BOTNS is a classic

Bob Miller · 18 Aug 2006, 02:55 · from 2006-August.txt.gz

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From: bob_bageera at hotmail.com (Bob Miller)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:55:23 -0500
Subject: (urth) BOTNS is a classic
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-F976B38D7A4B230606E736D74F0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BAY103-F279FBF577E79B648F81D6F88420 at phx.gbl>

While I personally love BOTNS, word used carefully, there are many who do 
not like it at all.  I well remember trying to loan the SotT  to three 
different people at work.  The politeness of the response varied, but it was 
about the same in all three instances, "Why am I reading about these people 
thinking about robbing a graveyard and I don't think I like any of them?"   
My own opinion?  Until I read the Wizard Knight, I thought it was the best 
book I've read by a living author.
Godspeed

Jonathon McKitrick asks:

 >... is there any reason to believe Gene Wolfe had this stuff planned out 
to
 >provide all these details >deliberately, and that he will take the final
 >explanation with him to his grave?

At the end of Citadel, I think,  Gene Wolfe makes some comment about BotNS
being the culmination of seven years of writing, re-reading, re-writing.  So
I think there are surely intentional mysteries in there.  In one interview,
Gene Wolfe is asked about all the analyses and interpretations of BotNS and
he answers saying something to the effect that he is surprised by the
excessive attention to certain details he never considered important and to
the scant attention paid to other details he considered very important.

We've seen that different people magnify different parts of the story,
depending on the lens they use to view.  Might be a Catholic or Marxist or
(in my case) anthropological bias which makes some parts of the text stand
out and other parts diminish.  In reading Solar Labyrinth earlier this year,
I wondered if Robert Borski might have a Jewish perspective (I don't know
his religious persuasion).

Someone recently asked if Wolfe might have notes or journals which would be
published after his death.  Some felt that might happen but they would be as
impenetrable as his already published work.  I get the feeling he builds his
stories on a solid, clear foundation then he obscures it, so his notes would
solve many mysteries.  But I don't think any notes will be released since
Wolfe  hopes his work has the enduring quality to last much longer than his
lifetime.

In the past, people in here have wondered why BotNS hasn't become an
enduring classic which penetrates the cultural consciouness at large, such
as Lord of the Rings, or Dune or Jurassic Park.  I think it is partly
because, since the 80's and the availability of the VCR and movie rentals,
all Science Fiction/Fantasy classics are expected to be made into movies.
It would be sad to think Gene Wolfe's work would fade into obscurity in the
future.

But I have mixed feelings about a BotNS movie.  I'd like to see it, just
because I love movies and I think current CGI technology could do it
justice, visually.  But a movie which didn't capture the tone and feeling of
BotNS could actually hurt the popularity of the books, as I think the Dune
movies have done.

-bsharp

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