Ah! Thanks for pointing this out. To be honest, Wizard-Knight was what got me properly into Wolfe and I hadn't yet really read the Solar Cycle and other works to see his themes and how they work. (I had actually read 3/4ths of New Sun some years before, but was mostly baffled - both intrigued and fatigued.) I'm sure I'll see so much when I re-read Wizard-Knight.<br>
<br>It's funny if some find that too overt. I often find Wolfe most poignant when most overt on Christian themes (perhaps especially Eucharistic ones). They usually don't make me cringe at all but come across like a wise old desert father or something. (I do share his Christian faith, but overt Christian themes in fiction can make me squirm more than anything else when done poorly.) Then again, what I took to be some pretty obvious moments (e.g. wine and bread rituals coinciding with a theophany of the Outsider in Short Sun), some seem to perplexingly read as being mainly about referencing Dionysus myths or what have you! So there ya go.<br>
<br>-DOJP<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:12 PM, James Wynn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:crushtv@gmail.com">crushtv@gmail.com</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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At the end of The Wizard, Able feeds his blood to Disiri until she
is raised to his level, from an Aelf (her true form being mud and
sticks and leaves) to human. This is a very eucharistic theme, I
think. A very overtly Christian theme and IIRC some on this list
considered it too overt for their tastes.<br>
J.<br>
<br>
On 2/28/2012 4:11 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Sorry, I should clarify that I didn't detect any overt
Judeo-Christian elements (especially compared to other major
Wolfe works) except Michael. But, yes, as has been mentioned,
the very concept of a Most High God is lifted straight from Old
Testament scripture (and other ancient Mesopotamian texts?).
And yes, Michael's position to the Oden figure is surely
significant (symbolised by size-proportion to tingling effect, I
thought). And yes, I was trying to say that I suspected Wolfe
wove his Catholic worldview deeply into the fabric of
Wizard-Knight through various means other than (what seems to me
the mostly absent) way of direct allusion. I can't remember the
ending of The Wizard, but the way The Knight ended seemed fairly
Christian 'eternal reward'/'heaven'-ish (and again probably
subsuming other myths of afterlife). </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I guess I'm fairly shocked not to detect a eucharistic
element, which usually seems central to Wolfe's epic works. But
maybe that's the point?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>-DOJP<br>
</div><br></blockquote></div></blockquote></div><br>