I finished "It" this morning and ... h'mmm. I'm not sure exactly what I think. I mean, I really really like these books*, but I can't exactly say why.
I think, though I'm not sure, that I found the ending somewhat disappointing. It doesn't exactly fall apart, but it comes apart - it's always under the writer's control, but still, a coherence is lost that I can't quite put my finger on. Part of it (I think) is that in the last fifty pages or so, the camera is, as it were, pulled way back: narrative time flows much more swiftly.
This is different from the gaps and skips-ahead that are typical of Wolfe and that dot TWK. Rather, it isa sudden jump back from constantly close narration and observation to wide-angle storytelling with only brief scenes of actual narration, and very little observation.
Was it Alga who claimed that she felt that the last book of Short Sun felt as if Wolfe had lost interest? I have something of that feeling about the end of The Wizard.
Plus, the final-final bit reminded me rather uncomfortably of the final-final bit of Heinlein's Job, or even "The Unpleasant Profession..."
Still, all told, I think TWK far and away the best fantasy novel I have read in many, many years.
* As indicated by the (rather gushing) quote from my NYRSF review of
The Knight on the bacover. I was both delighted and embarassed to find it there: it makes up, somewhat, for having been quoted out of context on a Piers Anthony book some years ago, to make it sound like a slam was a praise...
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