Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun

ISM780!jimb · 04 Feb 1986, 15:32 · from sf-lovers.1986.mbox

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: ISM780!jimb at caip.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun
Date: 4 Feb 86 15:32:00 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v11-31-9 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V11 #31
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-11

I will straddle the fence (and probably incur anatomical
difficulties as a result).  The first two quotes above I agree with,
though I do not associate myself with some of the snotty tone in the
sections I deleted.

As to the third quote, while I find it arguable, it *is* arguable,
e.g., can't be dismissed out of hand.  The Book of the New Sun is
not for plot readers.  Wolfe's use of plot is almost completely
centered on progressive revelation and illumination of character,
that kernel of all good fiction.

TBOTNS is one definition by example of tour de force.  He is using
SF convention and imagery combined with classical literary technique
to portray the life, conflicts, and character development of a
fascinating individual in a fascinating world.

TBOTNS is written with and to a different sensibility than most SF,
and like all literature, you must accept it on its own terms if it
is going to "work" for you.  If you don't, or for whatever reason
can't, such is life.  Remember, concerning matters of taste, there
is no disputing.  (An aphorism that antedates my birth by a good
couple of millenia.)

Jim Brunet
ihnp4/ima/ism780B
hao/ico/ism780B

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net