Subject: (urth) Wolfe at the Beach: Two Reviews

From: Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm>
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:42:25 +0000

It rained a little bit more than I would have liked on vacation this
year so I was able to do a fair amount of reading and not get sand
kicked in my face (though the wife tried). If, however, you wish to read
_Pirate Freedom_ without knowing anything at all, you may wish to skip
the second half of what follows, though I've attempted to remain spoiler
neutral.

_Shadows of the New Sun_ is a nice collection of interviews and essays,
several of the former of which are conducted by members or alumni of
this list. I'm a big fan of interviews, so mostly I enjoyed them, but
there is a fair amount of repetition from interview to interview. I'd
therefore not recommend reading them straight through, all in a clump,
as I did, but to skip around a bit. The same with the essays, which I
didn't enjoy quite as much as those in _Castle of Days_ (Wolfe's sense
of humor may be a little too quirky for me.) It also strikes me as
strange that when you get to the final interview editor Wright cautions
the reader that "[Wolfe's] occasionally terse responses should remind
any critic or commentator that he or she is in the presence of a writer
every bit as unreliable as his narrators." So--what?--don't take the
interviews seriously or just read them as fiction?

I was also appalled at some of the copy editing in this book. There are
numerous typos, which doesn't seem so strange when you consider much of
the material has been culled from fan sources, but _Shadows_, after all,
hails from a prestigious academic press and Wright calls further
attention to the shoddy editing in the introduction by claiming none of
the interviews have been changed except to clean up typographical
errors. See the fourth full paragraph on p.15 and tell me
someone/something other than a spellchecker has gone over it. My
favorite blunder, however, involves Michael Andre-Driussi, who we're
told "is working on a second edition of the Lexicon, which will correct
many of the errors as well as adding new ones." So I guess that tells us
when Lexicon Urthis 2.0 will come out -- when mantis finishes adding all
the new errors! <gr> 

"As a boy," Gene Wolfe has written, "I was very fond of pirates," and
his latest offering seems written expressly for that boy. In fact, the
intended audience for this one seems even more YA than _Wizard Knight_
though it's not being marketed as a juvenile, but as fantasy. _Pirate
Freedom_, however, has *no* fantasy elements unless you wish to count
Father Chris's temporal displacement (curiously unexamined by the
narrator), nor is there much in the way of metaphysical or spiritual
dithering, considering Chris-the-pirate has taken Holy Orders. Instead,
we're treated to a very straight forward historical adventure with many
asides about the true nature of piracy (as opposed, say, to pop
versions) and the narrative voice will probably remind you of Wizard's
Able. Wolfe seems to have lots of fun with his dramatis personae,
incorporating not only two characters from New Sun, but also naming a
pirate after one of his fellow writers. But far and away, _Pirate
Freedom_ is Wolfe's least challenging and unoblique novel, with
virtually no unsolved mysteries or (for me) lingering resonance. As
such, I took it to be the literary equivalent of a sorbet -- something
to cleanse the pallet in preparation for more substantial fare to come
(though I'm not encouraged by the early word on his next two novels).

-- 
  Rex Lycanthrosaurus
  lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:20:51 +0000

Just a note to set the facts straight.

-Roy
----------------------------------------------------------

Rex Lycanthrosaurus wrote:

>My

I forwarded Rex's post to mantis, who wrote:
>Right.  Well, given the context, I share Rex's pain at typos--from 
>both sides (reader and publisher), or more sides, if possible.
>
>Setting that aside, the "blunder" attributed to Wright is actually 
>100% accurate.  That is, I said it, or wrote it, and he is repeating 
>it verbatim, with perhaps too straight a face.

mantis went on to add:
>Again, I understand how he could have taken it as a blunder since he 
>was being irritated by real typos, so I'm not being critical of Rex. 
>And I can also see how a self-deprecating remark given by myself 
>might lose humor when repeated by another, and even seem deprecating 
>or condescending (if not a flat out blunder).
>
>=Michael=

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From: Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:36:45 +0000

Apologies to both mantis and Peter Wright if "errors" was deliberate and
a puckish attempt at humor. I thought for sure from the phrasing and
context that "errors" had been substituted for "entries." My bad.

As for Nick Gever's gentle counter-assertion that there are indeed sfnal
elements in the book, he's right, but they play such an insubstantial
part in the narrative, that Pirate Freedom would be no different without
them. I still certainly have my doubts about the book being "Fantasy"
although oddly enough I'll probably vote for Gibson's Spook Country as
being one of my top sf novels for the year.

One should also keep in mind that Gene Wolfe is a writer of consummate
grace, regardless of marketing categories.

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From: Stuart Hamm <hammstu at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:43:11 +0000

Amen to the Gibson plug...I loved "Spook..." although not quite as much as "Pattern Recognition"
  Philip K Dick meets Paul Auster
  I just wish he was as prolific as GW and I didn't have to wait so long between releases

Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm> wrote:
  Apologies to both mantis and Peter Wright if "errors" was deliberate and
a puckish attempt at humor. I thought for sure from the phrasing and
context that "errors" had been substituted for "entries." My bad.

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From: Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:07:00 +0000

Interestingly, Gibson borrows one of the Wolfe's classic techniques in
"Spook Country" -- i.e., refusing to identify a major character by name,
in this case "the old man" -- although if you've read "Pattern
Recognition," you can probably guess who he most likely is.

Similarly, Father Christopher's last name is never stated in Pirate
Freedom, although Wolfe does provide several clues about its ultimate
identity. Perhaps it's even the same as a certain list alumnus -- one
with a hard to pronounce Italian name?

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:43:11 -0700 (PDT), "Stuart Hamm"

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From: Dan Rabin <wolfe-lists at danrabin.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:59:47 +0000

Just a reminder that _Pirate Freedom_ is not yet published (Amazon US 
and UK both cite November 13 as the release date).  It's delightful 
to hear some impressions from early readers, but I (for one) would 
welcome restraint on the spoiler front.

   -- Dan Rabin