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

[Gerry Quinn]

From: []

Just to lay down my thoughts on these issues, mostly on the subject of religion:

1. Iterations

First, iterated universes.  Wolfe did indicate that he was playing with the idea.  The chapter “the Key to the Universe” in CotA does indicate that this idea made it into the story:

“As the flower that comes is like the flower from which it came, so the universe that comes repeats the one whose ruin was its origin; and this is as true of its finer features as of its grosser ones: The worlds that arise are not unlike the worlds that perished, and are peopled by similar races, though just as the flower evolves from summer to summer, all things advance by some minute step.”

We are told that it is unknown whether Urth is in a past or future iteration, or in our own:

“From that vantage point they look both forward and back, and in so looking they have discovered us. Perhaps we are no more than a race like that who shaped them. Perhaps it was we who shaped them—or our sons—or our fathers. Malrubius said he did not know, and I believe he told the truth.”

That is how I read it.  Maybe Wolfe said something out of text to indicate that it is intended to be past or future, but the text does not indicate it and clearly is not intended to indicate it.  I am unconvinced by those who feel only a specific answer fits their theological beliefs, or fits Wolfe’s for that matter.


2. Religion in BotNS (as distinct from Long and Short Sun)

Religion here is to some extent generic far future religion, though not mocked as it is in Vance.  Christ is not mentioned.  Several names are used for God, indicating some sort of common religious culture or at least vocabulary, but there is no indication that everyone believes the same things.  If Christianity still exists somewhere (and in BotNS there is no indication of it) it is well off stage.  But on the other hand, Severian’s story has strong unmistakeable echoes of the Christian story.  

I think Christianity is deliberately off stage to allow Severian’s mirroring of it to take the foreground.  How could you have both, artistically speaking, without raising tons of irrelevant questions?  It would be as silly as having Jesus wandering about in Narnia.  It would just get in the way of what the author is doing.


3. Religion in BotLS and BotSS

Religion is much more to the foreground here, obviously.  Silk is, as Wolfe has said, a good man in a bad religion.  But even a bad religion holds part of the truth, if only because it leads people to ask the right questions and do the right things.   Silk is not wrong to thank Pas for the creation of the Whorl.

Silk receives enlightenment from the Outsider, who has been relegated to a minor role in the pantheon of the Nine, but whom we can identify from an abundance of textual evidence as the True God, worshipped by Christians and many others.  Some of that textual evidence clearly evokes Christianity and Christ, and much – though not all - of the paraphernalia of Silk’s religion appears to derive from it, albeit with more primitive elements superimposed on it [there is no suggestion that the primitive elements were there first: this is not a religion that grew organically but one constructed by a Monarch who had great control over the minds and bodies of his subjects].

Are the gods in Long Sun real?  Of course we see that the Whorl gods are indeed personalities grounded physically in the universe, and with powers that can legitimately be called divine, at least in their corner of the cosmos.  Silk himself becomes such a god, in the end.  And the gods themselves can develop towards true divinity; even if they are servants/creatures of the True God they may be divine to lower beings (there are echoes of this in Wizard Knight).

Where does Dionysus fit in?  He is just one more god or concept of god, primitive and flawed in some respects, but no less real a god.  He can be a form of the Outsider, no more and no less than can Severian, or Silk, or Kypris, or Pas, or Jesus.  And while Silk identifies the Outsider as the name of the True God, others have other names for Him (Allah is another name that is mentioned).  No man (or lesser god) can approach understanding of him – I think we are told something like that, at least, in New Sun.  [Consider the definition of Absolute Infinity – it is defined as that infinity every one of whose properties is also held by some lesser infinity.  Cantor himself equated Absolute Infinity with God.]

Dionysus gets referred to as the son of Thyone.  I don;t recall him actually doing anything in the story.  i don’t even know if he was just mentioned in old stories of the Chrasmological Writings, or whether there was a Whorl Dionysus, a mate of Typhon’s who took that name.  I don’t believe Dionysus is of any particular importance; that is to say, if there had been no references at all, or references to some other ancient god, I don’t know how that would cause me to read the books differently.

What about the Incarnation?  First, this is not really a past, present or future Earth, it is a universe created by Gene Wolfe.  Whatever he believes does not necessarily apply here, and something equivalent to the Incarnation might well take a different form there.  [Frankly, I don’t any Jesuit would be shocked if you proposed that it may take a different form on different planets of our own universe.]  Secondly, I would guess that Wolfe’s belief in the truth of Catholicism does not mean he believes it is more than an imperfect reflection of the unknowable absolute truth.  Short version: leave the dogmas of twenty-first century Catholicism, Dionysism, or any other  –ism out when analysing this piece of fiction.

- Gerry Quinn




















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