(urth) academic commentary

Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 29 07:55:08 PST 2010


To be fair, I don't think Wright's central thesis is that BotNS is atheistic. Or 
rather, that's certainly where he ends up, but I don't think he's primarily 
giving a theological (or a-theological) reading.

Instead, he's concerned with how Wolfe uses intertextuality (both with other 
actual books and you might say "internal" intertextual) to create the experience 
of creating and confounding reader expectations. That's something we all know, 
and what ultimately makes his book not all that controversial, I'd think. We all 
know that reading Wolfe with an eye to a kind of "second text" that lies 
underneath the apparent story is standard operating procedure for a Wolfe book. 
Wright just tries to lay out a sort of general methodology for doing that with 
Wolfe.

That said, his primary example is that BotNS *appears* to be a story of Severian 
living out a kind of spiritual Christ-figure story. But, as Lee said, Wright 
then shows how there's the second text of the "aliens who play Severian and 
humanity like a fiddle." That's the atheistic view. And it's certainly there as 
a possibility, one that has been mentioned many times, and, I think, most close 
readers of BotNS accept this Wolfe presents this as one possible, even if 
incomplete, explanation of the larger story a number of times in the story. It 
also seems like a step one has to go through when interpreting the text.

The problem, as I see it, is that Wright pretty much stops there. Many people, 
and Wolfe included, I would think, want to say that there's yet a third "text" 
which is the story of how the Hierodules are still carrying out a divine plan, 
even if they think they're just manipulating everything else. That's the idea 
we've hashed out so often in this list where "evil" turns out to be used for 
"good," etc. Ultimately, I think that Wright's sense of how Wolfe manipulates a 
reader's expectations with stories-within-stories still fits this 
interpretation.

In other words, Wright is ultimately giving a methodological reading of Wolfe. 
And it's one that I think a majority of readers would agree with. But his 
primary interpretive example just doesn't go far enough, even on his own terms.

This is particularly problematic when he gets to Long Sun. It seems to me that 
Long Sun makes it patently clear from the beginning that what we're going to see 
is how true revelation, Silk's vision, has to be understood through a "fallen" 
mythology. That seems to be the entire stated point of Long Sun, especially 
given the relative directness of the first chapter compared to the opening of 
BotNS. But Wright largely ignores this and, instead, focuses on how Pas has 
created a false religion. That entire part of his book just seemed clumsy to me 
as if he was blatantly ignoring aspects of other books that would complicate 
what came before.

I'm also a bit mystified about why Wright took the angle he did when Wolfe has 
been so straightforward about his own religious beliefs. Wright just never 
addresses it. Granted, not every book that Wolfe writes has to be completely 
consistent with his own beliefs. One can make stuff up and lie in fiction, after 
all. But, if I recall correctly, Wright never even addresses why Wolfe, a 
believer, might have written a book that, according to Wright, is all about how 
beliefs are ultimately lies.

Anyway...I learned a lot from Wright's book, even if I found it incredibly 
frustrating at times. Like I said, I think he's good as far as he goes, but he's 
only finished half of the job. He needs to go further and ask himself how his 
own interpretation could itself still be an "artifice" (his term) used to 
deceive the reader and make him think and read even more closely.




----- Original Message ----
From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Sent: Mon, November 29, 2010 6:16:44 AM
Subject: (urth) academic commentary



>Jeff WIlson- He effectively says the "evil does the work of the Increate, too" 
>meme 
>
>was planted by the Yesodis?

Yeah, that's my gathering. I think Wright analyzes BotNS from an atheistic 
perspective.
So there is no truly higher spiritual power involved. Just some highly advanced 
aliens
who play Severian and humanity like a fiddle.

Jane I think I remember which short paragraph it was in which "the relationship 
& balance 

of power between Tzadkiel and Severian are both subverted - turned upon their 
heads 

indeed". Is it where Tzadkiel confesses to being an acolyte to Severian in a 
different
universe or something like that?

Sort of similar to the reversal we see where Barbatus and Famulimus, so tall and 
beautiful 

and from a giant spaceship, take a knee and bow before scruffy Severian.

My impression is that Wright interprets BotNS from an atheist point of view 
because he is,
himself a devout atheist and perhaps unwilling to acknowledge spirituality in 
the work of
an author he so admires, despite awareness of Wolfe's religious leanings.

                            
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