Subject: (urth) Sorcerer's House: First Impressions *spoilage*

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:36:08 +0000

I'm writing this up before reading any of the stuff that's come over
the list, which I've kept isolated in a folder of its own.

I finished TSH yesterday and it seemed to me remarkably free of
"Huh?"s. By which I mean, by the end of the book I think Wolfe cleared
up most if not all of the mysteries pretty, uh, clearly. By the time
we find out who Bax's birth-parents are, the rest seems pretty
straighforward.

Straighforward for Wolfe, that is...

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:43:59 +0000

John Clute's review just appeared in NYRSF (alongside yours of _The Long Man_, so this is probably not news to you in particular), and his reaction was remarkably similar!

Since I just read it a few minutes ago, I have it at hand. His summary: "...I believe in Baxter Dunn... Because I wanted a Wolfe novel to read in a single sitting without escaping us utterly, and that by virtue of that single sitting love might be conveyed: Wolfe's love of telling, the love of the main characters of _House_ for each other, the love felt by the reader for a book whose author may, for once in his life, have told a tall tale around the campfire. I believed every word of it."

----- Original Message ----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Mon, April 5, 2010 10:36:08 AM
Subject: (urth) Sorcerer's House: First Impressions *spoilage*

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:48:54 +0000

> Since I just read it a few minutes ago, I have it at hand. His summary: "...I believe in Baxter Dunn... Because I wanted a Wolfe novel to read in a single sitting without escaping us utterly, and t…

Oh noes - he believed the last letter too?

/me shakes head at Clute

What happened, man? You used to be cool.

-- 
gwern

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From: Jonathan Goodwin <joncgoodwin at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:24:16 +0000

I haven't read the review, but "love of the main characters for each
other" strikes me as irony.

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From: Robert Thornton <oblate777 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:38:17 +0000

Hi folks,

I am a member of Goodreads, a site where readers and authors can share their experiences with books. Each member can post a rating and a small review of books that they have read/are reading. 

Neil Gaiman is also a member and he posted a brief review of Sorcerer's House at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6845909-the-sorcerer-s-house

I will quote the most interesting part of the review here:

"As a side note, I have a mad theory that you can always find a Wolf in a Gene Wolfe book, and it will always be the key, or a key, to the text. This book does nothing to disprove my theory." 

Rob

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:02:08 +0000

It's an excellent book.

I am going to have to reread it before I form any opinions.

.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:56:10 +0000

> "As a side note, I have a mad theory that you can always find a Wolf in a Gene Wolfe book, and it will always be the key, or a key, to the text. This book does nothing to disprove my theory."

Some times it's madder than others: he was on the nose with all the 
clues that the 5HC narrator was "Gene Wolfe", but also nominated the 
alzabo as a sort of gene-seeking wolf.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:20:38 +0000

> Some times it's madder than others: he was on the nose with all the clues
> that the 5HC narrator was "Gene Wolfe", but also nominated the alzabo as a
> sort of gene-seeking wolf.

I thought it was Robert Borski who nailed this one first.

J.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:52:22 +0000

>> clues

Could be; it was maybe about 1996 when Neil and I discussed his theory
that the other GEnie network Wolfe topic denizens like Mantiss and Joe
Mayhew seemed to already know about. CAVE CANEM seems to imply that
LEXICON URTHUS (1994) helped Borski figure it out, so it might be a close
thing.

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From: Mo Holkar / UKG <lists at ukg.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:46:59 +0000

>LEXICON URTHUS (1994) helped Borski figure it out, so it might be a close

I'm not sure about that last:

"Once upon a time, a not-so-young man read a book called THE FIFTH 
HEAD OF CERBERUS ... Then along came a book called STROKES by John 
Clute, where he learned FIFTH HEAD had a somewhat more sophisticated 
structure and that it was even possible to deduce Number Five's real 
name, followed still later by Michael Andre-Driussi's LEXICON URTHUS..."
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=CaveCanem.Intro

Suggests to me that he deduced the name after reading Strokes (pub 
1988), but before reading LU (pub 1994).

best,

Mo

# ~ # ~ #

WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:05:23 +0000

> 1988), but before reading LU (pub 1994

What about Clute, then?

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From: Dave Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 02:21:56 +0000

This thread makes me wish I had published that (somewhere?) back when I 
first figured it out, which was the first time I read 5HC in Damon 
Knight's Orbit 10, in 1972 or '73. Too bad there was barely even an 
Arpanet then, much less the Urth list. I think SF-Lovers was later, but 
I'm not sure.

The name of the narrator was pretty obvious from the library scene 
alone; the narrator looking for his father's books near works by "Winge" 
(Vernor Vinge), "some German" (Kate Wilhelm), Virginia Woolf, and 
Bertram Wolfe. Not terribly subtle. Figuring out the other two segments 
was much harder; that took many rereadings many years later. I was 
completely bewildered by them.

-- Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha

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From: Mo Holkar / UKG <lists at ukg.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:43:35 +0000

> > 1988), but before reading LU (pub 1994

I haven't read Strokes (or anything else of Clute's on the subject), 
so I can't comment about that. Anyone else?

Mo

# ~ # ~ #