(urth) UotNS and how it screws with your head

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Tue Jul 13 11:35:53 PDT 2010


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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