{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/84",
    "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": 84,
    "subject": "Gene Wolfe: Castleview",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1990-07-02T01:39:03+00:00",
    "last": "1990-07-05T17:17:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v15-259-11@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Geoff Alexander Cohen",
        "address": "gacohen at pucc.princeton.edu"
      },
      "date": "1990-07-02T01:39:03+00:00",
      "subject": "Gene Wolfe: Castleview",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I just finished Gene Wolfe's latest, _Castleview_, which concerns a\nfamily moving from Chicago to an old-fashioned town called Castleview, in\nwhich it is possible to glimpse a castle off in the distance. (Thus the\nname!)  It started off pretty well, and I enjoyed Wolfe's first dealings\nwith modern reality in novel form, and there are some pretty surprisingly\nenjoyable and yet mainstream-type characters (surprising in the\nmainstream-ness, not enjoyable.)\n\n   Now don't get me wrong, I'm a very big Wolfe fan, and would recommend\nhim almost without reservation as the best science-fiction author today.\nHowever, I DIDN\"T GET IT!!!!! :(.  Yes, I'm used to him being pretty\nopaque, for example Fifth Head of Cerberus, as I saw in a recent post.  But\nafter a re-reading, I think I got a lot (not all) of what he meant in that.\n_There Are Doors_ is a little harder, but still excellent, and I was left\nwith a sense of completion, if not closure.\n\n   But _Castleview_ left me cold, confused, and angry.  Could someone out\nthere give some advice as to what happened?  In the words of Orson Scott\nCard himself, \"Altogether, one of the most disappointing books I've ever\nread.\"  It seems he was as confused as I.  Card says in another essay, \"I\nwish Gene Wolfe would take pity on his not so smart readers and EXPLAIN\nWHAT HAPPENED!\"  Amen!\n\nGeoff Cohen\nCenter for Energy and Environmental Studies\nPrinceton University"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v15-259-12@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mark Brown",
        "address": "mbrown at tonic.osf.org"
      },
      "date": "1990-07-05T17:17:58+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: Gene Wolfe: Castleview",
      "in_reply_to": "<sflovers-v15-259-11@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "GACOHEN at pucc.Princeton.EDU (Geoff Alexander Cohen) said:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I just finished Gene Wolfe's latest, _Castleview_, which concerns a\nfamily moving from Chicago to an old-fashioned town called Castleview,\nin which it is possible to glimpse a castle off in the distance. (Thus\nthe name!)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Geoff, re-read CASTLEVIEW slowly, this time with an eye for Arthurian\nLegend...you know, Camelot and all that.\n\nI'm led to understand that it's *very* subtly done, and to get some of the\nreferences requires *extensive* knowledge of the Arthur Mythos.\n\nMark Brown\nmbrown at osf.org"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}