The Book of the New Sun

FEBER · 03 Dec 1984, 10:17 · from sf-lovers.1984.mbox

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From: FEBER at USC-ISIB.ARPA
Subject: Re: The Book of the New Sun
Date: 3 Dec 1984 10:17-PST
Message-ID: <sflovers-v9-215-2 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V9 #215
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-09

Jim Aspnes recently added a new book to the Wolfe canon,
Fevre Dream, which, considering it is by George R R Martin, is
fairly suprising.  Since arguing ad hominem is generally frowned
upon, I will restrict this flame to the following: There seems to be
a widely held belief that a narrative can take only one (or maybe
two or three, for the more liberal minded) forms, and that
everything else is either "literary doodling" or "too long" or "full
of big words" etc. etc. I would suggest that before you start
attacking a book on literary grounds, you understand something about
the subject - Northrup Frye's Anatomy of Criticism is a good place
to start.  Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun (which is really one
book, as its name implies) has an episodic narrative which places it
squarely in the oldest literary tradition there is (except for maybe
the grunt).  What makes it a fascinating work, outside of the
clarity of its prose, is the interweaving of themes and motifs.  But
if you don't get it by reading it, no amount of explication will
help.
                (mark)

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