(urth) barrington interview

Richard Simon gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Oct 9 20:08:07 PDT 2014


All right, I'll bite. If it is 'far from merely ornamental' what is its purpose in the books?
Is Gene Wolfe preaching a sermon? Clearly not when he leaves the interpretation so ambiguous that it could be taken in two completely opposite ways. No, he's writing a novel, and his manner of writing novels is to make puzzles of them. So — what purpose, besides the ornamental, does all this 'theological' imagery serve? Aside from helping us to the conclusion that Severian is a Christ-like figure in some sense, what is its functional end? 

     On Thursday, 9 October 2014, 20:44, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
   

 The Eucharistic (and other theological) imagery is far from merely ornamental.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 3:15 PM, Richard Simon <gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Re. 'nothing more': I'm not quibbling about 'Eucharistic elements' et al. Obviously  there will be cultural references — I mean to our culture, not Urth's fictional one — in any work of fiction, and their presentation will be informed by the author's views, beliefs, intent, sense of humour, etc. I also mentioned subtext earlier. But all this stuff is pretty much on the surface, even when you get to relatively dubious constructions like Terminus Est = cross symbol. They aren't hidden deep within the text. 
I recall a discussion on the Urth List long ago about the 'language' of flowers, initiated by someone who was trying to parse the appearance of a flower on the thwarts of the boat Sev was using to make his way up Gyoll while he paused to survey some downstream ruins. In my modest opinion (and at the risk of upsetting anyone here who might have been a participant in that discussion), I would suggest that hiding a serious, significant datum relating to the story in the (only partly codified) language of flowers seems a bit too obscure even for Gene Wolfe. If there's any meaning there, it's likely to be ornamental rather than essential. 'Ornamental' covers a lot of ground; do we really need to know who Severian's mother was? 

     On Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 21:27, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
   

 I'm with Daniel here. "Nothing more" applies only in the sense it would apply to Shakespeare or Dickens, who also wrote popular entertainments for the ages. The primary distinction to be made here, I suppose, is with someone like Joyce or Woolf who writes for a "select" audience.
On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 3:49 AM, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with you up to the 'nothing more', Andrew.  For it is, of course, possible for the technical quality you describe to be central and yet also for Wolfe's many evocations of philosophical inquiry to be central as well.  Like the poetic conceits, he weaves philosophical and theological exploration (even exposition I would contend) into the narratives in a way consistent with them (always the craftsman, yes), but not merely for allusive code-cracking.  Repeated Eucharistic images and instances in Short Sun, for example, are not their only to tie up some technical aspect of the narrative, but also to evoke something Wolfe takes to be a recalcitrant fact of fictional and real worlds:  people are spiritual and they have spiritual experiences.  That may not develop or tighten plot, but it deepens worldbuilding and 'literary' quality ('literary' in the sense of intentionally and centrally exploring, through the writing of fiction, longstanding human cultural and philosophical concerns, and not being content to merely entertain).  Wolfe is simply not content to merely entertain.  He never aims to do less than that, but he does often aim to do more.  Whether and to what degree he succeeds is a separate question.   -DOJP
On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 4:29 AM, Andrew Bollen <jurisper at gmail.com> wrote:



On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Richard Simon <gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

My own view on this is as follows: most of Wolfe's 'puzzles' have a direct bearing on the story; that is to say, they conceal information that could help the reader understand something more about the plot, the characters, the subtext, etc. They are functional, part of the mechanics of the story itself.
Occasionally, when he thinks it is possible for him to do so without endangering the sense or misleading the reader , Wolfe will add a poetic conceit, usually a classical allusion. Decyphering it will add something to the reader's enjoyment but little to his understanding.
I do not believe that symbolism in the work of Gene Wolfe has any relevance outside the frame of the story. I often see his interpreters present some example of the use of symbols that they have found (or think they have found) as a full and sufficient explanation of Wolfe is up to at that point in the narrative. They read it as an attempt to convey some extra-literary meaning. They are mistaken. Gene Wolfe is a creator of popular entertainments, nothing more. He is certainly a great author — 'great' as in 'for the ages' — but he is not a preacher or a philosophical huckster. He is a technician, a craftsman above all.

 Wholehearted agreement! 
Also: I think the most fruitful approach to Wolfe is via considerations of character and ethics. Why did this character do this or that; and did he or she act well or badly in the circumstances? 


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Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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