Bakker LVII: Eärwa as Foucault's Phallic Funhouse?

[.H.]

***Contains spoilers from THE UNHOLY CONSULT****

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This is the perpetual thread devoted to the works of R. Scott Bakker, primarily the books in The Second Apocalypse series, the first novel is The Darkness that Comes Before, the seventh novel is The Unholy Consult.  This thread is for the series through The Unholy Consult and contains spoilers through that novel.

The Second Apocalypse is currently comprised of two sub-series: a trilogy and a quartet. Potentially, there could be a third sub series, although the author has stated that the quartet completes his original vision for the series. 

The first trilogy of books is subtitled The Prince of Nothing these three books are:

1. The Darkness that Comes Before
2. The Warrior Prophet
3. The Thousandfold Thought

The second quartet of books is subtitled The Aspect Emperor, these four books are:

1. The Judging Eye
2. The White-Luck Warrior
3. The Great Ordeal
4. The Unholy Consult 

The third sub series is presumably subtitled “The No God.”

The Unholy Consult also includes an expanded Appendix/Encyclopedic Glossary. The original Glossary exists at the end of the third book, The Thousandfold Thought. 

Bakker has published four short stories within the universe of the second apocalypse series, The False Sun and The Four Revelations of Cinial'jin on Bakker's Blog Three Pound Brain (and now also as appendices in The Unholy Consult) and The Knife of Many Hands, which is available for purchase. There is also another short story, The Carathayan, available for purchase in this anthology (along with an introduction by Bakker). This thread contains spoilers for these publications. The False Sun is the most discussed story.

Newcomers are strongly advised to finish the books before coming here; otherwise the spoilers will rot your soul. Eternally.

Bakker posted in Westeros shortly after the release of The Great Ordeal and answered several questions.  That discussion can be found here.. 

Some denizens of this thread occasionally refer to  Bakker's two non-fantasy novels, Neuropath and Disciple of the Dog. Posters are advised to hide crucial plot points in those novels when referring to these two novels.

Thanks to Happy Ent for the intro to the thread

[.H.]

Couldn't think of a better title unfortunately.  Give me a better one and I'll change it.

Where we left off:

20 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Moreover, the WLW was born as the result of lax enforcement of building codes.

A hasty reading may misunderstand this as a presentist critique of pre-modern societies, and their insufficient organisation, bureaucracy, and command of materials science. It is not. For  verily – Bakker knows his sources, he is nothing if not intertextual – we have in Deuteronomy 22:8 New King James Version (NKJV):

Building codes ever have fallen within the compass of what is holy, what is exalted. Building codes are not merely read and followed. They are Witnessed.

Thematically, the birth-and-death of the White-Luck Warrior by neglicence ties in with Ouroboros, the snake devouring itself. There is also a postmodernist reading in the tradition of Lacan, where the collapse of a building must be understood as an anti-erection. Then, the relationship between the WLW (the result of an anti-erection) to Psatma Nannaferi is anti-Oedipal; their eventual copulation an inversion of the complex.

These books reward a close reading.

Great post.

[.H.]

17 hours ago, sologdin said:

an allusion to the "Panopticon" and both the "soul" as a ledger

right.  the text is all over discipline & punish, from the title on down. there's probably more that can be done with them, such as how the inchoroi approach to sex is quite literally an ars erotica, whereas the dunyain approach is equally literally a scientia sexualis.

Yeah, I really should just read Disciple and Punish myself one day, rather than just things referencing it.  Another book into the TBR pile...

[sologdin]

totally promote discipline & punish to the top.  the ars erotica/scientia sexualis stuff is history of sexuality volume I.  the other two volumes in english are less abstract (i.e., for foucault) and concern athens and then rome; there's a fourth volume in french now, regarding ancient patristic writings (i.e., regarding sex)--dunno if it's made it to english yet.

[Rhom]

I dunno all the psyc stuff... but as someone who just finished a remodel on his office, I’m in for the building codes references.

I’m convinced the code enforcement officer was an Inchoroi sent to make me suffer.

[.H.]

58 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I dunno all the psyc stuff... but as someone who just finished a remodel on his office, I’m in for the building codes references.

I’m convinced the code enforcement officer was an Inchoroi sent to make me suffer.

Well, philosophy, not psychology.  In fact, given what I sort of little I understand about what he was presenting in Madness and Civilization, I think Foucault was rather skeptical (or even hostile) of what psychology was/is trying to tell us, but part of that might well be it's place in the nature of a power/hierarchy of culture/society.

But it might well be the case that bureaucrats are our proto-Inchoroi models...

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

I dunno all the psyc stuff... but as someone who just finished a remodel on his office, I’m in for the building codes references.

I’m convinced the code enforcement officer was an Inchoroi sent to make me suffer.

Open office plans are clearly designed by the Consult - inchoroi in league with energy vampires.