{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1111", "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": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1111, "subject": "some comments", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-09-26T22:01:07+00:00", "last": "1998-09-27T02:27:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "John Regehr", "address": "jdr8d at cs.virginia.edu" }, "date": "1998-09-26T22:01:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) some comments", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi all,\n\nAbout a week ago I ran across the archive for the Urth list. Four\nsomewhat daunting megabytes later, I've finished reading it, and I'm\nimpressed. You people have picked up on a lot of things that I missed\n(and I recently completed my third reading of TBotNS).\n\nFor several years I've recommended TBotNS to friends and\nacquaintances, in the same way that I evangelize the rest of my\nfavorite books. Although several people have read it, none have\nbecome what I'd call Wolfe fans. This seems odd, since these have\nbeen intelligent and literate people who generally enjoy the same\nsorts of books that I do. So why would Wolfe appeal to such a narrow\naudience - is it just because he places so many demands on the reader?\n\nMany Wolfean books have been discussed, but let me throw out a few\nless obvious ones that haven't:\n\nPaul Auster's _New York Trilogy_ contains three haunting and surreal\nnovels about alienation, confusion of identity, and the inadequacy of\nwords. They're gripping enough that I read each in a single sitting.\n\nCormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_ is a violent story about a band of\nbounty hunters on the Texas/Mexico border during the 1850s. McCarthy\nis an amazing writer, and this book is more than a Western in much\nthat same way that TBotNS is more than SF.\n\nRichard Powers's _The Gold Bug Variations_ is about a librarian who\ngets involved with an ABD art history student who works with a man who\nwas a promising researcher in genetics 30 years earlier; their story\nand his are told alternately. Calling TGBV Wolfean is a bit more of a\nstretch than the other two; I do so based on its focus on puzzles and\nciphers, its intricate plot, and because of the slight twist at the\nend that changes how we look at the book.\n\nFinally, I feel compelled to add to the recent thread about good comic\nbooks. Besides the previously mentioned works of Moore, Miller,\nSpiegelman, and Gaiman, I would highly recommend DeMatteis's\n_Moonshadow_, Matt Wagner's _Mage_ and _Grendel_, and the Hernandez\nbrothers' _Love and Rockets_. Although I'm a huge fan of L&R, I\npicture the others as being more to Wolfe fans' tastes.\n\nJohn" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "John Regehr | regehr at virginia.edu | http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jdr8d/\ngrad student | Department of Computer Science | University of Virginia " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CRCulver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-09-27T02:27:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) some comments", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "jdr8d at cs.virginia.edu (John Regehr) said:\n\n\nWelcome to the list! Thanks for your praise of our close reading, though I\nshould warn you that our conclusions are by no means truth. \n\n\n\n\nWas it truly different than the first two times? It wasn't until the third\nreading that I understood the events in the stone town with Apu-Punchau and\nSeverian.\n\n\n\n\nI know what you mean, I've tried recommending the Book of the New Sun to a\nfriend of mine really into fantasy, but it didn't catch. I guess that reading\nany book by Wolfe is quite a heavy task, and it is only a fluke that a few of\nus can muster the effort to tackle it. Because Wolfe doesn't write crap, this\nis true of all his books, and it is hard to find an accessible one.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "John Regehr", "address": "jdr8d at cs.virginia.edu" }, "date": "1998-09-27T00:00:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) some comments", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Was it truly different than the first two times? It wasn't until the third\nreading that I understood the events in the stone town with Apu-Punchau and\nSeverian." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The third reading was definitely different! The first time around was my\nfirst encounter with Wolfe, so I had no idea what I was getting into. I\nread it in escapist fantasy mode - quickly, that is - and by the end I\nknew that I had read something great, but only understood the work at the\nmost literal level. Unfortunately my second reading took a long time\nbecause real life intruded, and I didn't get much out of it. My most\nrecent reading was the first time I read carefully, so I finally picked up\nthe Sev1/Sev2 distinction, the full Apu-Panchau story, and several other\nthings. I still couldn't figure out who the beautiful woman in the House\nAbsolute is, who Severian encounters just before raising the assassin. \n\nI'd have undoubtedly gotten more out of my second or third reading had I\npreviously read _The Castle of the Otter_, interviews with Wolfe, Clute's\nreviews, _Lexicon Urthus_, and this list. However, I'm somewhat\nuncomfortable with the idea of using external sources to help understand\nliterature. It feels like cheating, especially when the material comes\nfrom the author. \n\nHas the lit crit community come to any meaningful conclusions about what\nit means when the author offers an interpretation or an explanation about\na book? Didn't Tolkien explicitly say that in TLotR an orc is just an\norc, and don't some people still insist that the war of the ring is a\nmetaphor for one of the world wars? Although I wish Mr. Wolfe nothing but\nthe best of health in the future, it seems like things are more tractable\nacademically when an author is no longer able to offer new\ninterpretations, or to contradict existing ones. \n\nAlso, I'm slightly wary about over-analyzing books. It's possible that\nthis is just bad attitude left over from bad english classes, though,\nsince I've never ruined a book by thinking about it too much. I guess my\nposition is that one's choice about whether to use external materials or\nnot, or to spend a lot of time analyzing subtle points or not, should be\nmade in order to maximize one's enjoyment of the work. That's what it\nboils down to, right? The lit crit people probably don't get to say this,\nsince they could put themselves out of a job :). \n\nJohn" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "John Regehr | regehr at virginia.edu | http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jdr8d/\ngrad student | Department of Computer Science | University of Virginia " } ] } ] }