{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3289", "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": 3289, "subject": "a Wolfe-spectrum, focus on TBOTSS", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-05-30T17:40:47+00:00", "last": "2002-05-31T20:08:46+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-30T17:40:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) a Wolfe-spectrum, focus on TBOTSS", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There does not seem to be any objection to the basic notion of\n\"Wolfe-lite,\" nor to the placing of PANDORA BY HOLLY HOLLANDER as the\nultimate example of Wolfe-lite.\n\nThe contrast to Wolfe-lite would be Wolfe, or Wolfe-baroque, or\nWolfe-heavy, I guess. I think people tend to take TBOTNS as the benchmark,\nbut it isn't really an endpoint for everyone, I don't think. Other Wolfe\nbooks will therefore fall within the spectrum between PANDORA and TBOTNS,\nand some might be placed beyond TBOTNS.\n\nFor example, where to place 5HC? While it is physically shorter than\nTBOTNS, I think it is actually harder. Our spectrum does not account for\n\"difficulty,\" per se, but we can accomodate it to do so, I think, and put\n5HC as the solid step of Wolfe-heavy beyond TBOTNS.\n\nNow then, another personal annecdote that I've probably already used to\ndeath around here: iirc, when Gene Wolfe told me, in person, about his plan\nto do a trilogy called \"The Book of the Short Sun,\" he said specificly that\nit would be in the hard-on-the-reader style of 5HC. (In hindsight this is\nespecially dramatic when some readers of TBOTLS were clearly calling it\nWolfe-lite, disappointed that it did not match the baroque stylings of the\nUrth Cycle.)\n\nSo he had 5HC as a model in mind. That many readers have seen similarities\nbetween 5HC and TBOTSS is therefore a confirmation of authorial intent in\nthis regard being received by readers through the text.\n\nIt may well be the case that readers who do not much like 5HC will like\nTBOTSS even less. In other words, TBOTSS likely trumps 5HC in heaviness,\nand people who are most confortable with, say, the spectral segment of the\nSoldier series and the Urth Cycle, will not like TBOTSS.\n\nWe see today arguments over 5HC, a work published decades ago. Many of the\nsame negative things said about 5HC seem to be said about the much more\nrecent/less digested TBOTSS as well. Readers who dislike one or the other\nor both feel that it is pointlessly complicated; that Wolfe is finally\ncheating; that things don't add up; that solid, non-fuzzy solutions cannot\nbe sorted out; et cetera. It might be that in general the same root\nproblems between these texts and their grumpy readers are the same.\n\nAt the other end of the Wolfe spectrum, it could be that KNIGHT WIZARD will\ntrump PANDORA in liteness.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nLexicon Urthus out of print!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-05-30T21:40:33+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) a Wolfe-spectrum, focus on TBOTSS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis mentioned that Mr Wolfe apparently had 5HC somewhat in mind as a\nmodel in writing tBotSS. Aside from the fact that this adds some dubeity to\nhis claims that the twin-worlds thing isn't totally conscious, it adds to\nsomething that has been building in my mind for the past while & which I am\nlooking for as I begin rereading the SS books:\n\nJust as with the three novellas of 5HC, I suspect that the narrators of the\nthree books are (at least, in some significant way) three different people.\nThe first bit of evidence is in the cast-of-characters that appears at the\nbeginning of each book. In retrospect, they make it quite clear that the\nNarr is in some important respect a different person from Horn; but if you\nlook closely you'll see something else which first put me onto thinking they\nwere different persons. (I won't say what to see if anyone else leaps to the\nsame conclusion.) \n\nWhat do y'all think?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-05-31T20:08:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) a Wolfe-spectrum, focus on TBOTSS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It may well be the case that readers who do not much like 5HC will like\nTBOTSS even less. In other words, TBOTSS likely trumps 5HC in\nheaviness,\nand people who are most confortable with, say, the spectral segment of\nthe\nSoldier series and the Urth Cycle, will not like TBOTSS.\n\nWe see today arguments over 5HC, a work published decades ago. Many of\nthe\nsame negative things said about 5HC seem to be said about the much more\nrecent/less digested TBOTSS as well. Readers who dislike one or the\nother\nor both feel that it is pointlessly complicated; that Wolfe is finally\ncheating; that things don't add up; that solid, non-fuzzy solutions\ncannot\nbe sorted out; et cetera. It might be that in general the same root\nproblems between these texts and their grumpy readers are the same." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you've got a good point, but there's also the Cool Stuff\ntheory of literature, and to me, more cool stuff happens in TBotSS\nthan in 5HC, despite my objections to what Wolfe decides to say and\nnot say.\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] } ] }