Subject: (urth) Finally... UOTNS has arrived

From: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm at freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:37:31 +0000

Well, after deciding to order the book online since none of the stores near
here had it, it took TWO WEEKS for everything to go through.

I'm glad it's finally here, and fortunately my waning enthusiasm was quickly
stirred after beginning the book.  A few reviews I read said this book was
unnecessary after the 4 before it, but I don't see how that could be true.
There are just too many questions left unanswered.

Is there anything you can warn me to look out for?  Any details I should
make sure I catch?

jm
--
My other computer is your Windows box.

---

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 06:54:21 +0000

> Is there anything you can warn me to look out for?  Any details I should

While enjoying the way loose ends get tied up, I think it's interesting to 
think about whether or not the way in which this happens tells a different 
story than the back-story Wolfe had in mind for New Sun when he wrote it.

---

From: Anthony Ferrara <ajferrara72 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:12:09 +0000

I am about to start the long journey into reading the entire Sun series of books. I was wondering if it would be better to start in this order:

Long Sun ---> Short Sun ---> New Sun 

I write this since this seems to be the chronologically correct order. Or is it better to read them by date of publication? Thank you for any advice.

Anthony

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:34:23 +0000

For various reasons it's hard to place the New Sun series chronologically. 
But in any event I think it still works slightly better to read the New Sun 
books first.

Not that it makes a huge amount of difference. The connections between the 
New Sun books and the Long/Short Sun books are not especially impressive on 
first reading. And, of course, the second time through the order won't 
matter.

>I am about to start the long journey into reading the entire Sun series of 
>books. I was wondering if it would be better to start in this order:
>
>I write this since this seems to be the chronologically correct order. Or 
>is it better to read them by date of publication? Thank you for any advice.
>
>Anthony
>
>
>
>
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---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:51:20 +0000

New Sun I
Castle of the Otter (aka "Castle of Days")
"Best of Crank" containing "Empires of Foilage and Flower"
NS II-IV
"Endangered Species" containing "The Map" and "The Cat"
"Urth of the New Sun"
LS I-IV
SS I
"The Crow: Shattered Lives & Broken Dreams" containing "The Night Chough" 
(from the Book of the Long Sun).
SS II-III

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Anthony Ferrara
To: The Urth Mailing List
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 1:12 PM
Subject: (urth) Best order to read Sun books?

I am about to start the long journey into reading the entire Sun series of 
books. I was wondering if it would be better to start in this order:
Long Sun ---> Short Sun ---> New Sun
I write this since this seems to be the chronologically correct order. Or is 
it better to read them by date of publication? Thank you for any advice.
Anthony

Do you Yahoo!?

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:08:06 +0000

I strongly believe that the best way to read any series of books is by 
publication date. That way, you can best see the workings of the author's 
mind and the ways the various characters, concepts, etc. evolve over time.

To maximize your confusion, errr, enjoyment, I suggest that you read _The 
Fifth Head of Cerberus_ first, before the Sun series. I don't subscribe the 
notion that 5HoC is set in the "same universe" as the Sun books, but there 
are very interesting thematic parallels between the two works (5HoC and the 
Book of the Various Suns).

Have fun!

--
William Ansley

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:45:55 +0000

> mind and the ways the various characters, concepts, etc. evolve over time.

"We are the chorus and we agree.
We agree, we agree, we agree."

Gross example: The Narnia books. CS Lewis decided after the fact to
recommend a reading order that begins with _The Magician's Nephew_,
which is his prerogative but _dumb_ because _TMN_ kind of assumes that
you are already familiar with some of the other books.  At least in
small ways.

Anyway, I highly recommend reading the "Books" in publication order.
I'm not so convinced that there's any special purpose to reading the
various related short stories in any particular place - though I _do_
think that "The Night Chough" fits nicely in between the Long and the
Short of it.

-- 
www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
Propensity for the base
Capacity for such grace

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:56:19 +0000

>Book of the Various Suns).

This is absolutely true - especially for the "Book of the Short Sun". So 
perhaps reading "Fifth Head" just before plowing into the last series could 
be useful. On the other hand, reading "Fifth Head" last of all would not be 
worse.

However, if you go the route William Ansley suggests, then I recommend 
reading the Latro novels just before starting "The Book of the Long Sun" 
since Wolfe seems there to have been appeasing creative demons that were 
left unsatisfied when Tor gently recommended another Urth book instead of 
another Latro book.

Incidentally, while I'm not sold on always reading a series by publication 
chronology, I think if one does not read the New Sun first, he will miss 
intentional references in the Silk segment that the author intended. Since 
"Short Sun"  is (a little too) difficult as it is (there! I said it!), I 
don't see any point in making it tougher.

~ Crush

---

From: StoneOx17 at aol.com <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:56:49 +0000

I know people who've found it very difficult to get into 
the New Sun books but really enjoyed the Long Sun books,
and I think there's little enough cross-reference between
these two series that the reading order doesn't matter.
So if you have difficulty with the New Sun, try starting 
with the Long Sun.  Also, I think it's best to save the Short
Sun for last, as it's both the most difficult in certain
ways, and it references both the New and Long Suns.

-- 
Stone Ox (Peter)

---

From: Andrew Bollen <abollen at internode.on.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:34:22 +0000

There was some discussion of this story a while back, which I didn't follow 
as I've only just read it - so maybe this has been done to death, but FWIW, 
my interpretation ...

The doll-like figure is surely the Chateleine's soul, or some aspect of it. 
Her cat, existing in some border-land between the "other realm" and this, 
has grabbed it on its passage through and delivered it to its mistress (ie 
the Chateleine's body) in the same way that it had deposited the body of a 
sparrow at her feet many years before. We know it's her soul and not some 
random border-land denizen because Inire orders it to be buried with her.

Souls-as-dolls seems to be another of Wolfe's little tropes - carried over 
into the Long Sun series in the form of the soul-dolls which appear to 
Silkhorn & others in dreams.

---

From: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm at freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:26:56 +0000

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 11:54:05PM +1000, Andrew Bollen wrote:
: Jonathon wrote:
: 
: >Is there anything you can warn me to look out for?  Any details I should
: >make sure I catch?
: 
: While enjoying the way loose ends get tied up, I think it's interesting to 
: think about whether or not the way in which this happens tells a different 
: story than the back-story Wolfe had in mind for New Sun when he wrote it. 

Really?  Hmm.  That could be interesting.  I really can't see how BOTNS
could stand on its own.  There is just so much left unexplained.  But what
makes you think he really changed the back-story?

jm

---

From: Christopher Culver <christopher_culver at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:32:17 +0000

Jonathon McKitrick <jcm at FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> wrote:
> could stand on its own.  There is just so much left unexplained.

Wolfe originally intended to let the story stand on its own in those
four books. The only reason he wrote UotNS is because of pressure by
his editor.

This is all discussed in the archives and in interviews with Wolfe
available on the web. I'm glad that the list is getting new people,
but be aware this issue, and many others, have all be discussed
before, and you'd get more profit out of the lengthy discussion in the
archives than curt answers now.

Christopher Culver

----
Christopher Culver - christopher_culver at yahoo.com
http://komputilo.org/~crculver/index.php

????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????
- Yasunari Kawabata, ????????

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:34:17 +0000

>Christopher Culver:

Which doesn't mean that stopping the story with "Citadel of the Autarch" 
would have been the best plan. I didn't get idea from Wolfe that his editors 
wanted an extra novel only to sell more books. They seem to think more 
elaboration was needed. I agree.

I realize some people think all the extra "splainin'" in UotNS is an 
imposition on the mystery and elegance of the original novel. I'm not in 
that camp.

~ Crush

---

From: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm at freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:39:35 +0000

On Thu, Sep 30, 2004 at 12:32:10PM -0500, Christopher Culver wrote:
: This is all discussed in the archives and in interviews with Wolfe
: available on the web. I'm glad that the list is getting new people,
: but be aware this issue, and many others, have all be discussed
: before, and you'd get more profit out of the lengthy discussion in the
: archives than curt answers now.

I've been trying to wade through them, but it is so difficult to tell what
to search for.  And just browsing by subject line is not much help either.

jm

---

From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:25:11 +0000

>>> could stand on its own.  There is just so much left unexplained.

UotNS does more to raise new enigmas than to resolve old ones, imho.

> elaboration was needed. I agree.

Iirc, Wolfe said somewhere that his editor had originally wanted him to add
a paragraph or so to the end of Citadel spelling out that Severian went to
Yesod and brought back the New Sun, and eventually agreed to let Wolfe leave
the ending as it was if he wrote an extra volume to explain what happened
after Citadel. (I thought I remembered this from Castle of Days, but I just
went and looked, and it doesn't seem to be there.)

--Adam

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 20:34:13 +0000

>"Best of Crank" containing "Empires of Foilage and Flower"

I have to endorse reading _Castle of Days_ (CAD), although I would 
read the entire Book of the New Sun (BOTNS) (_Shadow of the 
Torturer_, _Claw of the Conciliator_, Sword of the Lictor_ and 
_Citadel of the Autarch_) first, then CAD. In fact, you don't need to 
read all of CAD, just the part that is _Castle of the Otter_ (CATO). 
CAD is a volume that combines CATO and _Gene Wolfe's Book of Days_, 
both of which were relatively short books that had gone out of print.

You might also consider reading the short story, "A Solar Labyrinth" 
in _Storeys from the Old Hotel_ right after BOTNS and consider what 
relation, if any, it has to the longer work.
-- 

William Ansley

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 21:12:42 +0000

Even though it won't satisfy anyone who primarily reads Wolfe for the 
complexity and obscurity of his books, I still recommend _Jonathan 
Strange and Mr. Norrell_ by Susanna Clarke to the members of this 
list. I certainly think this book will appeal to those among you who 
enjoy John Crowley, although again, it is quite a different reading 
experience.

JS & Mr. N is a charmingly and quite well-written book about an 
alternative England, set in the early 19th century and written in the 
voice of an author of the period. Although the book is long (782 
pages in hardcover) and occasionally seemed to be proceeding at too 
deliberate a pace, having finished it I cannot say that I begrudge 
Ms. Clarke a single page. I must add that Susanna Clarke is 
particularly sound on fairies.
-- 

William Ansley

---

From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:22:09 +0000

On Monday, October 4, 2004, at 09:12 PM, William Ansley wrote:

> voice of an author of the period. Although the book is long (782 pages 
> in hardcover) and occasionally seemed to be proceeding at too 
> deliberate a pace, having finished it I cannot say that I begrudge Ms. 
> Clarke a single page. I must add that Susanna Clarke is particularly 
> sound on fairies.
> -- 
>

Don replies,

It's a very enjoyable book.  The many footnotes, far from being 
distracting, really add to the richness of the story.  Still, I felt it 
was anticlimactic for such a large theme.  A second volume would 
rectify this quite nicely though.  Perhaps she should just write The 
History and Practice of English Magic with footnotes from other works 
on Pale, Godbless, and the rest.  I'd certainly buy it.  FWIW