Reading too straightforwardly, I initially glossed over Severian's ramblings, which I found pseud (yeah, yeah), but maybe there's something to it. Some of the Catholic interpretations are interesting, and I'd like to know more about how Wolfe embeds Catholicism in his work. However, for Wolfe/Severian's opinions on semiotics, my opinion is that they don't compare to established thought like those of Barthes.
Here are some examples of the philosophical banter:
>"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges."
>"The pancreator is infinitely far from us," the angel said, "And thus infinitely far from me, though I fly so much higher than you. I guess at his desires—no one can do otherwise."
Does anyone smarter than me (shouldn't be too hard) have better informed opinions on this level of BotNS reading? How does Wolfe add Catholicism to BotNS? Other related thoughts?
Someone once told me about how Wolfe is not as interested in injecting religion into his works as he is in making you think about things the way the religious do.
I think there is some truth to this, being Catholic myself. I would argue that the whole entirety of the world of BOTNS is deeply Catholic, because to be Catholic is to be weighed down with meaning and symbolism. The smallest things in the Catholic world--the Mass, the feast days, the celebrations and the coronations--are freighted with symbolism developed over thousands of years, which within the span of meager human reality seems every bit as long as the millions of years it has taken to make the Urth of BOTNS.
I'd imagine it must be the same to be part of any of the Apostolic churches. You feel a sense of heaviness in all you do in the faith, because the men and women who came before you, who did what you did and gave those things meaning, is nearly infinite in number. It is as though one is trapped in the past yet eternally oriented towards the future.
>the Mass, the feast days, the celebrations and the coronations--are freighted with symbolism developed over thousands of years
If it's not too much to ask, care to elaborate on that? Also, what do each of the items of that list correspond to?
>>7841520
*correspond to in the Urth universe
>>7841522
The problem is that the symbols are multivalent: on the one hand the false coin of vodalus is the sun, putting severian on the path to renew it, but on the other it is as false as all material things are, a reflection of an ideal essence which may be infinitely far from the Godhead but nevertheless a reflection of his glory. His philosophy is very different than Barthes because the difference between signifier and signified in Wolfe is blurred bu a subjectivity that DOES NOT negate the objectivity of the universe, real but forever untouchable. Wolfe's spiritualism is fascinating because he is a religious engineer, not a postmodern poststructuralist.
Bump for Wolfe and Aramini chan.
>>7841434
Wolfe often outright quotes Aquinas, knowingly or unknowingly, every instance of talking of the Eternal Principle is taken strait out of Aquinas' teleological principles, refined from Aristotle.
>>7841463
Marc are you pious?
Also my ereader came in, after some Plato, Endo and O'Connor I might get around BLAS.
>>7841563
Exactly.
He uses the standart postmodern techinques and turns them on their head- subjectivism and relativism, determinism and evil all in the end lead to God and hence it is my firm stance that Wolfe writes with a clear goal in mind, to show that all things man related do not change. Man is sinful and evil, ignoran and primmitive and yet God finds us because only He can fill the void in our souls and no man is beneath the sacrifice of Christ.
Bumop
>>7841463
Related is his opinion that the Divine Comedy was science fiction in its day because theology was the most popular science. Really BotNS is just the first and only work of modern theo-fi.
>>7843151
I don't think so. Lewis wrote, albeit inferior, theological science fiction
>>7843151
>BotNS is just the first and only work of modern theo-fi
you forgot about VALIS and some of PKD's other stuff?
>>7843151
>theology was the most popular science
I nearly punched my computer screen
>>7843271
It indoctrinated me into Gnosticism for a while, so while he was crazy, he was able to make his views assured and interesting.
>>7843333
Interesting indeed, but kind of hard to take seriously.
>>7843160
>>7843225
Well I wouldn't call Valis theo-fi. He does couch everything in that book into standard sci fi, isn't the true God made to seem like an alien satellite or something? I mean we know it was really about his religious beliefs, but taking the book on its own I don't think you have to exit science fiction to explain anything.
Got me on Lewis though. There's that Wrinkle in Time too. Book of the New Sun is, dare I say it, the only hard theo-fi. That's not just generic good/evil schlock but actually in the vein of Dante.
>>7843532
New Sun certainly is the most theological science fiction I know of and sensible at that. Also quite original in portrayal of classical ideas.
The claim that truth is universal is quite bold in it since it breaches time, space and reality itself.
>>7842861
Bumping for this anon.
Aramini plz respond
>>7842861
Pious ... hmmm. I am Catholic, but not the strictest. I like the freedom from literal biblical stringency and ability to assimilate scientific perspectives on the modern church.
Wolfe's use of particularly catholic symbols is most profound in his variations on the eucharist (in both new and short sun) dwelling on transubstantiation and the importance of the body to the soul. ... the silver silk we get might not be the same silk, but, as with severian in urth, it is more than the body alone that matters. In stories like "the horars of war" wolfe plays around with the incarnation on the human/artificial life level, and the immaculate conception in the changeling (mary, not christ...) knowledge of cstholic doctrine definitely makes wolfe easier to parse.
>>7845289
It's not a modern thing, Catholics never actually cared about the Bible.
>>7845314
No but once upon a time they were prone to castigate those who might posit, say, that the earth was not the center of the universe, etc. Now you have popes okay with evolution by and large
>>7845289
But biblical literalism was never a Catholic thing. Have you read Augustine and Aquinas?
Also evolution and Christianity are incompatible if we assume it's purely naturalistic and Benedict dissed it a lot. He was a great author btw.
Bump. Marc I'll get stalled with Between Light and Shadow, Belloc and Plato got in the way.
Book of the new sun is similar to the chronicles of Narnia in that in-story Jesus Christ and capital G God exist, but in another universe. It isn't really allegory in that sense- it's literal.
>>7847534
Well I would say that God in New Sun exists just as it exists for every Catholic- only more obvious
