Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v010.n093

From: Bjjp2 <bjjp2 at aol.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:05:50 +0000

In a message dated 00-03-31 00:31:22 EST, you write:

<< Re my posting on difficulty in even getting started on the Long Sun  books because of the writing style some months ago in urth.v028.n079 and  replies in n080-n082, I took the advice given and read OBW - and loved  it.  So then I went back and made myself read all the Long Sun books in  one hit (assisted by mantis' booklets).
 
 I still think Long Sun is very disappointing.  The third person style of  diction chosen is flat and to my mind rather boring, anaesthetising  Wolfe's linguistic genius (so on display in OBW and TBNS).  The ideas,  while interesting, did not require four volumes to present.  As for the  meticulous plotting suggested by Alice Turner, I can only say this was  not evident to me -  on the contrary I had the impression that unlike  TBNS the series was not fully written in advance, if only because Exodus  is twice as long as the three preceding volumes.  Nor did much of the  plotting seem to lead anywhere - to take one random example, what was  the value of the long (and boring, at least to me) chapter on the visit  to the talus factory in Exodus? >>

I'm a long-time Wolfe fan (and lurker) and I agree with respect to the Long 
Sun books. I liked the first one, but found subsequent volumes extremely 
disappointing. I also found much of the series tedious. Do we really need 
three pages to describe to Silk how a needler works? Seemingly endless 
discussions while wandering around the tunnels?  Because it's Wolfe, I 
recognize the distinct possibility that maybe I'm just not smart or 
perceptive enough to understand the point, but the fact remains that I found 
myself skimming pages at times in the Long Sun books.  I agree that the Short 
Sun series is shaping up to be another masterpiece.

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.com

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 13:14:49 +0000

On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 Bjjp2 at aol.com wrote:

> three pages to describe to Silk how a needler works? 

Different tastes, I guess, but I've actually pointed that passage out
before as an example of Wolfe's virtuoso writing.  The way Auk describes
such advanced technology in such simple language is beautiful in itself,
but also puts an interesting spin on imagining a culture that has lost
high technology.  In most such novels, the Auk-character would just shrug
his shoulders and say, "It's magic."

-Rostrum