Subject: (urth) Thoughts before diving in...

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2005 11:30:32 +0000

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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