{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/95", "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": 95, "subject": "Finding the Wolf(e)", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1997-02-14T09:44:45+00:00", "last": "1997-02-15T09:18:30+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1997-02-14T09:44:45+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Finding the Wolf(e)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I first encountered Wolfe in Damon Knight's _Orbit_ collections. At the\ntime I wasn't terribly impressed. I vaguely recall thinking \"The Fifth\nHead of Cerberus\" was overwritten and \"mannered,\" whatever that's\nsupposed to mean.\n\nIn retrospect, I realize that I was reading very fast, very uncarefully.\nThat was a period in which I would have listed Niven, Tiptree,\nCordwainer Smith, and Leguin as my favorite SF authors (which is not to\nsay I don't like them today). None of them, whatever their gifts, writes\nthe way Wolfe does. No one in SF writes the way Wolfe does, and Nabokov\nbeing dead, I'm not sure anyone anywhere comes very close. (What Nabokov\ndid was a different sort of similar thing, anyway).\n\nI reencountered Wolfe in _The Devil in a Forest_, which is one of his\nmore accessible books (probably YA originally). I recall reading it\ntwice in fairly short order, and it rekindled my interest.\n\nI'm much more of a novel reader than a short story reader, so although I\nsaw and even read some of his short stories, it was not until _The\nShadow of the Torturer_ (which I bought based on a reviewer\nrecommendation), that I really began to aggressively seek out his work.\n\nI know I read the _New Sun_ books much too fast the first time, and\nmissed almost everything. As someone remarked, it hardly matters with\nWolfe, because you know in advance that you will read his books multiple\ntimes. I've read all of Wolfe's work I can find. (How many of you have\nread _Pandora by Holly Hollander_? Raise your hands!)\n\nMy literary tastes are not terribly high. I read a great deal of SF,\nless fantasy (although I'm always on the lookout for good\nnon-Xerox-of-Tolkien). I read the occasional mystery. For a writer who\nuses something like Wolfe's \"don't tell them more than once\" style,\ncheck out George V. Higgins (_The Friends of Eddie Coyle_, for example).\nHiggins, like Wolfe, is someone I recommend to friends, but always say,\n\"I like him, but he can be a tough read.\"\n\nI read a lot of history. I've read Borges, and Nabokov (though not all\nof Nabokov, by any means), and Barth, and Joyce, and Pynchon, and\nCoover. My typical taste in mainstream fiction runs more to Patrick\nO'Brian, though.\n\nI don't think most people want to work when they read. Wolfe is hard\nwork, and the more you read, the harder he gets.\n\nFor example, what was the business with Eland having pus on his legs,\nand Urus not, when they were lifted out of the tunnels in _Exodus_? He\neven comments about \"the old man.\" Is this another Quetzal bite?\n\nThe thing about Wolfe is you never know when something like that is\nsignificant. I've fantasized about scanning _Long Sun_ into my computer\nso I can do searches on it, set up hyperlinks, and so on. Paper is _so_\nannoying.\n\n Dave\n (david_lebling at avid.com)\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CoxRathvon", "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-02-14T11:58:32+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Finding the Wolf(e)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yipes, I hope I haven't diverted our Wolfe-chat into a literary sidebar\nthat's too... hifilutin. I guess my list of favorite authors (Calvino,\nBorges, Nabokov, Barthelme) does include some modernist Heavy Hitters. I\nshould add that I don't always try to bust my brains when I read. I like\nTony Hillerman's mysteries set in Navajo country, and some of Sue Grafton's\nalphabetically titled mysteries. I like P.G. Wodehouse, which is about as\nfluffy as you can get. Heck, I crack up over Dave Barry.\n\nAs for sf, I grew up liking Tolkien and Bradbury. In high school and college\nI went for Heinlein, Clark, and Asimov. More recently I have liked LeGuin,\nVance, Cordwainer Smith (getting a bit brainy again there), and Lafferty (who\nabsolutely kills me, though I have read only half a dozen short stories in\nanthologies and would love to find more). \n\nI can't remember how I got into Wolfe. I think I just pulled \"The Fifth Head\nof Cerberus\" off a library shelf one day with a shrug--and was soon agog over\nit. I know what Dave Lebling means about it being \"mannered\"--but I guess I\nhave a taste for that sort of style, as my bent for Nabokov shows. The\nthing that slayed me about \"The Fifth Head of Cerberus\" was the way \"self\"\ndefied being pigeonholed. What is the true nature of \"self\" if you're a\nclone? or an artificial intelligence? or a shape-shifter borrowing an\nidentity? or a shape-shifter who's *forgotten* about borrowing an identity?\n These variations on an elusive theme made me laugh and gasp at the same\ntime. On top of that, I thought the prose was terrific. And I wondered, who\nis this guy Wolfe? And why aren't the critics who love Updike and Doctorow\ntalking about him?\n\nAfter \"Cerberus\" I tackled the New Sun series and definitely read it too\nfast, missing almost everything. I did the whole thing over again with\nslightly improved understanding, meanwhile reading everything else of Wolfe's\nI could find. I think I've tracked down everything except Wolfe's \"Letters.\"\n(Yes, Dave, I have my hand raised for \"Pandora by Holly Hollander.\") I\nreally love \"There Are Doors\" and dozens of the short stories. I also like\nthe Latro books a lot, and \"Peace.\" I think \"Castleview\" finally went too\nfar for me--I actually burst out laughing at the end because I couldn't\nbelieve how many loose ends Wolfe was just leaving there! I still don't know\nwhat the hell a lot of it was about.\n\nFor me the Long Sun series is right up there with his best stuff. I remember\napproaching \"Exodus\" with sort of a wary feeling. I guess I felt that there\nhad been a lot of ambitious setting-up and that \"Exodus\" had a lot to prove.\n About two-thirds of the way through--maybe at about the point of Silk's\ndinner with Siyuf and Quetzal et al.--I lowered the book and said aloud,\n\"He's delivering!\" I could feel the threads coming together, and the\ncharacters deepening, and the climax approaching with a lot of force. For\nme, it was working as pure page-turning sf excitement--even though, as we've\nbeen saying, there's so much else going on with Wolfe.\n\nSorry to gab on and on. I know there are a lot of Long Sun puzzle pieces yet\nto ponder. I'm very appreciative of the Time Line, the list of theophanies,\netc. See you all later!\n\n--Henry Rathvon\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Fernando Q. Gouvea", "address": "fqgouvea at colby.edu" }, "date": "1997-02-15T09:18:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Finding the Wolf(e)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I first found out about Wolfe from Algis Budrys' review of *The Claw of the\nConciliator*. It was such a rave, that I decided I had to find those books\nand read them. But since I was living in Brazil, that wasn't easy to do!\nWhile I was looking for a way to get the New Sun books (the SF Book Club\neventually obliged), I found *The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories\nand other stories*. I remember I read it when I was home sick for several\ndays in a row, one enormous rush through all those amazing stories. And I\nfell in love. Later, I discovered I owned a copy of *Fifth Head of\nCerberus*, which I had bought much earlier for obscure reasons. I only read\nit after I'd read the New Sun books; by then, I knew what Wolfe was about,\nand greatly enjoyed it.\n\nI read lots of sf, though these days I always get the feeling that the sf I\nlike is a minority taste... I read Connie Willis, Howard Waldrop, Kate\nWilhelm, Kim Stanley Robinson, Iain Banks, some others. In some moods, I\nlike \"hard sf\" a la Niven or Forward. I read lots of short stories. Beyond\nsf, I read Christian theology, history of mathematics, some literary\nfiction, a few mysteries, and the occasional strange book that doesn't fit\nany categories.\n\nOne of the things I like in Wolfe is the multi-level structure of his\nwork. One can enjoy the ride without plumbing the depths, or one can spend\nlots of time exploring, like we do here. I think I've read everything he's\nwritten except for Operation Ares and some of the Cheap Street stuff (which\nI can't afford!)." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea\t\t\t\nChair, Dept. of Math & CS\t\tEditor, MAA Online\nColby College\t\t\t\thttp://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu\t\t\tfqgouvea at maa.org\n==========================================================\n\nHeavy, adj.:\n\tSeduced by the chocolate side of the force.\n\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }