{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/213",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 213,
    "subject": "Doors and Suns",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-03-14T23:11:20+00:00",
    "last": "1997-03-14T23:11:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0004-0236@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "CoxRathvon",
        "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-03-14T23:11:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Doors and Suns",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have long thought that Wolfe's labyrinthine stories would make great\ncinema--in the hands of a suitably Lupine director.  I don't know who such a\ndirector might be, but I will confess that I often visualize parts of Wolfe's\nstories in my head; and in this cinematic respect, one of my favorite tales\nis \"There Are Doors,\" which is also Wolfe's most generally accessible novel,\nI think.  Wolfe has said that the \"Doors\" protagonist Green is not very\nbright.  Frankly, I've fancied that Green reacts to his dreamlike predicament\nmuch as I would in his place--which either means that I'm not too bright by\nWolfe's standards or that Green is merely mortal--i.e., not gifted as\nSeverian, Latro, and Silk are in their various ways.\n\nThe Lupine sensation of wandering in a labyrinth is dizzying indeed, and I\nsympathize with the reader who complained that Wolfe induges in obscurantism.\n  I admit, parts of the \"New Sun\" books, the Latro books, and \"Castleview\"\nare more than I can wrap my poor mind around.  Trying to follow the thread of\nthe timeline in \"Free Live Free\" just about makes me sick with vertigo.  But\nit seems to me that Wolfe eases up a bit in \"There Are Doors\" and in the\n\"Long Sun\" books (especially \"Nightside\").  There are pauses in the\nbreathless pace that allow me to relax and savor some careful prose.   In\n\"There Are Doors,\" I love the gradual, deliberate opening of the\ndesk-containing crate, to which nearly a chapter is devoted.  And in\n\"Nightside,\" I love the description of the Viron marketplace, Silk's\nfried-tomato breakfast, and the stealthy advance on Blood's villa.   It's as\nthough Wolfe allows a little more air into the labythinth here and there, and\nit helps me settle into the tale.\n\nI do like puzzles--even ones I can't completely solve.  But I love a great\nstory more, and I maintain that Wolfe is not only a tricky puzzle-setter,\nhe's also a robust tale-teller.  The Chesterton influence has done him no\nharm at all.  He has rather a grand style, in fact.  As I've said in a\nprevious post, I do on some level count Wolfe as a postmodernist whose\ntechniques can be discussed along with those of Borges or Nabokov; but his\nsentence-by-sentence prose is actually quite traditional and lucid, sometimes\neven smacking saltily of a sailor's kind of yarn.   That's part of the magic,\nI think--that he's so conventional on one level and then so devilishly\nambiguous in other ways, making you lose your bearings just when you thought\nyou knew where you stood.   \n\n   I know that very little of this post has dealt directly with the Whorl\nbooks, but I side with those who enjoy moderate digressions into Wolfe's\nother books.  It helps orient me, I find.\n\nCheers, all\n\n--Henry R \n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}