Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n069

From: Richard Horton <rrhorton at prodigy.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 04:23:15 +0000

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 12:46:00 -0700 (PDT), Rostrum wrote:

>I wonder if we could put together a list of the "easiest" or "most
>accessible" Wolfe?  "Wolfe for Beginners"?  I recently saw someone
>recommend "Fifth Head of Cerebrus" as a place to start with Wolfe, but
>that seems to me to be one of his more obscure and difficult works (but
>then I'm biased, because it's my least favorite, for some reason).

That may have been me, if you saw it on rec.arts.sf.written.  In that
case, I was generalizing from personal experience, in that the novella
"The Fifth Head of Cerberus" was the first Wolfe I read.

_The Book of the Long Sun_ actually isn't a bad place to start. 

Among the novels, I guess _Peace_ is a good choice, also.

Among the short stories, why not "Trip Trap"?   A whole lot of people
started perforce with that story.  Also the funny ones ("How I Lost
the Second World War ...", "The Rubber Bend") might not be bad.  "La
Befana" is short, effective, and very Wolfean.  

-- 
Tusk (Rich Horton)

-- 
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton at sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/