From: "Kevin McGuire" <kmcguire@itw.com>
Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v006.n011
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 01:00:52 +0000


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

Rostrum writes:
> Others have pointed out that Severian seems to fill the "Christ figure" 
> definition in several ways (working miracles, saving the world), but the
> things that most often cause a character to be compared to Christ are
> sacrificial death or suffering for others and some form of death, burial,
> and resurrection.  Using those two criteria, I'd say Silk (ObWhorl!) fits
> the bill for "Christ figure" more than Severian, and neither one fits as
> well as, say, Tom Joad in _The Grapes of Wrath_ (trying to dredge up a
> "Christ figure" from high school English classes and probably getting the
> name wrong) or Tolkein's Aragorn.

With regards to Severian's death, resurrection, et. al - I'd like to 
recall the whole Apu Punchau (spelling?) sequence at the end of the 
New Sun books.

On the actual early church parallels in the Long Sun books, isn't it 
interesting that the Long Sun, as told by Horn (who is a 
contemporary, but not central figure in the events in question), reconstructed after 
the fact, parallels the same sort of storytelling one sees in the 
Gospels?  The Book of Horn?  This could be compared to the first 
person narrative of  the New Sun books, where (if you'll forgive my 
stretching the analogy a wee bit) is written from the Messiah's point 
of view.

Kevin McGuire
(.sig omitted because I clearly don't have a clue how to format the 
damn things - not that Philadelphia isn't a pretty damn scary 
place, Patrick...)