(urth) barrington interview

Fri Oct 10 03:42:42 PDT 2014

In addition, this is reinforced in the idea behind the name Ash - the last
man of the Ragnarook future who is actually the first man in Norse
mythology, brought to life from a tree. According to Wolfe, Ash is derived
from Ask and Embla (his vine wife).  In this way the first and last man are
united in one symbol, a man who happens to be brought to life from a tree.
This tying together of beginning and endings is vital to many aspects of
the Urth cycle.

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:

> Also, these two symbols show HOW the mystical change occurs - for human or
> animal to floral, it requires the spilling of blood and possible death (for
> Horn this death is not permanent in the pit of the giant "herb" island),
> and for floral to animal, it requires the Eucharistic act of consumption.
> Yum.
>
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 2:51 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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> 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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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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