(urth) (no subject)

[Son of Witz]

On Dec 16, 2010, at 10:03 AM, Matthew Weber <palaeologos at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> But I remain unconvinced that our God and Jesus Christ make any appearances in the Sun series.
> I'd need either more direct Christian references (call it a crucifix, not a "rood"=rod) or fewer
> monsters and demons.
> 
> 
> I would think that "rood" is used primarily to refer to a cross, or the Cross.  The sense in which it means "rod" or "staff" is even more obscure than the Christian one.
> 
> I have to confess that the assumption I sometimes see at work here, that Wolfe always takes the longest way possible around everything, baffles and bemuses me.  Using the word "rood" to signify a cross or crucifix is a way of distancing the phenomenon; if he merely said "cross" or "crucifix" it would seem very cozily Christian to us.  But the BotNS is set in a far future in which Christianity may be only a distant, mythic memory--or perhaps it's a distant past in which Christianity has not yet appeared.  So calling it a rood rather than a crucifix or cross renders it intelligible and retains a slight whiff of Christianity (as a survival of long ago?) without suggesting that the denizens of Urth practice what we understand to be the Christian faith.
> 
> -- 
> Matt +
> 
> 

Thanks for that. I completely agree about the distance obscuration.
I think Wolfe is tricksy, but I think people mistrust him too much.
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