(urth) Grand Unified Theory

[James Wynn]

  Lee,

Perhaps this works for you in The Book of the New Sun, but how do you 
incorporate it into The Book of the Long Sun?

Some see Silk as a clone of Typhon. Others think he is the son of Typhon 
and the original Kypris. I think both is true. But that would put a big 
question mark on the nature of Silk and Typhon's daughter as well. On 
that matter, when we see her in soul-form, she is a young girl. 
Shouldn't she have been, I don't know, a little more alien?

u+16b9

On 8/19/2010 3:09 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
> Well, I'll try to present my Grand Unified Theory or spill my GUT as it were.
> It isn't that profound or unique and I doubt it will serve anyone else as an
> epiphany. But perhaps it can be slightly helpful to someone.
>
> In trying to figure out BotNS, and its accessories I eventually came to think that the
> mysteries might be too impenetrable on their own and it might be more productive to try to
> understand Gene Wolfe and how he works. I think I have read ever bio and interview available,
> most of them several times. I think his personal history is an important bit of information
> in understanding some of the things in his books. His current family situation is important
> for understanding certain things in his later books.
>
> Anyway, what I was really looking for was not my own Grand Unified Theory but Gene Wolfe's.
> If I could understand how he viewed the world then his books might make more sense. He seems
> to be a person who has an amazingly broad knowledge in the physical sciences, anthropology,
> Western literature, mythology, religion and is a very religious person himself.
>
> If he were to attempt to form his own GUT which would tie all his knowledge and beliefs of
> the world together what would it look like? From his interviews I think it is something
> like this:
>
> Q. Why is there so much congruence and convergence in the themes of ancient religions and
> early Judeo-Christianity? Multiple gods with animalistic natures, giants, shapechangers, etc.
>
> A. People in the olden days were just as smart and insightful as we are. Chances are they
> were all seeing something real which gave rise to the similarities in early religions. The
> gods, monsters and magic of the olden days was based on something people saw then which we
> are not seeing today.
>
> Q. Why do we not see the same mythological inspirations that our ancestors saw?
>
> A. They have been cleansed (though perhaps not fully) from the world by two Judeo-Christian
> events, Judeo= Flood.  Christian= Savior.
>
> The Garden of Eden seems to depict forest-dwelling human beings who don't use fire or tools or
> wear clothing. Anthropology tells us we have ancestors who fit that description. The Original
> Sin story seems to suggest that these simple human beings were brought out of their idyllic
> existence through the actions and temptations of non-human intelligence.
>
> Trying to retain a  scientific view, there were no other extant intelligent species on earth
> so the source of this non-human intelligence must be extra-terrestrial. Aliens. That's what we'd
> call them anyway. Back then they were called gods, angels, monsters, demons, fallen angels,
> giants, vampires nephilim, etc. etc.
>
> Some were relatively good to the simple primates species they found on earth, introducing them to
> various forms of knowledge and technology. Others were bad, seeking to dominate and enslave us
> and even interbreed with us.
>
> Interbreeding with humans is a common theme in mythology (even in the Bible) but it doesn't sound
> scientifically possible. But, a very common theme in ancient mythologies is that the gods/demons
> are  shapechangers. If such a shape change was accompanied by a DNA change then interbreeding
> becomes possible- with the proviso, as noted in 5HoC, that a shapechanger would not be identical to
> its model as it would want to retain the ability to change shape. Thus the DNA of a shapechanging
> alien imitating a human would not be purely human but contain impurities.
>
> I suppose there are more details, but that's basically it. I get the sense that this is Gene Wolfe's
> view of what happened in the ancient world. And I find that by keeping it in mind I can make sense
> of pretty much everything, including dreams and stories and plays, in BotNS. It helps with Long and
> Short Sun also and others also.
>
> Thus I find the question of origin easy to answer when it is observed that there seems to be megatherian
> creatures on Blue and on Urth.  Urth is a human planet, which has been invaded and corrupted by aliens. So
> megatherians originated on Blue and, most likely, other planets.
>
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