Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe (Was: Re: Mercedes Lackey)

From: Doug Merritt <doug at netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 17:20:18 +0000

>>science fiction and fantasy.  Oh, for a few score more Gene Wolfes!]
>
>Someone actually wants _more_ Gene Wolfes?!?  What a painful thought!
>Reading his Torturer stuff was one of the most painful things I've ever
>done. There was no point, very little plot, and way too much
>foreshadowing.

It's true that there wasn't a lot of plot by usual standards, and at first
I found this disappointing, too. But as I went on I discovered that the
"miscellaneous random background elements" (I'm quoting what I might have
called them after 30 pages of the first book) were actually the whole
point.

It's a mood piece, it's about the psychology of a very odd man, by way of
contrast it's about the psychology of the common man, it's a thoughtful
work about ethics and mores (a torturer as hero??? Even Donaldson used an
anti-hero for what little point he had to make in book 1), and there are a
lot of parts that are brilliantly written in terms of style and visual
evocativeness. It's also interesting in an exotic-world tour guide sense,
but that's more minor, although again very well done in spots. And last but
not least, vast pieces of it add up to a dark but moderately ineffable
comment about the last days of the world.

There were also some spots where I found it a bit slow paced even so, but
given the rest, I decided that he was probably doing that on purpose in
order to maintain the rhythm and pace (they were noticeably regular) in
precisely the intended way.

Now, if you're in the mood for bang-'em-up adventure (which I sometimes am,
I don't mean that as a flame), then this is going to be a dreary and dull
set of books.

If you take them on their own merits, you can discover that Wolfe has
created something so different that it's pretty much in a class by itself.
It's not quite like anything ever done before.

And whether you happen to like it or not, that deserves high praise.

(Some people liked Urth of the New Sun best, but I thought he fell apart on
that one, sort of throwing in all the exciting adventure and answers to
unanswerable questions that he'd left out of the early ones. I don't mind
such things if they're done well, or sometimes if they're the whole point,
but they seemed weak by comparison with his previous approach.)

This is not to say I want to see people imitate this series. I probably
wouldn't like the results. I'm sure I wouldn't have liked the original
series if anyone but Wolfe had done it. It wasn't what he did, but *how* he
did it that was great.

It *is* possible to say, "He did a great job at doing it, but that sort of
thing just isn't to my tastes," you know. Saying that it's "dreck" just
exposes that you don't pay attention to those aspects of books that you
don't personally care for no matter how well done they may be, surely the
very definition of provincialism.

Or to be more charitable, I could assume you're simply taking a
Humpty-Dumpty stance in meaning "dreck" to say "I *really* didn't like it."

>It was a collection of images which went from unusual to completely
>whacked-out.  Why anyone would seek out more of this dreck is completely
>beyond me.

As usual it's important to separate personal taste from questions of
craftsmanship. I can see why a lot of people wouldn't care for it, but that
doesn't mean that it's "dreck". (Yiddish for "shit", btw... it's a rather
harsh put-down).

Doug Merritt

---

From: Mike Rogers <mike at maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 19:48:23 +0000

gac2 at midway.uchicago.edu wrote:
>foreshadowing.  It was a collection of images which went from unusual to
>completely whacked-out.  Why anyone would seek out more of this dreck is
>completely beyond me.

I think that the first line being "it is possible that I already had some
presentiment of my future" is a dead giveaway as regards foreshadowing.

For me, the series didn't really gel until I'd read The Urth of the New
Sun.  Sure, once I finished TBotNS I knew I'd read *something* special, but
I am such an inattentive reader that I'd have had to reread them a couple
of times to pick up on the self-referential bits. But TUoftNS just *blew*
me away. That solar sail! Wow!

Whatever turns you on.

Mike Rogers
Box 6, Regent Hse
TCD,EIRE
mike at maths.tcd.ie

---

From: K R Maxson <maxson at cerl.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 19:58:07 +0000

> completely whacked-out.  Why anyone would seek out more of this dreck is

Gene Wolfe is perhaps the best science fiction / fantasy author writing
today.  Although I enjoyed his Torturer series, I do not think it showcases
his talents as well as There Are Doors, The Death of Doctor Island, or many
of the short stories reprinted in Endangered Species.

There are several things about Wolfe's writing that makes me enjoy it a lot
more than Lackey's.

There is no kitsch or melodrama in Wolfe's prose.  His writing is spare,
concise, and it grabs you with the ideas it presents rather than trying to
enmesh you in purple language.  There is no color for the sake of color, no
passages of filler description in sad and misguided emulation of JRRT or
Peake.

Wolfe does not explain, as a narrator, how each of his characters are
feeling at any given moment, and why they feel that way, and then explain
to the reader how just and correct those feelings are and that if you don't
empathize with them you are a shallow, callous, and uneducated reader.
Rather, he sketches a genuine picture and allows his readers to explore it
for themselves, trusting that their intelligence and humanity will allow
them to interpret it.

Wolfe's writing is fabular; it resonates with culturally rich images, and
addresses aspects of life that are, I hope, important to the vast majority
of thinking beings.  He does not generally write adventure stories,
although there is adventure in them; he does not write with the goal of
applying some personal moral perception to your forehead with a
sledgehammer, as SOME authors do; his stories attempt to share strange and
almost indescribable personal discoveries about life, to speak about things
that are difficult if not impossible to describe with the overly concrete
symbols of language, things that must be explored at a higher level of
abstraction.

Not only that, but his stories are a lot of fun.  Gripping and suspensful
in a way that "evil invasions by evil guys from way up north" just never
turn out to be.  Wolfe writes from a history and context that is, by and
large, REAL, and hence his stories are vastly more engaging, moving, and
meaningful than stories that are based in a cartoonish fantasyworld.

Wolfe has written several books that could keep good company with something
like The Crying of Lot 49 or Magnetic Field(s).  I know he is not terribly
popular - despite making a bid for mainstream sf/f audiences with his
Torturer series - and that is really unfortunate.  I think that most of his
books should be sold as fiction although there isn't that great a market
for good fiction these days, either.

Oh, well.

Just to address more specifically what was said about the Torturer series:
no point, little plot, too much forshadowing.  Now, I cannot deny that you
may have seen no point and little plot.  Presumably, you could see a point
to the Herald-Mage books?  The Torturer series is about a quest for
rebirth, a search through decay for life.  I suppose since it isn't about
bad guys from up north, some people might have a hard time figuring out
that there is, in fact, a plot.  I guess it might be difficult for certain
people to recognize a plot in The Bear, or The Baron in the Trees, or
Anthills of the Savanna.

I know Gene Wolfe doesn't appeal to a lot of people because he is not easy
to understand; he doesn't hold his readers by the hand, and forces them to
actually think for themselves.  Some people think this is a weakness - you
can acid-test them by asking them if they liked Lem's The Investigation.
And I agree that there are boundaries which some writers wander across,
after which they are more engaged in literary masturbation than in
meaningful communication (Gravity's Rainbow comes to mind, although a lot
of people disagree with me).  But I haven't read a story by Wolfe yet that
came close to that boundary just as I haven't read a story by Mercedes
Lackey that wasn't careful to tell you exactly what your reaction should be
to everything that she was writing.

---

From: David Eppstein <eppstein at wormwood.ics.uci.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1992 21:41:01 +0000

maxson at cerl.uiuc.edu (K R Maxson) writes:
> turn out to be. [...]  Just to address more specifically what was said
> about the Torturer series: Now, I cannot deny that you may have seen
> little plot.

I have seen this assertion several times now, and I am tired of letting it
pass.  There is enormous quantities of plot in the Torturer series.
Including "boy from nowhere grows up to be emperor", "evil invasion from up
north", and various other standard subplots.  You just don't notice it
because there's so much else going on.  Like the claim of no foreshadowing,
the supposed lack of plot is easily refuted.  Those people not liking Wolfe
must be doing so for some other reason than the reasons they are claiming.

David Eppstein
Info & Computer Science    
UC Irvine

---

From: Geoffrey A. Coulter <gac2 at ellis.uchicago.edu>
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1992 02:28:29 +0000

doug at netcom.com (Doug Merritt) writes:
>anti-hero for what little point he had to make in book 1), and there

Yes, but Donaldson was at least enjoyable.  Indeed, so was Wolfe...at
first.  His premise held a lot of promise, but he crippled his efforts by
making the series into a set of increasingly bizarre vignettes.  When I
started the series, I had a lot of hope for it, but as it progressed I came
to feel that Wolfe felt he had to write of stranger and stranger scenes to
hold the interest of the audience.  This really turned me off.

>precisely the intended way.

I don't question his intentions, but I personally didn't like the result.

>Now, if you're in the mood for bang-'em-up adventure (which I sometimes
>am, I don't mean that as a flame), then this is going to be a dreary and
>dull set of books.

Ironically, I thought the books had _too_ much `bang-'em up adventure.'  It
distracted from the character development; much of it seemed gratuitous.
Almost every conflict the aliens could have been done away with with little
loss.

>It's not quite like anything ever done before.

I agree, and was a litle surprised when a came across a comparision with
Mercedes Lackey in the first post on this sub-thread.  The two writers
simply cannot be compared (No, I'm not saying one is better than the other,
necessarily :-) ).

>series if anyone but Wolfe had done it. It wasn't what he did, but *how*
>he did it that was great.
>

It comes down to what a reader sees him as trying to do/doing.  I'm not
sure he did a great job because I think he let his ideas run away from him.
As I said earlier, I liked his premise, but he seems to have lost control.
Perhaps if he had used some of his subsequent ideas in _different_ works, I
would not have felt I was reading a long series of non sequiters.

>Humpty-Dumpty stance in meaning "dreck" to say "I *really* didn't like

Bingo.

>craftsmanship.

As I just said, however, I question the craftsmanship.

Geoffrey Coulter

---

From: Stephen Harker <phs172m at vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1992 07:43:40 +0000

>> completely whacked-out.  Why anyone would seek out more of this dreck is
[Quite a bit of stuff deleted] 
> today.  Although I enjoyed his Torturer series, I do not think it
> showcases his talents as well as There Are Doors, The Death of Doctor
> Island, or many of the short stories reprinted in Endangered Species.
>
> concise, and it grabs you with the ideas it presents rather than trying
> to enmesh you in purple language.  There is no color for the sake of
> color, no passages of filler description in sad and misguided emulation
> of JRRT or Peake.

   I find this opinion hard to believe.  I have tried to read a number of
books by Gene Wolfe at various times.  He is one of very few "acclaimed"
authors who I have found unreadable.  I cannot believe that anyone would
call his writing "spare".  The only description that I can think that is
vaguely appropriate is my old first form English teacher's worst comment
"verbal diarrhea".

   This certainly shows a massive difference in taste from the above
comments.

Stephen Harker
Monash University

---

From: Toshi Takeuchi <tt at wag.caltech.edu>
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1992 23:59:10 +0000

The first time I read Shadow of the Torturer, I whipped through the book
like I read most science fiction books and I thought the book sucked.

Well, The Claw of the Conciliator won the Nebula, so I thought all right
I'll give the book another try.

The next time I read the book slowly and I LOVED it.  His writing carried
me away.  His plot is so-so, but his writing is wonderful.

Read Gene Wolfe, but read slowly. (a suggestion to those who think he
sucks.)

Toshi

---

From: Albatross <alberti at mudhoney.micro.umn.edu>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1992 16:47:31 +0000

>> today.  There is no kitsch or melodrama in Wolfe's prose.  His writing
>> is spare,
>
>I find this opinion hard to believe..."verbal diarrhea".  
>

   Well, at least I think we can agree that Gene Wolfe's works are
"arguably the best", with emphasis on "arguably".

   An important point is that Wolfe adhere's to a style of writing similar
to Sucharitkul, MacAvoy, or some of Tepper's earlier works: storytelling.
Wolfe is first a storyteller, and second a science-fiction/fantasy writer.
He is NOT a space-opera writer, adventure writer, or intrigue writer.
   Since storytelling is probably the least-common structure for a science
fiction novel, it will seem, well, alien to many science-fiction readers.
Thus the sharply different opinions as to whether or not his writing is
"good".

   Since my tastes have always run to strong characterization and clear
description, I enjoy Wolfe's works.  However, I always keep in mind the
distinction between his storytelling style and the style of most other
science fiction authors.  To do otherwise results in Wolfe being lumped in
with Heinlein, Card or Brin, resulting in absurd comparisons.

   Storytelling is storytelling, adventure is adventure.  Each can contain
elements of the other (each must, really), but to try to compare two
clearly different styles makes no sense.  Gene Wolfe his one of the best
storytellers we have, behind only Richard Adams (IMHO).  He does what he
does very well.

   You may simply not have a taste for that style.

Bob Alberti
Computer & Information Services 
U of MN

---

From: Peter Cash <cash at convex.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1992 20:31:37 +0000

>vaguely appropriate is my old first form English teacher's worst comment

I've read a couple of his books - FREE LIVE FREE and SOLDIER OF THE MIST. I
enjoyed both until the end. While the writing style didn't set me on fire,
I thought the characters were interesting and well-drawn, and the plot
moved along OK but, this guy just does not know how to end a book. There
are lots of intriguing situations and tantalizing mysteries but, they all
come to nothing in the end. FLF just falls apart the solution is totally
unbelievable and trivial. SotM sets you up by making you care about the
characters, then treats them shabbily (setting up for a sequel I'll never
read).

No, I don't like Gene Wolfe either, and I won't read anything else by him.

Peter Cash

---

From: Peter Cash <cash at convex.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1992 20:45:32 +0000

alberti at mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross) writes:
>An important point is that Wolfe adhere's to a style of writing similar to
>Sucharitkul, MacAvoy, or some of Tepper's earlier works: storytelling.
...
>storytellers we have, behind only Richard Adams (IMHO).  He does what he

I find this hard to understand. I had always thought that the common thread
that runs through all science fiction and fantasy writing is
_story-telling_. Aren't these all stories? Isn't plot the decisive element
in this whole genre? And how can you say that writing about "adventure" is
not story-telling? I'm puzzled.

Peter Cash

---

From: Doug Merritt <doug at netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1992 02:35:52 +0000

phs172m at vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker) writes:
>authors who I have found unreadable.

I find *quite* a few recent acclaimed and award winning writers to be
unreadable.

But I do like Wolfe. I think you're *both* right. There are times when his
prose borders on the purple, and other times when it is spare.

I really don't think he's always at either extreme.

Doug Merritt