Night's Dawn trilogy) ...
>> and Walter M. Miller (A Canticle for Leibowitz) ... and Tony
>> Boucher ("The Quest for St. Aquin") ... and ...
>
> You've got some points there (as best I remember those
> books and stories).
>
>> The makings of at least one excellent doctoral thesis lies
>> in the image of the (Catholic) priest in SF. However, this
>> person's thesis ain't it.
>
> Definitely not, if I'm right in thinking this is an
> undergrad thesis.  However, hope is a virtue, I'm told.
> Maybe he'll get out of his stereotypes by doing the
> research.
>
> Jerry Friedman

Ouch! But I should probably introduce myself before taking up my own  
defence: Hi, I'm Zac, and, yes, I'm doing a thesis on Gene Wolfe. I  
know I really should have introduced myself earlier - before my blog  
became a topic of discussion (you couldn't have known I was lurking  
around the Urth mailing list) - but I was a little intimidated by how  
much everyone here seems to know about Wolfe's work.

Anyway, I'll re-post here what I wrote on my blog in defence of my  
thesis topic (slightly edited to fit this context):

"Thank you for your feedback. I fully acknowledge that I have a lot of  
research still to do - indeed, I have hardly begun. I also know that  
these broad categories I have set out above may not hold up under  
scrutiny - and like 99% of people writing theses, I will probably end  
up writing something quite different to that which I had originally  
planned.

"I should have been clearer in my original post, but these crude  
'stereotypes' are what I *currently* have the impression are dominant.  
I gather, from the limited research I have already done, that most SF  
with priests as protagonists (not peripheral or minor characters)  
either use the priest to challenge (or shake or debunk) the priest's  
faith, or to have it reaffirmed. These two categories are, of course,  
generalisations.

"I *plan* to argue that Wolfe finds a middle ground between these two  
*dominant* approaches to the priest. That he manages to do both debunk  
*and* affirm aspects of Catholicism (ritual vs. spiritual?). I do not  
plan to argue that no other author has ever done the same and  
challenged these two approaches.

"Thank you very much for your recommended texts - I'm currently in the  
process of planning my summer reading, and some of these were not yet  
on my list. And I will welcome any texts that may challenge these  
'stereotypes' of mine.

"It may also have been unclear in my post that this is an  
undergraduate thesis - a 15,000 word thesis that I will do in 2010 for  
my honours degree (we do things differently in Australia, I think).  
While the broad topic of the (Catholic) priest in SF would provide  
plenty to study for a PhD thesis, I am very restricted in both the  
time I have to research, and the length of my finished thesis."

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes - I'm not entirely sure you have any right to be so  
negative about my thesis since (a) I haven't written it, and (b) you  
haven't read it. For all you know, my thesis could shake the  
foundations of SF studies and completely change the world... well,  
alright, I highly doubt that too - but it could happen?

I realise that it is not very fair that I was reading these posts  
without your knowing, and I apologise. I would warmly welcome any  
constructive criticism that anyone might have. I am passionate about  
Wolfe's writing, and have been wanting to write on his work since I  
started my degree. Not much scholarship seems to have been written on  
Silk and BotLS, so I thought I would investigate how Wolfe uses his  
priest in an original and exciting way - since I believe that Wolfe is  
an important (and newsworthy, as gwern said) SF author... I'm sure  
that we can all agree on that much at least :)

Cheers,
Zac