Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

PateraOctopus posted:

However, the letter of the doctrine became more revered than the logic that led to the doctrine being in place--"Don't disturb my seal, because you might gently caress up the embryos that are your backup in case you near extinction levels" became "Don't disturb my seal." More emphasis is here being placed on respecting the symbolism of the seal than on the rationale for that symbolism's existence in the first place,

Given who Pas is, I think it could be that it was always just a dogmatic absolute without explanation. Don't touch my seal or else, Old Testament style. Silk is beginning to reject that in favor of more rational thought about his relationship with God / the "gods". Which would be an interesting addition to Long Sun's religious journey: not just the element of Pagan to Christian change, but also Old to New Testament.

Neurosis posted:

Wolfe has made one unambiguously pro-life statement, which was in An Evil Guest. He alludes to post-natal abortions being legalised in the US.

It's an easy guess that Wolfe personally feels that abortion is morally wrong. Where he falls on the political pro-life spectrum, it'd be hard to say. In an interview, about his politics: "I am now in the unhappy position of finding no one that I agree with."

quote:

Otherwise I have found his Catholicism pretty inoffensive.

Wolfe is a author-missionary, but he doesn't want to forcefully convert you. He wants you to convert yourself. It's like he's trying to encapsulate the religious experience itself and preach it, rather than specific theology or Catholic doctrine. This sometimes goes to weird places for a Christian writer; like Latro in the Mist portraying the greek gods and Wolfe saying that he believes that those gods were, at the time, real entities.

A good rule is that if you think he's giving you instruction or telling you what you should think, you're misreading it. The only people that would have real problems with religious content in Wolfe's books are the Reddit atheists that think all religion is bad and people in it are stupid.

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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading