(urth) barrington interview

Fri Oct 10 02:51:56 PDT 2014

He may not be referring to new sun specifically.  In short sun the
Eucharist with Silk is observed (he is in a clearing surrounded only by
trees).  It represents the transformation of grapes into a mystical blood
during an act of consumption.  The final imagery of short sun involves the
story of Hyacinthus, whose blood is spilled and transforms into a flower
and lives on.  This pagan and Christian reference show is what is happening
with Silk's unacknowledged congregation: vegetable matter becomes blood
through consumption and death, and the vanished gods (the cannibal trees of
green) create the vanished people by consuming the flesh of sentient
organic matter and combining with it in a Eucharistic transfomation of
"fruit" to blood.

It's symbolism is a huge plot clue.  There are other uses in new sun, but
it is more important to show an alien mechanism of hybridization and
transubstantiation (presaged in the play eschatology and genesis, when the
winter killed stalks of man are mixed with new seed, and in the second
chapter of shadow of the torturer, when the new sun engenders life in a
brush, which opens it's eyes and runs up a tree, and in the story of
quetzal in long sun in which man goes up a tree but has not yet come down)

On Thursday, October 9, 2014, Richard Simon <gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> 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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','jurisper at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Richard Simon <gallebuck at yahoo.co.uk
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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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>
> --
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>
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> --
> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>
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