(urth) UotNS and how it screws with your head

[brunians at brunians.org]

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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