(urth) UotNS and how it screws with your head

[brunians at brunians.org]

Many protestants use their religion in ways not incompatible with reality.

Many is perhaps a strong word, but they do exist.

That your father-in-law is one is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

.


> My father-in-law is a Protestant, of course. (broad wink)
>
> I'd turn him on to Wolfe but I fear the result. He might stop reading
> altogether.
>
> brunians at brunians.org wrote:
>> The World is as it is.
>>
>> Religion - real religion - acknowledges this.
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>> My father-in-law, who eschews SF because it lacks hope with a capital
>>> (C)H(RIST), would agree with you.
>>>
>>> I disagree. As a Catholic acquaintance once said to me, "Catholicism is
>>> not supposed to be easy." If you take it seriously, it acknowledges the
>>> most horrifying pain of existence and tries to justify it. I respect
>>> that.
>>>
>>> BotNS has a perpetual subtext of violence and injustice. You could
>>> trace
>>> every chapter and scene simply by the violence done or attempted by one
>>> human being to/on another. There is a purpose to this subtext.
>>>
>>> Lee Berman wrote:
>>>
>>>> John Watkins:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I don't think so...I think the black hole in the Sun exists as a
>>>>> white
>>>>> fountain
>>>>> in the lower universe (Abbadon?)   It would follow that the white
>>>>> fountain Severian
>>>>> creates exists as a black hole in Yesod or some higher plane.  There
>>>>> may be an
>>>>> incredible number oflayers of universes...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Nice post John. My thinking has leaned in the same direction, heavily
>>>> influenced
>>>> by the (surprisingly) hard SF, (shockingly) foresighted 1972 book, The
>>>> Gods Themselves,
>>>> by Asimov. I don't feel it is considered a very seminal work though it
>>>> did win the Hugo
>>>> and Nebula.  Surely Wolfe read it?
>>>>
>>>> It paints a very similar picture of the universes leaking from higher
>>>> energy to lower
>>>> which might clarify things in BotNS. As you say, Severian's (and
>>>> Apheta's?) creation
>>>> was a White Fountain in Briah. But it was a black hole they created in
>>>> Yesod
>>>> (no snarky comments please). Was Yesod (or maybe Sol) left with a
>>>> black
>>>> hole that they
>>>> will need to repair?
>>>>
>>>> We have heard the black hole in Urth's sun was created as a
>>>> punishment.
>>>> But could we
>>>> infer that it (also) was created when a nastier version of Severian
>>>> travelled to Briah
>>>> to get a white fountain to bring back and heal the black hole for a
>>>> nastier version of
>>>> Urth in Abbadon?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Metaphorically (and maybe literally), I think Wolfe is making a point
>>>>> about
>>>>> grace...God, being the well that never goes dry, can give without
>>>>> taking... et cetera.
>>>>> These points would be lost, or their effectiveness reduced, if the
>>>>> white fountain and
>>>>> the black hole were one and the same.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Wolfe is usually portrayed as a devout Catholic but, given his
>>>> writing,
>>>> I have serious
>>>> doubts whether he has the same view of grace and the "God Is Love"
>>>> stuff
>>>> that most
>>>> Christians have or are supposed to have. He really seems to have a
>>>> dark
>>>> and pessimistic
>>>> side which comes out in pretty much all his work. Where, in his work,
>>>> is
>>>> the shining,
>>>> uncompromised  redemption we must (as christians) eventually, somehow
>>>> achieve? Is he
>>>> saving that for his last novel maybe?
>>>>
>>>> In a way I hope so. But I doubt Gene Wolfe's worldview is likely to
>>>> become more
>>>> positive as he nears death. Tzadkiel, who is so much more spiritually
>>>> advanced than
>>>> Severian, is still infinitely far from the Increate. I suspect a soul
>>>> will have to pass
>>>> through an eternity of incarnations before becoming one with God, in
>>>> the
>>>> Wolfean cosmos.
>>>> And that is dark, pessimistic and depressing.
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>>>>
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