Subject: (urth) Suggestions for Podcast Episode on "Peace"

From: Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 16:32:31 +0000

I'm involved in a podcast related to the genre site SF Signal. The podcast
is called The Three Hoarsmen (long story). In our most recent episode, we
took a look at Samuel R. Delany's "Nova". In our December or January
(sometimes these things slip!) episode, we're planning on covering Gene
Wolfe's "Peace".

One thing that we always include in our podcast notes are links to websites
that the listener can go to. I've already thought of the Neil Gaiman essay
(found at F&SF's site) "How to Read Gene Wolfe". Does anybody have any
other suggestions of sites I should include?

And, anybody able to point to any essay (online or off) that I can point my
co-hosts to in order to help us prepare for Gene Wolfe in general and this
book specifically?

Thanks much!

-- 
F.P. Kiesche III

Husband, Father, Good Cook. Reader. Keeper of abandoned dogs. Catholic
Liberal Conservative Militarist. Does not fit into a neat box or category.
"Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble,
scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with
Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at Bernal
Alpha. On Twitter as @FredKiesche
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From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 16:52:53 +0000

I am in 1974 on Wolfe's fiction ... If you want I can write a fairly comprehensive essay by the end of November on 1975's Peace along with a general "metonymic reading" strategy for Wolfe's work.
 
I will have to skip over Forlesen and come back to it, as the novellas take too long to thoroughly explore. 

Lots of excellent work has been done on Peace because Wolfe gave away the key details in an interview without obfuscation, so there is less room for disagreement. I believe it is collected in Wright's Shadows of the New Sun (not the tribute anthology)

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 17:02:15 +0000

Thanks, Marc--I've got both "Shadows" and also "Attending Daedalus", so
I'll check them both for the interview.

If you can do anything on Peace, that would be fantastic--but please don't
go nuts on our account it you are pressed for time. I don't expect we'll
record until mid-December and if you can't get to it, I can always add
links as a comment on the post that accompanies the podcast episode if need
be.

Many thanks!

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I am in 1974 on Wolfe's fiction ... If you want I can write a fairly
> comprehensive essay by the end of November on 1975's Peace along with a
> general "metonymic reading" strategy for Wolfe's work.
>
> Lots of excellent work has been done on Peace because Wolfe gave away the
> key details in an interview without obfuscation, so there is less room for
> disagreement. I believe it is collected in Wright's Shadows of the New Sun
> (not the tribute anthology)
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>

-- 
F.P. Kiesche III

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From: Darrell Burgan <darrell.burgan at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:14:42 +0000

I don't know of any sites, but I've discovered that reading anything by
Wolfe usually requires at least three iterations:

1. Read it for enjoyment. Don't try to pick out all the hints and secret
messages Wolfe is embedding in the story. Read it at a natural pace and be
amazed at Wolfe's lustrous and often indecipherable prose. By the end,
you'll have enjoyed a book but won't be able say exactly why.

2. Read it again, this time pay close attention to every word, especially
when there is a speaker or setting change, when there seems to be a typo or
wrong name used in a sentence (it's not wrong). Try piece together mental
notes about what is going on under the surface of the book. Maybe even
scribble down a few notes. By the end you'll begin to realize the depths of
Wolfe's genius.

3. Read it one more time, and this time have several colors of
highlighters, a white board, and copious paper for notes. As you go through
the story, map out every single event, every single character, draw the
lines between them, speculate on relationships between them that aren't in
the text, and generally analyze the heck out of every word. You'll end up
with a large pile of somewhat-less-inscrutable information about the book,
but still tons of questions left unanswered - and probably a general sense
of Wolfe chucklng that you still missed the whole point of the book.

How many more iterations beyond that, I do not know. I'm only on iteration
2 ....

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com>wrote:

> Greetings:
> One thing that we always include in our podcast notes are links to
> websites that the listener can go to. I've already thought of the Neil
> Gaiman essay (found at F&SF's site) "How to Read Gene Wolfe". Does anybody
> have any other suggestions of sites I should include?
>
> And, anybody able to point to any essay (online or off) that I can point
> my co-hosts to in order to help us prepare for Gene Wolfe in general and
> this book specifically?
>
> Thanks much!
>
> --
> F.P. Kiesche III
>

-- 
Darrell Burgan
http://earthmantra.com
http://spiritcanyonaudio.com
http://palancar.net
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From: Darrell Burgan <darrell.burgan at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:15:37 +0000

I'm halfway through Peace myself. I'd love to read your essay (after I
finish of course).  :-)

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From: Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 12:02:25 +0000

A blog post reviewing Peace:

http://kateofmind.blogspot.com/2013/11/gene-wolfes-peace.html

(The podcast episode may get bumped forward as one of the panelists is a
tad busy--so we're probably swapping short stories by C.L. Moore into that
slot and moving Gene Wolfe forward.)

-- 
F.P. Kiesche III

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