<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><br></div><div><br>On Dec 16, 2010, at 10:03 AM, Matthew Weber <<a href="mailto:palaeologos@gmail.com">palaeologos@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Lee Berman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com"><a href="mailto:severiansola@hotmail.com">severiansola@hotmail.com</a></a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
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But I remain unconvinced that our God and Jesus Christ make any appearances in the Sun series.<br>
I'd need either more direct Christian references (call it a crucifix, not a "rood"=rod) or fewer<br>
monsters and demons.<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>I would think that "rood" is used primarily to refer to a cross, or the Cross. The sense in which it means "rod" or "staff" is even more obscure than the Christian one.<br>
<br>I have to confess that the assumption I sometimes see at work here, that Wolfe always takes the longest way possible around everything, baffles and bemuses me. Using the word "rood" to signify a cross or crucifix is a way of distancing the phenomenon; if he merely said "cross" or "crucifix" it would seem very cozily Christian to us. But the BotNS is set in a far future in which Christianity may be only a distant, mythic memory--or perhaps it's a distant past in which Christianity has not yet appeared. So calling it a rood rather than a crucifix or cross renders it intelligible and retains a slight whiff of Christianity (as a survival of long ago?) without suggesting that the denizens of Urth practice what we understand to be the Christian faith.<br clear="all">
<br>-- <br>Matt +<br><br><br></div></blockquote><br><div>Thanks for that. I completely agree about the distance obscuration.</div><div>I think Wolfe is tricksy, but I think people mistrust him too much.</div></body></html>