Book of the New Sun

Frank · 30 Jan 1997, 05:01 · from sf-lovers.1997.mbox

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From: fchess at usa.net (Frank)
Subject: Re: Book of the New Sun
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 05:01:34 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v22-59-4 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V22 #59
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-22a

teneyck at u.washington.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>I think the fourth book is weak, though, and the third book isn't as good
>as the first two.  The fourth book struck me as though Wolfe had largely
>run out of material, but had to wrap things up; so he just spent the first
>three-quarters of the book vamping.

You might be interested to know that Wolfe wrote the entire _Book of the
New Sun_ as one very long novel, rather than one volume at a time.  Here's
his description of what happened when he realized just how long the story
he wanted to tell was:

    "Very well, I'd write a trilogy.
    "I did, finishing (the first draft) with a sigh of exhaustion that
shook my soul. There remained one small problem. I had, as is customary,
divided my trilogy into three books. And the third was nearly as long as
the first two combined.
    "... I now asked her [his agent] to ask him [the editor] what he
thought of a trilogy with a very long third volume.
   "She softened it, but I suspect his reply was unprintable....
   "Unwilling to cut tens of thousands of words from an existing
manuscript, and unsure of my ability to do it without wrecking the story, I
suggested dividing that last, fat volume and producing a tetralogy instead
of the commonplace trilogy."

[from "The Feast of Saint Catherine" in _Castle of the Otter_, which
is currently available in the combined edition _Castle of Days_.]

So, you may not have enjoyed the last volume, but it wasn't because Wolfe
was running out of material. The last volume is, I presume, exactly the way
he wanted it.

For those interested in knowing some of what's _really_ going on in _Book
of the New Sun_, I recommend John Clute's essays on Wolfe in his collection
_Strokes_. I enjoyed _Book of the New Sun_ immensely, but when I read
Clute, I realized there was far more to it that I had ever suspected.

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