From: Wesley Parsons (7065) <WRP@adorno.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Wolfe's Answer re Torturers' Guild -Reply
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 08:10:28 


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

<<14. "Is there a member (current, former, or future) of the Order of
Seekers for Truth and Penitence on the Whorl?"  I'm going to
interpret this question in the broadest possible sense, since that
seems to be what Parsons wants.  Yes, there is.  It is Silk.>>

Nutria writes:
>>The Order for Seekers of Truth and Penitence is (tada!) the Christian
Church, or the Catholic Church. Silk is a member of it in the proper sense.
Severian starts as a member of a perverse antichrist copy of it.
Thus, "in the broadest sense," both are members of it.>>

Nutria,

Thanks for you comment, but I don't follow your logic.  Membership in a
group usually disqualifies one from membership the group's "opposite."  If
you're NRA, you're unlikely to have signed up for Citizens Against
Handguns.  Same for Republicans/Democrats.  Or citizenship in different
countries (you lose your citizenship when you swear oath to another.) 
Granted that "opposite" groups share the same subject matter, for
example, handguns, or politics, or religion.  When you interpret "in the
broadest sense" so _broadly_ <g>, it tends to lose any meaning.  Wolfe
typically does not speak this way.

<<Hmmm. The towers. Consider. The towers at the center of a city, with
a graveyard nearby, are usually the Cathedral. Here we have Witches,
Animal Torturers (Bear Tower), and Human Torturers. Boy! An
anti-cathedral or what?! But as Wolfe has said, Severian is trying to grow
out and away from his horrible beginnings. >>

Very interesting analysis. Isn't Silk's worship of pagan gods just as 
anti-christian as anything Severian did in the Matachin Tower?  Neither of
them starts out worshiping the Judaeo-Christian God, although both are
arguably enlightened by Him later.

Different question:  Why would Wolfe say, "Knowing Typhon as I do . . ." 
(Question 3).  Typhon is not that sufficiently characterized, as Typhon in
NS, or as Pas in LS, to merit such familiarity.  Could it be that Typhon is a
prominent character in Short Sun, and Wolfe has been inside his head
these many months as he has written SS?  And if Typhon is back, in the
flesh, whose flesh has he got?

Wes