The Sorcerer’s House, Letters 4-6

This is a longish post, but a lot of important events are discussed in these letters.

Letters 4-6: Fisherman’s Luck, So Many Shades of Black, Fresh Air

Letter Summaries

Letter 4 is from Bax to George. Bax describes finding and operating the Triannulus, which Emlyn had dropped during the events in Letter 2. He aligns the three rings and aims the pointer toward the fish symbol. Bax is unsuccessful fishing, but a neighbor stops by with free fish and an oil lamp.  Bax finds a gold ring with a strange stone in the third fish.

Letter 5 is from Bax to George. Bax tries and fails to pawn his new ring. Bax realizes that the triannulus is bringing him more than fish. He is asked out for a lunch date by Doris Griffin. Doris gives Bax her deceased husband’s, Ted, wedding ring. Bax learns more about the history of the Black House from Doris. Bax later finds Winkle, a fox, in an cage in the attic, and frees her.

Letter 6 is from Sheldon Hawes to Bax. Sheldon is looking forward to seeing Bax when he gets out, and talks about his childhood.

The Triannulus

The SH, like the WK, is another exercise by GW in exploring comparative mythology. One of the ways he does this is through Triannulus and the Longlight.  They are allusions to various magical artifacts of legend that generate wealth, food, or other things for the protagonists in their respective stories.  This includes Finnish, Norse and Japanese mythology.  It also seems to be related to the myth of the World Mill.

The word Triannulus was apparently invented for the SH, and may derive from triune, which is triunus in Latin, meaning “three in one.” The closest comparison seems to be the Sampo of Finnish mythology.  According to Wikipedia, the Sampo was magical artifact that could generate flour, salt or gold out of thin air.  Some have interpreted the legendary Sampo to be a form of compass or astrolabe, which would share some physical characteristics of the Triannulus.

Other objects like the Sampo are the Cornucopia of Greek mythology, and the magic grind stone in the Grottasongr, from Norse mythology.

The Longlight seems a very rough equivalent of Aladdin’s Lamp.  Bax even jokes about rubbing the Longlight, an allusion to the Aladdin story. We’ll review their operation some more in future posts.

GW does give a clue that the magical mill myth/meme is in play later in the WK.  In Letter 44, He paraphrases the famous saying that “The mills of the gods grind slowly, Millie, but they grind exceedingly small.” If you read Knight Notes, you will remember my theory that GW gives clues to the allusions he is using through quotes or statements that don’t seem to fit.

The Three Fish

Bax writes: “Three fish, I feel, ought to signify something.” This is an allusion, in part, to the Triquetra.  The Triquetra has certain meanings in various mythologies, and Christianity also views it as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

According to Wikipedia, the Triquetra is also a reference to the vesica piscis.  This symbolism also has certain meanings in Kabbalah, mythology and Christian tradition.  GW made extensive use of Kabbalah in the WK.

Bax and Women

Bax states he is surprised about Doris’ lunch date invitation. On a hunch, he checks the Triannulus, and notes that the pointer had “wandered”. He then says:

“When the rings were aligned to fish, several other things fell into line as well.”

I think GW is implying that when the pointer wandered it lined up with symbols on the three rings that represented either Woman, or sexual intercourse. Bax described some of the signs on the Triannulus as “indecent.”

If so, who are the three women that Bax summons?  The first is clearly Doris Griffin. In Greek mythology Doris is a sea nymph, sort of like a fish.  I think the second and third are Cathy Ruth and Kate Finn. Cathy initiates conversations on multiple points, and is almost flirty (e.g. snatching away the note from the pistol box).  Kate is surprisingly interested in Bax though she is a cop and he is an ex-con. Her last name, “Finn”, may be intended to suggest a connection with the fish that Bax summoned.  I don’t believe its Winkler Inari, for reasons I will explain elsewhere. She is not under Bax’s spell.

The Fish and the Ring

The magical ring Bax finds in the last fish is an allusion to the story of The Fish and the Ring.   Bax mentions a “boy in the fairy tale” when describing this finding. There are different versions of this story from around the world, and they may have a common origin.

I believe that the ring was Ambrosius’ “weapon of sorcery” that Emlyn refers to in Letter 9. Emlyn explains that Goldwurm (who is Zwart) was a warlock who killed his master, Ambrosius. Emlyn tells Bax that Goldwurm has been looking for the weapon ever since he killed Ambrosius.

Ambrosius placed some of his magical power in the ring. Bax acquired the power when he put it on. He is able to use this power to dismiss Quorn, and later summon the Riverman. After he wears the ring, he describes himself as feeling different and states he feels his luck has changed. Unfortunately for Bax, he is quite wrong.

Color Symbolism

Bax describes the ring’s stone as primarily reddish-green or greenish-red. These are examples of “impossible colors” that the human eye cannot perceive. Another indication of the ring’s magical origins, and Bax’s sorcerous heritage.

The Lady of Shalott

“Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.”

I was stuck for a while trying to figure out who or what Sheldon “Shotgun” Hawes was supposed to represent.  He is, in part, a gender reversed allusion to Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott.  The Lady of Shalott is a poem Sir Alfred Tennyson published in 1832.  GW provides certain clues that the poem is in play:

• Sheldon’s daughter is “Tina” a reference to Tennyson.
• His wife or girlfriend is apparently “Vicky”, short for the Victorians.
• Like the Lady, Sheldon lives behind “four gray walls, and four gray towers”, in a prison.
• Sheldon “Shotgun” = Shalott
• Sheldon prefers to go by “Shell”, which is a feminine diminutive of Michelle.
• “Hawes” is an old English word for an enclosure, and Shell is enclosed in his cell, like the Lady of Shallot was enclosed in her island castle.

Shell seems to have a crush of sorts on Bax:

• Writing the first letter to Bax he says: “Feels funny. But good.”
• He has a nervous-awkward feeling about the letters, “Please keep this. Or else burn it”, he tells Bax. They are almost like love letters to him.
• In Letter 10, Bax reminds Shell about how they lost track of time while talking when playing chess.
• Shell also warns Bax against marriage.

Shell tells this long story about how his favorite experience was staying all night alone in the woods at camp. He liked “canoeing”, like the Lady takes a boat ride in the poem.

Like the Lady of the poem, Sheldon dies at the end of the SH. A broken heart perhaps, as Bax was not around for him after he got out of prison. (Or perhaps Zwart killed Sheldon when he showed up in Medicine Man looking for Bax)

I don’t know if GW is implying that they had a gay prison relationship.  Doris does mention that Bax was not that good in bed in her “Dear Bax” letter later in the story. It might purely be an emotional relationship. Bax is quite charming, and he could have feigned an affection to a closeted Shell to gain an ally in prison.

Bible Verses

In Letter 5, Bax relates to George that he found 55 cents, which is a lot for him. I think this is a reference to Isaiah 55, which in the King James version is:

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (emphasis added)

Maybe just a coincidence. But its also good match to the waters of life/Book of Revelation allusion I discuss at the end of the WK. As John Clute says, “not an inadvertent word.”  Otherwise, why bother with a pointless sentence about 55 cents?

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Knight Notes: Disiri

This post explores the identity of Disiri and her role in the WK’s themes.

Disiri, like most characters in the WK, is based on multiple sources. And Able’s pursuit of her has multiple meanings. GW uses mythology, legend, Kabbalah and Christianity in developing this theme.

Disiri in Arthurian Legend and Mythological Terms

Disiri’s Arthurian counterpart is the Lady of the Lake.  In some stories, the Lady took Lancelot to live in her fairy world for some time to protect him.  In the WK, Disiri takes both the Real Able and Able/Art to Aelfrice.

As MAD identified in his WKC, Disiri may be associated with the Dis of Norse mythology.

Disiri’s Celtic/British counterpart is Brigid.  Brigid was the patroness of poets, smiths and sacred wells. This fits very well with the events of the WK:

• Disiri tells Able the story of Weland the Smith and the forging of Eterne.
• Eterne is found in a deep well.
• The “names on the wind” that Able hears near the end of The Knight include many poets and writers of the medieval period.

I think Disiri’s counterpart from Greek mythology may be Eurydice. This might be another example of GW moving syllables around and tweaking spelling to hide an identity. If you move the syllables Eurydice becomes “Diceeury”, which sounds somewhat like Disiri.  Eurydice was a dryad or nymph, and linked to the legend of Orpheus. Disiri refers to herself early in The Knight as a dryad. Able is also a representation of Orpheus, and his bowstring is an allusion to the Lyre of Orpheus.  Orpheus and Eurydice end up together in the underworld, which is consistent with the ending of the WK.

Disiri as Beatrice

The WK is strongly influenced by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Art Ormsby’s wandering in the woods at the beginning of the WK is like Dante’s wandering in the wilds at the beginning of the Comedy. Able sees a the castle in the sky he wants to pursue, and gets lost. Similarly, Dante loses his way in a dark wood while trying to get to salvation at the beginning of the Inferno. The six sided castle of Skai reminds me of the seven sided Castle in Limbo where the virtuous pagans live in relative peace and comfort.

One of Dante’s guides in the Comedy is Beatrice, who was based on a woman he knew in real life. She is an idealized feminine, and helps him to achieve the Beatific vision, or union with God. Beatrice sends Dante his first guide, the poet Virgil. Disiri has a somewhat similar role in the WK as Beatrice in the Divine Comedy.  Able loves Disiri, as Dante loved Beatrice. They are the ideal feminine for both, and something that draws the characters onwards towards a resolution.

Disiri and Color, Plant and Animal Symbolism

Green, Yellow and the Language of Flowers

Disiri has green skin and hair, and yellow eyes. I think this has multiple meanings in traditional color symbolism and the Kabbalah color scheme. Green alone, and sometimes green and yellow together (depending on what Kabbalah website I read) are the colors of the Sefirot Binah. Binah is associated with the feminine and wisdom.

While green is considered a positive color, yellow often has negative associations in Western culture. Yellow can be the color of cowardice. It can be the color of deceit (“yellow journalism”).  Yellow has a negative meaning in plant symbolism and the “Language of Flowers.” Yellow roses are sometimes associated with betrayal and treachery. Yellow carnations can mean rejection. The yellow Marigold can mean pain or grief (think Lynnet). Disiri’s actions, at times, seem to represent infidelity or betrayal of Able. Morcaine questions whether Disiri is faithful to Able (at Redhall in “Morcaine and More Magic”) and Able seems to acknowledge that she is not.

The Eyes of a Leopard

Able describes Disiri as having eyes like a leopard in Chapter 7 of The Knight. A leopard was one of three beasts that threatened Dante in the opening chapters of the Inferno, and is portrayed negatively there. There are other sources that suggest that the leopard was viewed negatively in the Christian tradition, and associated with sin.

Disiri is relatively unconcerned with the lives of Able’s friends, acknowledging she cannot love them the way Able loves them. She does not come to his aid when he is imprisoned, and her affection seems fickle at times. Able describes her as “hard and dangerous” near the end of The Knight.

Disiri’s Color Transformation

At the end of the WK, Disiri drinks Able’s blood (red), and loses her yellow coloring. Her eyes change to green, and her skin takes on normal human skin tones.  The vanishing of the yellow is consistent with this being a positive transformation. The color green is associated with life and hope in the Christian tradition, and maybe that’s what her new eyes are to signify.

The Mystical Union of Kabbalah

Able and Disiri are a representation of the mystical union in the Kabbalah between YHWH and the Shekhinah. The achievement of this union is signalled by the reconciliation of the Men and Women of Celidon in the union of many of the protagonists.  This reconciliation was accomplished in a mystical way by Able’s achievement of the Holy Grail and the Golden Fleece when he entered the Room of Lost Loves. I previously associated the Spiny Orange tree with the Sefirot Yesod. Yesod’s colors in Kabbalah are understood to be orange (again, in at least some websites. There is some inconsistency).  Yesod is also associated with the sexual organs.

Disiri as the Bride of Christ

Finally, and consistent with the Christian Allegory, Able is a representation of Christ in the WK. Disiri, in turn, represents the Church, or humanity. He is the Bridegroom and she is the Bride. Like Disiri, humanity in the Christian tradition is fickle, unfaithful, and inconstant. Man must partake of Jesus’ flesh and blood to have eternal life, as Disiri must drink from Able for the Aelf to develop further in accord with the Most High God and Kulili’s plan.  And like Psyche drank ambrosia to have immortality and a true relationship with Cupid.  Able and Disiri will share this water of life with those in Aelfrice.

I will close this post with the image used to illustrate a passage from Revelation associated with the Bride. Dawn in Aelfrice?

Joseph Martin Kronheim, illustration of Revelation 22:17 (public domain).

Knight Notes: Kulili

I’ve delayed an exploration of Kulili. Given that her role in the WK ends before Able gets to Kingsdoom, it seems a good place to share it. Kulili’s identity intersects with the main themes of the WK, Able’s pursuit of Disiri, and his post-WK fate.

Everything in the WK cosmology is reflected in a different form in the lower worlds.  The Valfather is Skai’s echo of the Most High God. Parka is an echo of the Holy Spirit, etc.

The name Kulili is from the Middle East, and she was a goddess whose worship was absorbed by Isthar. She has been associated with dragons in some essays I have read, which may explain the white dragon form.

Kulili is the Divine Presence of God in Aelfrice.  Specifically, she is Shekhinah. When Able and Kulili stop fighting, she changes from a dragon into a new form:

“The dragon melted as I watched, so that I might almost have thought the sea dissolved it. It had been a dragon, great and terrible. It became a cloud, white, shimmering, and ever-changing. And at last the face of Kulili.”

The shimmering white cloud is a good match for the description of Shekhinah at Wikipedia and in other sources. Shekhinah is thought of in feminine terms by some, and in Kabbalah represents the divine feminine. Kulili is given a female personality and appearance in the WK. Kulili is also white, and white is the color of the divine or holy in the WK: Parka, Michael, Cloud. In Christianity, Shekhinah is associated with the Holy Spirit.

There is a similar scene in Peace when a young Alden Dennis Weer goes to the Lorn household for the first time. There he will meet Margaret Lorn, the great love of his life:

“I noticed that directly ahead of us—rising over the cabin, which otherwise blocked my view—was a lone pillar of white cloud that seemed as summitless as the mast of Brandon’s ship. I thought it was singularly beautiful, and for a time it distracted me from my formerly urgent concern with distance, and I stared at it with the contemplation a saint might have lavished on some object in which he saw, or felt he saw, a clear manifestation of God. ”

From Peace, Part 2.  The Shekhinah has been described as a pillar of white cloud. The Lorns were a devoutly religious family, and missionaries.  Margaret Lorn represented Shekhinah-like feminine, divine grace for Weer. A grace that he did not grasp, much to his later detriment.

Kulili as Shekhinah should also associated with Hokmah or Chokmah, meaning Sophia, or the Wisdom of God.  Hokmah was described by Professor Patricia Monaghan in her Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines in the following way:

The earliest creation of YHWH, Hokmah was also his favorite. Hokmah cast her shadow on the primeval waters, stilling them. Hokmah gave consciousness to humankind, for humans crawled like worms until she endowed them with spirit.

The above quote is very much a description of Kulili’s creation of the Aelf. They are worms that have been endowed with intelligence. Morcaine also refers to them as worms.

The white statue of the beautiful woman that Able sees in Aelfrice in The Knight is a representation of Hokmah, or Sophia. Able has a powerful sexual reaction when he sees it. In a way, the WK is GW’s most sexual work. Kabbalah describes Shekhinah and YHWH as being in a marriage culminating in a mystical sexual union. The sefirot associated with Shekhinah is Malkuth, which has as its symbol the Bride. This union has a mythic counterpart in the WK in the legend of Cupid and Psyche, which is played out by Lynnet and Vil, and Able and Disiri.

In the WK, Kulili is the guardian of Aelfrice, and creator of the Aelf. The Aelf have rebelled against her and hate her, though their reasoning is a bit mysterious.  One thing we do learn is that the Aelf have no souls, and will cease to exist if physically destroyed.

In their last scene together, Kulili asks Able to accompany her to the bottom of the ocean, and he sees a mystery there he will not speak of. He says he will share it with The Most High God.

This is what I believe Able saw and learned:  Kulili intends to create real bodies and souls for the Aelf. GW uses the Aelf as a stand-in for humanity in the WK, and man’s fall from grace.  That rebellion is associated with eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and some scholars think it was related to man’s fear of mortality.  Kulili intends to reconcile the Aelf to her by giving them the opportunity for immortality.

I am saving Disiri, and how she relates to this, for a future post.

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Knight Notes: The Knight, Chapter One

And so we begin. There is a lot of important symbolism and allusions in Chapter 1, so it gets its own, very long post. As I said earlier, there are spoilers in every post. A lot will be given away here. I would recommend reading the WK first before you go any further.

Chapter One: Dear Ben

Chapter Summary

Able/Art Ormsby is writing letters to his brother Ben explaining what happened to him all those years ago. Art is an American teenager living somewhere in the contemporary USA (I think Minnesota, which I will explain in a later post). We know this as he later references having a Macintosh computer, and being from America.

He lives with his older brother Ben. We later learn that his father is dead, and that he owned a hardware store. Art never directly says what happened to his and Ben’s mother, only that she “went away”, and Michael says his mother never knew him.  It appears she is deceased as well, perhaps dying shortly after Art was born, or at the time of birth.

We know from a later comment their grandmother was involved in raising them.  We also later learn from Art/Able that his grandparents were farmers. His father may be named Ben too, since his brother Ben’s twin in Celidon is Berthold, and his father was a Berthold too.

It is fall, and the leaves are changing.  Ben and Art have driven out to their cabin on a weekend. Ben drives back to see his girlfriend Geri after she calls him. Perhaps he was deliberately ditching his brother to hang out with his girlfriend. Art goes for a hike in the woods, and gets lost.

During his hike he crosses over into Mythgarthr, though its never expressly stated when this happens. He cuts a walking stick from an unusual tree with white bark and shiny leaves. This is Spiny Orange. He then sees cloud shapes that look like a castle, the Valfather, a unicorn, a black dragon, and a beautiful lady (probably the Valfather’s daughter, The Lady). He chases after the cloud castle. It gets dark, and he talks about walking down a slope “without a bottom.” He has entered Aelfrice without realizing it, and is then seized by the Mossmen.

He awakens in a sea cave. Parka of Kleos is there. She names him “Able of the High Heart.”  He disputes this, and she sort of curses him, saying “The lower your lady the higher your love.”  She then says “You will sink before you rise, and rise before you sink.” Art, now Able, begins to experience his first memories from the original Able. Parka then says “Each time you gain your heart’s desire, your heart shall reach for something higher.”  Parka gives him a bowstring from the thread she is spinning for the Spiny Orange branch that will become his bow.

An Epistolary Novel

Like many of GW’s books, the WK is an epistolary novel. Art/Able is writing a series of letters to his brother Ben after the events of the WK, from somewhere in Aelfrice. He says that Michael will get the letters to Ben. I did wonder how Art was able to remember the details of the story with such specificity. He never complains about his memory on any point. His perfect memory may be a residual benefit of his transformation into an Overcyn. He says in The Wizard that others described events to him that he was not personally present for.

GW does take reader skepticism seriously, and usually tries to give a plausible explanation for the detail of these epistolary works. At the end of The Book of the Long Sun, he lets Horn and Nettle admit that they have had to recreate conversations, take certain liberties, etc., in writing the Book of Silk. Severian is gifted with an eidetic memory in order to explain the detail in The Book of The New Sun, and The Urth of the New Sun.

If you are wondering whether Able was a runaway who just made it all up (a pure invention theory was proposed in discussions re The Sorcerer’s House), I considered and rejected that. If you wanted to write a letter to your long lost brother, it would be much easier to write something shorter and simpler. Art never really complains about his brother or life in America anyway.

The Faerie Gate is Down

The fairy world of Aelfrice is below Mythgarthr, and entered by a downward direction, here Art walking down a slope “without a bottom.”

A Tale of Lancelot

You can read the WK as GW’s version of Lancelot’s story.  Lancelot was the son of King Ban (here Ben) of Benoic  in the most popular Lancelot story.  His father is defeated and killed, and Lancelot is taken at a young age to live with the Lady of the Lake (here Queen Disiri) in her magical world.  The Lady of the Lake was a fairy like creature associated with the Arthurian legend.

Depending on the story, she gave Arthur Excalibur, was the ruler of Avalon, and had a relationship with Merlin. She was sometimes given the name Vivian, Nimue or Elaine.  The Real Able and Art/Able going to Aelfrice at a young age matches Lancelot being taken away by the Lady of the Lake. In some tales Lancelot even dies, and has to be brought back to life by the Lady. GW alludes to the legend in having Art Ormsby replace the original Able, who is dead by this point.

There is an echo here of Tennyson’s poem The Lady of Shalott. In that poem, a lady sits in a tower on an island while weaving, like Parka weaving on Bluestone Island. When Lancelot comes by, the Lady leaves her island.

Parka and The Beginning of the Christian Allegory

Michael Andre-Driussi identifies her in his WKC as one of the Roman goddesses of fate, the Parcae (Parca singular).  Able is an unreliable narrator, in that his letters are written by an American teenager based on things he is hearing from others. So the spelling is going to be off.  Celidon is a British/Norse fusion, so we need to consider the legends of northwest Europe when reviewing the names.

Parka is, in part, GW’s version of the goddess Perchta.  She was a Germanic goddess who oversaw spinning and weaving. Able described her as having a mouth full of teeth, and this is consistent with some of the scary images at the linked Wikipedia entry. If you scroll to the bottom of the Wikipedia entry, you will see that Perchta was associated in Italy with La Befana. Hey, isn’t that that GW short story you wrote about earlier?  The one he wrote way back in 1973. Yes.

Parka also seems to be a version of the Volva of Norse mythology.

But Parka is not just Perchta. Like most names in the WK, GW is alluding to multiple figures from mythology, literature, or the Bible. Parka is also the WK’s version of the Paraclete.  This is a Greek word, and it can mean “helper.” Parka is a helper to Able. In Christianity, the Paraclete is a representation of the Holy Spirit. When Able looks back one last time, Parka looks like a group of fluttering “white birds.” White doves are the most common artistic representation of the Holy Spirit, as shown at the Wikipedia entry.

This is the Feast of the Epiphany for the WK. Able comes into this world through a cave, not unlike Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. In some historic analysis, the stable of Christ’s birth was actually a cave. La Befana is associated with the Feast of the Epiphany. In GW’s short story La Befana, she makes an appearance on another planet as Christ is born into that alien world. Able is thus a Christ like figure being born into Mythgarthr. He is not the Christ, but an agent sent to a broken and endangered world by The Most High God.

Oh, remember that Able’s real name is Arthur Ormsby? His initials are A and O, or the Alpha and the Omega.

If you missed all this symbolism don’t feel bad, I had eight years of parochial schooling and it went right over my head on the first reading.

Parka’s statement about “the lower his lady the higher is love” is a reference to Disiri. She lives on a lower plane (Aelfrice). His love for her is stronger than that for any human woman, or woman of Skai (like Alvit the Valkyrie). The reference to rising and sinking/sinking rising is a reference to his travels between Aelfrice and Mythgarthr and Skai. He goes to Aelfrice before he can rise to the castle in Skai. He sinks back down to Aelfrice at the end of the WK.

What is the “High Heart”?

This stumped me for a long time. In one way, it may just mean Able’s high mindedness.  But I think this is another GW trick, or an example of an unreliable narrator.  Able heard “Heart” but his name is really “Able of the High Hart.” A Hart is an archaic word for a stag (male deer), and was usually used in the medieval period to describe a red deer stag. So its a good fit for the world of Celidon, which has a Scottish/Norse culture and atmosphere. According to the Wikipedia entry on Red Deer, Red Deer are depicted on Pictish stones from early Medieval Scotland.  The Red Hart is also apparently a common English pub name.

So what does this mean? Red Deer were hunted by nobles. However a Hart isn’t always red. The White Hart or Stag, a rare albino or mythological version, was the badge of King Richard II and other nobles. A White Stag appears at the end of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The children’s pursuit of it takes them back to Earth from Narnia. Some C.S. Lewis scholars believe the White Stag was Aslan (Christ) in disguise.

Its not clear if Able’s symbol is a Red or White Hart.   In Celtic tradition, a white stag was a messenger from the  “otherworld.”  A white stag briefly appears in The Knight in Chapter 13. Able refrains from shooting it, and Old Toug calls it a “cloud buck” (Able later names his unicorn Cloud). In the Arthurian tradition, pursuit of the White Stag was apparently symbolic of man’s spiritual quest. Able does undergo a process of theosis, or divinization, during the story of the WK.  Given the color symbolism I’ve discussed earlier, I think the Hart was likely white, and may be a reference to the Holy Trinity. There is some confirmation of this when he fights Sir Loth, which I will explain in a future post.

Finally, I note that in Norse mythology the stag Eikpyrnir stands atop Valhalla, and is the source of various rivers of Norse legend.  And the Bible sometimes refers to Jesus/God as the source of “living waters.” John 7:38.  The High Hart?

What is Spiny Orange?

Able’s bow and lance are made from Spiny Orange. This significantly empowers these weapons.  They are seemingly unbreakable, though the lance is later destroyed.  This is where the Kabbalah comes into play. For the longest time I thought that orange was the color of the bark or the leaves. I wasn’t reading closely enough.  The bark is described as white in Chapter One, and the leaves are described as green later in The Knight. Orange is not a color that anyone perceives when they look at a Spiny Orange tree.

In the earlier post on color symbolism, I included the colors associated with the Kabbalah’s Sephirot.  GW used Kabbalah symbolism/imagery in The Urth of the New Sun. He does it again in the WK. Kabbalah, according to Wikipedia, is an esoteric method or discipline originating in Judaism. It is the most esoteric way of studying the Torah, after direct interpretation, allegory, and imagination. In the Kabbalah is the concept of the Sephirot, which are ten emanations God uses to sustain the universe. The Sephirot is depicted in the form of a tree of ten parts, or Tree of Life. Apparently each part may be associated with a color.  Yesod’s color appears to be orange (see Table 17-6 at the linked document) in the traditional Jewish representations that I’ve read. Yesod is the power of connection, or that which translates spirituality into actions that unite one with God.

Does Yesod sound familiar? Its the name of the parallel universe/dimension Severian visited in The Urth of the New Sun.

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Knight Notes: So What’s It All About?

In previous posts I’ve identified influences in the WK and some of the themes GW explores.  But what’s the overall purpose?  The WK can be read in various ways, and in varying depths:

• Its a boy meets girl, boy loses girls, boy gets girl back narrative. Able’s pursuit of Disiri is the central thread of the story.
• Its Joseph Campbell “hero’s journey.” Able is a representation of the “Hero with a Thousand Faces“, and this is GW’s version of the mono myth.
• Its GW’s tribute/acknowledgement/homage to some of his and our culture’s prominent literary and cultural influences: Lord Dunsany, Sir Walter Scott, George MacDonald, T.H. White, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, Edmund Spenser, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, movies about King Arthur, etc.
• Not only is it his version of the monomyth, but GW also weaves into the WK the actual stories of famous heroes, including Lancelot, Heracles, Odysseus, Theseus, Beowulf, Perseus, Bellerophon, Cadmus, Oedipus, Orpheus, Jack the Giant Killer, Robin Hood, and maybe others.  The name of the world Able visits, Mythgarthr, could arguably be translated as “Myth World”, or a land inhabited by living myths.
• At a deeper level, the WK is a Christian allegory, somewhat like Pilgrim’s Progress, the Divine Comedy or C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Able is a distant echo of Christ who undergoes a process of theosis and serves as an agent of a higher power to set right a broken world. GW uses Greek, Norse and other mythologies, and Arthurian legends, to code the elements of the allegory into his tale.  The events Able experiences and people he meets match up with the events and people from the story of Jesus in the Gospels and other books the New Testament. Please note that the allusions to events in the New Testament in the WK don’t happen in the same chronological order that they do in the Gospel stories.
• At its most mystic level, the WK is a parable of Men and Women, our mutual estrangement, and the hope of reconciliation.  GW alludes to and uses the Divine Comedy, Greek mythology, the Kabbalah, and color symbolism in communicating this theme.
• Finally, there are faint traces of GW’s biography in the WK.  The War with Osterland is partly based on the Korean War, similar to what he did with The Book of the New Sun.

All of the above are true, but the story can be enjoyed by a reader who only perceives the first few levels. Its the “rereading with pleasure” that allowed me to discover the remaining themes.

This is an incredibly dense book, with each character representing mulitple allusions to folklore, mythology and literature.  I don’t expect a reader to agree with everything I propose. But I would encourage a new or young reader of GW to hold the image of a layer cake in their mind when reading his books. There are usually multiple stories or narratives stacked on top of each other, like the different levels of a layer cake.  If you find yourself strongly disagreeing with another reader’s theory of a GW book, consider the possibility that you are both right.

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Knight Notes: Color Systems and Symbolism

GW makes use of color symbolism in the WK and many of his other works. I have not developed a comprehensive theory for his method, but let me share some thoughts. Perhaps others can offer interpretations.

First, some background on color systems:

• Aristotle developed the first known color system. It consisted of seven colors: White, Yellow, Red, Violet, Green, Blue and Black
• A rainbow is commonly accepted to have seven colors: Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet. Roy G. Biv.
• Isaac Newton used the same seven colors for his system, and also organized them into a color wheel.
• The Roman Catholic Church has what are known as liturgical colours, which are used in Church decoration and priestly vestments for different times of the year.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, are the colors the Kabbalah associates with the Tree of Life (Sephirot or Sefirot). GW used Kabbalah symbols, etc. in the Urth of the New Sun, and others have observed Kabbalah symbols/wording, etc. in other books. The Sefirot is composed of 10 parts, and I have read articles associating these with certain colors:
  • Malkhut is blue and black
  • Yesod is orange
  • Netzak is light pink
  • Hod  is dark pink
  • Tiferet is purple
  • Gevurah  is red
  • Hesed is white
  • Binah is green
  • Hokmah is blue
  • Keterhas no color
• If you are going to apply Kabbalah to GW’s bibliography, it’s important that you only use traditional, Jewish Kabbalah. There are non-Jewish versions that have different Kabbalah color associations.

Color symbolism is present across the range of GW’s novels:

• Many characters in GW’s books have colors for names. We have Greens in Peace and There Are Doors. There are Blues in Pandora and Home Fires. There are Blacks in The Sorcerer’s House and Peace. There is a Gold in Peace. A White in An Evil Guest. 
• Certain colors are used to describe people without given names. There is a “green man” in both The Book of the New Sun and Castleview.
• Others have commented on the Blue-Green pairing of Urth(blue)-Lune (green), St. Anne (green) and St. Croix (blue), and the worlds of Blue and Green in The Book of the New Sun, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and The Book of the Short Sun.
  • What some may be overlooking in these pairings is the color Red. Urth and Lune are joined by the red, dying sun. St. Anne and St. Croix have a sun that is described as pink (ok, almost red). The old red sun of Urth reappears The Book of the Short Sun.
  •  Red, Blue and Green are primary colors in the RBG additive model. When you overlap them you get white:

• As an example of this RBG primary color symbolism in art, let’s consider the painting below,  Dante and Beatrice:

by Henry Holiday (public domain). Taken from Wikipedia commons.

In this scene, Dante (in Green) is observing his beloved Beatrice (in White) with two other women, who are in Red and Blue.  This is a deliberate use of RBG primary color symbolism resulting in white.  Beatrice is associated with the “Beatific Vision“, so its very appropriate that she be dressed in white.  We will revisit Dante in discussing the WK.

Colors are used in the WK as well:

• Orange for the Spiny Orange tree
• Blue in Bluestone castle, and the Sea Aelf.
• Yellow for the eyes of the Aelf
• Red for Redhall. Escan’s library is called the Red Room
• Gold for Lynnet’s manor.
• Green for Able and Disiri. He is a “Green Knight from Skai” in Chapter Three of The Wizard. She has green hair and skin.
• White for Kulili, Cloud, Michael and the Griffin.
• Black for the Black Caan, and for Marder as the Black Knight. Arnthor, Setr and Morcaine all have black eyes.
• Utgard has an umber flag, Celidon a sea blue flag, Osterland a red flag
• The Old Caan of the Osterlings had six sons, by birth order they were assigned the colors red, brown, white, gold, blue and black.

I don’t have a general theory that explains the use of all color in the WK and GW’s other works. A few observations:

• I believe White is associated with holiness or the divine presence. White is the liturgical color of the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Severian brings a new, white sun to Urth in The Urth of the New Sun.
• Black may be associated with death or evil. Severian is garbed in his famous black cloak, and that color is associated with his order. Zwart Black is the villain in The Sorcerer’s House. Marder pretends to be a Black Knight, who uses a skull for a crest. Bobby Black dies young in Peace.  The Black Caan slays Arnthor.
• Red may be associated with sacrifice. It is the color of Good Friday. Ravd of Redhall is slain in The Knight. The red sun of Urth is dying, slain by a black hole apparently.
• Green seems associated with life, or nature.  A dangerous innocence without a moral code?  The world of St. Anne, inhabited by the green eyed Abos, is green. The morally primitive, almost innocent, Inhumi dominate the world “Green.” Disiri of the Aelf has green hair and skin, and is on a lower level than Able.  The character Green from There Are Doors is sort of naive, and not very bright according to GW himself.
• Blue may represent flawed, fallen humanity, and our world generally. The dying Urth is blue. St. Croix, the more developed, politically corrupt world from The Fifth Head of Cerberus is blue.  “Blue” is the planet where most of the settlers from The Whorl have gone, and are struggling to set up a new society. Bluestone Castle is a ruined castle.  Poorly governed Celidon has a blue flag. Chelle Sea Blue from Home Fires is a wounded, mentally unstable war veteran. Aladdin Blue of Pandora is a dishonest, ex-con who appears to screw up a police investigation of a murder.
• The Sefirot Malkuth’s association with the color blue and black may support the previous bullet point. Malkuth is supposed to represent our physical world, the “kingdom.”

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