Subject: (urth) Disingenous Gene

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:45:38 +0000

Twice in recent posts, Gene Wolfe has been accused of being disingenuous in 
interviews.  Another Lupinology truism?

My dictionary calls the word:
>adjective: lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple 
>frankness : CALCULATING

I see the opposite.  In interviews, (and his essay on Tolkein) he seems to 
me to be genuinely frank and candid, which includes letting an interviewer 
know which questions he doesn't like to answer.  But for those who do see 
him as disingenuous I am interested in specific examples, and what you think 
his motive for it might be.

Is it just his evasive personality, which is thus reflected in both his 
writing and his speech? Or a deliberate attempt to make sure nobody can ever 
understand his stories?  Or..

At the risk of sounding rude, I can't help but think the disingenous 
accusation is a way of preserving a personal pet theory when Wolfe's 
interview answers contradict. But I am interested in opposing views.

-bsharp

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:09:20 +0000

> understand his stories?  Or..

More than anything else, I think it's a matter of not wanting to give the
game away -- he has repeatedly claimed that everything we need to
know is there, and he doesn't want to tell the answers. I think he
sometimes takes this to frustrating levels: no, I don't believe he ever
actually _lies_, but I believe he sometimes responds in ways that ...
how shall I put it? ... use the truth in misleading ways.

Take the Kaballah thing. He never actually said he wasn't familiar
with it; he said he had used it for "some names and ideas." That
sounds dismissive ... but what does "some ideas" mean? Ideas can
be big or small; he can mean the idea of multiple universes or he
can mean the whole four-worlds, ten-sephiroth structure of the
Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Or anything in between, or outside that
range entirely.

Again, I refer you to the essay on Onomastics in _Castle of the
Otter_. Wolfe states plainly: A thing's name states what it is. I guess
that's my bottom line; he makes a firm rule like this, puts it in print,
and then ignores it _only_ for naming worlds? Seems unlikely to
me, at any rate.

--Dan'l

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Shovels are essential to the fantasy genre.
However, they are primarily used by the authors rather than the
characters." -- Stephen R. Donaldson

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:12:24 +0000

> interviews.  Another Lupinology truism?

More ambiguous. At one point he says Urth is "perhaps a million years in 
our future."

In _There Are Doors_,

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 05:17:58 +0000

> More ambiguous. At one point he says Urth is "perhaps a million years in 
  Ahem. In _There Are Doors_, I recently reread where he writes (as 
Lara), "'[...]Perhaps three children. Perhaps three dozen.'"

As it happens, a 12:1 ratio just about fits the million years figure 
above wrt my few dozen millenia figure.