Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 10:53:25 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: (urth) Quetzal and Noah's Ark 

At 09:33 PM 11/26/2002, you wrote:
>on 11/25/02 5:46 PM, James Jordan at jbjordan4@cox.net wrote:
>
> > Starcrosser is an anti-ark that the
> > Outsider decides to invade and save because of His love for human beings.
> > The Outsider converts the Plan of Pas into HIS plan, and subverts the
> > "plan" of Quetzal into His own larger Plan. Typhon is just an unwitting
> > pawn in the Outsider's huge purpose
>
>And that is?  If the Outsider loves human beings so much, why doesn't He
>stop the Hierogrammates from killing almost all of them?

         The Increate's love for humanity is "tough love." Hard times and 
death are part of how He loves humanity and brings humanity to maturity. 
That's not modern "love" but it is basic to a Christian understanding of 
"love." Whether you agree or not, that's going to be Wolfe's perspective.

>  And if He's
>concerned with the salvation of the people on the Whorl, why doesn't He tell
>Silk to spread the Good News of His uniqueness and omnipotence, rather than
>telling him to "save the manteion"?

         Saving the manteion is a metonomy, part for the whole. And of 
course, modern Christian novelists usually write about salvation obliquely 
and symbolically, not in an outright fashion in the way earlier writers did 
-- and Wolfe is clearly in the modern category here.
         Consider that Horn's "Book of Silk," which has the contour of the 
gospel narrative + the book of Acts + at the end the book of Revelation, 
does indeed show the deeper meaning of what "saving the manteion" entails. 
And, saving this particular people of Viron (=Israel) becomes a "gospel" to 
all the settlers on Blue (and Green eventually). "Saving the manteion" 
expands to saving the people physically from the dying Whorl before it 
descends into hellish darkness and then expands to spiritual salvation 
through the "Book of Silk" as its readers learn who the real God is.

>   I'm not trying to be facetious, but it
>does seem that His ways in LS/SS are particularly mysterious.

         Granted!


>No doubt everything that happens in the books is ultimately part of the
>Outsider's plan.  But the same would be true if Silk had never been
>enlightened, or if the colonists had been left to rot aboard the Whorl
>forever.  So it's not clear to me how "the Outsider's plan" can be used as a
>touchstone for interpreting the books.

         Maybe not. But it seems to me that the whole notion of "plan" is 
basic to the books. A plan by a pseudo-god (Pas) implies a greater plan by 
the True God. Our gradual discovery of what the Plan of Pas is implies that 
we are also to think about this Greater Plan also. From page 1 in LS, the 
Outsider is a "player" in the narrative, doing something specific in the 
narrative (though behind the scenes, as the Ruler says in "Westwind"). We 
are invited to consider that specific plan.
         That's my reasoning, sound or not!

Nutria


>--Adam
>
>
>--



--