(urth) Lupiverse(s) was Re: The Wizard

[Craig Brewer]

So all the discussion of whether or not there was a Christ in Briah got me thinking about the actual textual reasons to think that Urth might not actually be Earth.

Unless I'm wrong, that idea comes largely from an interview. I seem to recall part of Urth of the New Sun that might be more direct on that point, but I'm not sure.

So, first, could someone point me to those places where Wolfe says that this happened in another iteration of the universe? (Was it an Afterward...?)

But, second, here's the interview where he talks about the idea.

http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/gwjbj3.html

I quoted the pertinent bit below, but I want to point out a couple of things. First, he never exactly says that Briah is not our universe. He says that he "toyed" with the idea, that it "might have been" like that, and the idea of a universe being destroyed and remade is "picturesque language...figurative language" that isn't literal.

So my real question here is how sure we are that Urth isn't just Earth in the future, our future? (And if I'm just completely overlooking something obvious, my apologies, especially if it's in _Urth of the NS_...that's always been the slipperiest one to me.)

Craig



GW: Yes, I was looking at what past universes might have been like
really and that is how...I began with the idea of what is going to
happen to us if we just keep going the way we are going and
continue to live on the continent of Earth without ever really
going into the sea or going into space and we just wait for the
money to run out. The do nothing future and thinking about what
that would be. And then I got into the idea of universal cycles.
And decided that I would show that this might be a past cycle. Some
physicists at least think that the Big Bang is eventually going to
be followed by a Big Gnab in which the whole universe coalesces
again which will be followed by another Big Bang which is sort of
like a succession of universe as piston impulses in an internal
combustion engine. I certainly don't have any great emotional
investment in that idea but I do think it is a useful idea to play
around with. Physics is coming nearer and nearer and nearer
mysticism. It has been doing this now for over 50 years and it
seems to me that is a fascinating thing that much too little
attention has been given to.
JJ: That poses something of a difficulty in terms of Christian
eschatology if there is to be a time and there is a resurrection
where the world comes to an end. Are you making an attempt to unify
those two ideas or just to play with the idea of a gnostic universe?
GW: I was toying with those ideas, I think, rather than trying to
make sense of them. Is our resurrection going to be in another
universal cycle? Well, yes, maybe it is. I don't know. We don't know
what is really meant by the world coming to an end, and God rolling
up the sky like a carpet and all that. It is all picturesque
language. Figurative language to try to give a general idea to an
audience that would not be capable of understanding the actuality.
And I am not sure we are more capable of understanding that
actuality than they were. It is like the Genesis story. I don't
believe in a literal apple and I don't believe that literally
biting into the fruit had this effect but if you have to explain to
a bunch of primitives how men differ from animals and where men
went wrong in differing from animals, this is a pretty good way to
do it.
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