{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/71", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "sflovers", "thread": { "id": 71, "subject": "Two new books by Gene Wolfe", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1987-11-27T11:49:47+00:00", "last": "1987-11-27T11:49:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Donn Seeley", "address": "donn at cs.utah.edu" }, "date": "1987-11-27T11:49:47+00:00", "subject": "Two new books by Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN. Gene Wolfe. Tor: NYC. 372 pp. hc., c1987.\nEMPIRES OF FOLIAGE AND FLOWER. Gene Wolfe. Cheap Street: Route 2,\n Box 293, New Castle VA 24127. 80 pp. hc. signed slipcased, c1987.\n\nI finally got to meet Gene Wolfe this summer at Readercon. It was a\ncurious experience -- Wolfe looks, talks and acts so completely\nunlike what you might expect from his writing that at first glance\nyou might imagine the real Wolfe to be a Salinger-style hermit and\nthat this man has stolen his name and reputation. There's a lot of\nTexas in his deep drawl; his face seems very bland and\nmiddle-American, except for his eyes. Nothing to suggest the florid\nGothic manner of THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS or the NEW SUN books...\nIn person I found him amiable and intimidating at the same time --\nhe doesn't mind chatting with fans and enjoys telling anecdotes, but\nI also got the feeling that there were thoughts passing through his\nmind that didn't show on the surface. It's occurred to me since\nthen that much of Wolfe's writing is concerned with deceptive\nappearances: Dr. Marsch's green eyes, the magical gem borne by the\nexecutioner, the rebel Wat. Wolfe is so good at these tricks that\nI'd almost suspect him of being responsible for the subsequent\nPhilip K Dick mass illusion complete with fire alarm... but that's\nanother story.\n\nSo now I have all my NEW SUN hardcovers signed except one. Just my\nluck -- a couple months after I drag a shopping bag full of signed\nbooks back from Boston, a new one comes out. Yes, it's THE URTH OF\nTHE NEW SUN, a full-blown sequel to THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. I was\none of those few readers who thought he was satisfied with the\nwrap-up in THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH, in which Severian claims to\nhave told all he knows, and if you didn't understand, you must have\nmissed something. Thus in my view a sequel to NEW SUN would be an\ninevitable anticlimax, since its subject matter is (literally)\nforeordained. On the other hand (there's always another hand when\nyou need one), I've always had a warm feeling for the characters in\nNEW SUN and as long as sequel disease isn't setting in, I'm quite\nwilling to say hello to them again.\n\nHow does Wolfe avoid sequelitis? THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN throws you\noff balance right at the opening page, because Severian is no longer\non Urth. At the end of CITADEL, Severian is starting his reign as\nAutarch; URTH skips this entire period in his life and tosses you\nadrift in space and time, as Severian is on his way to the universe\nof Yesod to make his case for Urth before the court. The voyage\nisn't as straightforward as you might think -- the agents of Abaia\nhave one last desperate chance to stop the New Sun, by killing\nSeverian on board the ship... Wolfe never pauses long enough to let\nyou get your bearings, and by the end of the book it's clear that\ncalling the book a sequel can be very misleading. We do get to meet\nsome familiar characters, albeit very quickly -- another surprise\nentrance before Valeria, some more banter with Typhon and Piaton, a\ncurious encounter with a grown-up Eata, the first visit of\nFamulimus, Barbatus and Ossipago; and we do meet some folks we never\nsaw in the earlier books but heard about, like the Autarch Ymar, and\nthe Conciliator; but it's the new characters who steal the show. I\nthink I'll let Severian introduce them himself, rather than spoil\nsome of the surprises for you, but it's fair to say that the new\ncharacters are just as memorable as the old, if not more so... (Of\ncourse everything is equally memorable to Severian!)\n\nWhen I started reading URTH, I was afraid that Wolfe's explanations\nmight spoil THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN for me. After all, I had spent\nno small amount of time and effort erecting an edifice of imaginary\nplaying cards and I had every reason to expect that Wolfe might take\na playful puff at it. As it turned out, it wasn't so much that\nWolfe knocked my theories down as that he made the data much more\ncomplicated. The broader hints about the metaphysics of Urth and\nits universe and its meta-universe are enticing and still\nincomplete. The religious implications are also puzzling; people\nare going to ask about Wolfe as they did about Tolkien: how can\nWolfe, as a Christian, fit his work into an orthodox Christian\nframework? I'm not sure it's supposed to fit (and I'm ill equipped\nto speculate, as a non-Christian), but it's a curious problem,\nespecially when you consider the difficulties of accommodating\ntechnology in Heaven. In any case I now have the very strong\nfeeling that I need to re-read the entire work from back to front,\nas Famulimus would see it, in order to capture all the (new)\nimplications...\n\n '... In ancient days, in a land far off, there stood two empires,\n divided by mountains. One dressed its soldiers in yellow, the\n other in green. For a hundred generations they struggled. I see\n that the man with you knows the tale.'\n\n 'And after a hundred generations,' I said, 'an eremite came along\n them and counseled the emperor of the yellow army to dress his\n men in green, and the master of the green army that he should\n clothe it in yellow. But the battle continued as before. In my\n sabretache, I have a book called THE WONDERS OF URTH AND SKY, and\n the story is told there.'\n\n 'That is the wisest of all the books of men,' the Cumaean said.\n ...\n\nCheap Street has taken this tale and made a charming little book out\nof it. It has a flowered Japanese paper jacket, yellow endpapers\nand green pages (or is that green endpapers and yellow pages?), text\nprinted in several colors, and a number of lovely illustrations by\nJudy King-Rieniets. The catch is that it's a highly limited\nedition. I think I finally realized that I'm not a collector when I\nreceived this book. It's really a gorgeous item and I don't mind\nhaving paid for it, but I felt guilty about letting my fingers touch\nthe pages, and in turn I feel mildly annoyed that I let myself be\nintimidated. I'm a reader at heart; a book to me is the words, not\nthe investment. Still, EMPIRES is a lovely example of the\npublishing art at its best (even in this edition, which is NOT the\nfancy one), and I enjoy looking at it.\n\nOh, you were curious about the contents too? It's a novelette that\ntells two stories at once, Severian's story about the warring\nempires and a story about a little girl who is taken to see these\nempires by the wizard Thyme. (Yes, there's a wizard Sage too -- if\npuns make you ill, you'd better avoid Wolfe.) It's not all told in a\ndry fairy-tale manner; there's dialogue and action and characters\nwho step off the page. It's a fun little piece and I hope it gets\npublished in a magazine so that more than two hundred readers get to\nenjoy it. One thing is bothering the hell out of me, though -- I\nswear that I know where the yellow and green empires fable comes\nfrom, but I can't place it. Ambrose Bierce comes to mind as the\nauthor, but that could just be a result of the style of the fable.\nDoes anyone out there have a clue?" } ] } ] }