The only thing I would add to Craig and Marc's comments is the qualification that I think some of Wolfe's characters <i>do</i> actually experience genuine redemption, but that it's never finished, but always ongoing - it has arrived truly but only in part, to help guide <i>through</i> darkness and mystery. But those characters are indeed now in communion with the Community of the Infinite - be it ever so shaky or intermittent or in process/progress. Again, I think Wolfe is here evincing a New Testament eschatology of an 'already-not-yet' kingdom of heaven and salvation. Indeed, it's often salvation through paradox, a dancing redemption in movement and counterpoise (a la Chesterton, O'Connor, and the poetry of George Herbert), not a static status of 'saved'. <div>
<br></div><div>Wolfe is a 'spiritual/mysterious' writer not only in the sense of his 'elisions' and 'uncertainties' and aching absences of 'the most important information... that can give everything meaning' - but also in the occasional bursts or hints of numinous<i> presence</i> (especially in the recurring eucharistic imagery and scenes): some of those moments of the miraculous, especially when the Outsider manifests a glimpse of his presence - be it a gentle voice in the ear or a giant face in the sky - are spine tingling with the possibilities of spiritual realism for me. Not to mention that same presence that is felt, perhaps more slyly, but equally, in some of the exquisite moments of<i> agape</i> love exhibited by characters (I always think of Silk-Horn caressing wee Olivine's metal head - yet another scene associated with the eucharist).<div>
<br></div><div>-DOJP<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Marc Aramini <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:marcaramini@yahoo.com" target="_blank">marcaramini@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"><div><br>This past year I defended Wolfe's elisions and "uncertainties" by talking about the fact that he is truly a spritual/mysterious writer: in reality, the most important information, the one that can give everything meaning, is not present; it can be seen in structure and in existence, but not overtly. Thus my reasoning for most of his narrators not having the full picture of the most important details of their condition: we as humans don't quite have the full details just by looking at the facts we "know" with certainty, but those aren't the most important things that really make sense of everything.</div>
<div><br>--- On <b>Sat, 3/10/12, Craig Brewer <i><<a href="mailto:cnbrewer@yahoo.com" target="_blank">cnbrewer@yahoo.com</a>></i></b> wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px"><br>From: Craig Brewer <<a href="mailto:cnbrewer@yahoo.com" target="_blank">cnbrewer@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: (urth) The Wizard<br>
To: <br>Cc: "The Urth Mailing List" <<a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a>><br>Date: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 8:44 AM<div><br><br>
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<div>Lafferty and O'Connor seem like perfect analogues on this point. There's something in both of those writers that makes faith a very dark and dangerous and uncertain thing. That matches well with the sense I get from Wolfe. Sometimes I feel like discussions of his religious attitudes neglect that dimension in favor of teasing out something like a straightforward cosmology or theology behind all the allusion/puzzles rather than seeing them as precisely "dark glasses" through which the characters and readers are trying to understand what's happening to them. The point isn't to unravel it all in order to achieve certainty. The point is that the puzzles go all the way down (at least some of the most important ones), but you have to live and make decisions anyway. That's what makes the characters in all the Sun books so fascinating to me. They HAVE to figure out the real story because it's their story, and the consequences are ultimate. But they can't, at
least not completely. That's a dilemma that would make O'Connor proud.</div>
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<div>In Lafferty, it often seems to me that the truth is often absent. Some of his stories are horrifying because things have gone desperately wrong in a fallen world. The apparent humor on the surface leaves scars.<br></div>
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