9 quoted lines
At 08:41 AM 3/12/01 -0800, Dan'l wrote:
Perhaps that was precisely the purpose? Not suggesting that
Wolfe is writing for/at this list (though I can think of at
least one case of an extraordinarily talented musician doing
the analogous thing, writing a song directed obliquely at an
online fan group); but that Wolfe deliberately might write a
Rorschach blot of a book, intentionally setting it up so that
what you find in it depends even more than usual on what you
bring to it.
I was just discussing this with a friend on Friday. One might posit that there is a genre of "puzzling fiction"--fiction where much or all of the meaning is hidden behind misdirections, puns, jokes, allusions, omissions, and so forth. One of the obvious masters of this, and one of Wolfe's clear antecedents, is Nabokov.
It is clear that Wolfe enjoys writing in this genre. In fact, he writes in this genre even more consistently than he writes in speculative fiction;
Peace and Pandora, by Holly Hollander are both "puzzle fiction" but are at most only loosely speculative fiction.
I don't know why Wolfe is so fond of puzzle fiction. Based on some of his writings and speeches about his work, I know that he thinks that there is a particular joy in piecing together meaning for themselves. I also know that he enjoys writing for an audience which enjoys that aspect of his work.
I know that I enjoy puzzling through his books. I also know that there are puzzles in them that I haven't solved.
Unlike the person who started this thread, I think that all of the
important aspects of the narrative of both The Book of the Long Sun and
The Book of the Short Sun are both very clear. There are many puzzles which remain and which can be chewed for a long time, but the main narrative is much more straightforward in both of these works than in, say,
The Book of the New Sun.
Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games
kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.