Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 11:34:50 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: RE: (urth) finally - a mechanism: baptism

At 05:28 PM 12/3/2002, Blattid wrote back to me:

> > If this does not seem like "good SF," remember that Silk's
> > enlightenment was a "purely spiritual event" not paralleled
> > by anything "scientific."
>
>I have trouble accepting that ... Wolfe, throughout the Sun
>books, goes to a great deal of trouble to maintain a sort of
>ambiguity where the events that seem supernatural also have a
>naturalistic explanation (though those explanations often feel
>quite unsatisfying when stated baldly). In the case of Silk's
>enlightenment, he tosses us Crane's theory of a cererbral
>accident -- as a herring _so_ red that nobody in their right
>mind will believe it; leaving us wondering where the "real"
>naturalistic explanation lies. I have never found it, but
>remain convinced, because Wolfe has otherwise kept his method
>so consistent, that he must have planted it somewhere: possibly
>someplace where Crane's theory hides it from us...?

Yeah, but in the interview Wolfe said it was purely supernatural, and my 
question was whether it as purely "scientific" or both in a parallel way. I 
agree that we really seem to "need" something more than just a spiritual 
link between Silk and Severian; I was just pointing out that if this is all 
there turns out to be, it is not wholly unlupine.

> > In this narrative the Outsider is a player, though only
> > openly an occasional one.
>
>With the exception of Silk's enlightenment, does the
>Outsider make any other interventions that don't have
>alternate, "naturalistic" explanations?

Is there another explanation for Silk's resurrection?

Nutria


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