The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe

Roy C. Lackey · 02 Jun 2007, 15:56 · from 2007-June.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 10:56:20 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe
Message-ID: <001401c7a52e$92e1d1e0$41cb5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>

Daniel D Jones quoted Matthew King and wrote:
>> I do like the article's emphasis on the Soldier books.  _Mist_ is the
>> book that hooked me for Wolfe, after _New Sun_ nearly chased me away.
>
>BOTNS was the first Wolfe series I read.  (It was almost the first Wolfe
>period.  I'd actually read "The Death of Doctor Island" in an anthology
long
>before, but didn't recall the name of the author.)  That series led me to
>read everything by him I could get my hands on.  The Soldier series are
good,
>but they wouldn't have inspired me to stock my bookshelves with his stuff.
>The Long and Short Sun series are also good, but I don't find the story
near
>as compelling as the New Sun stuff.

(Daniel D. Jones, in a subsequent post, has anticipated some of my points or
at least implied them, but I'll say this anyway.)

It's funny how tastes differ even among those who read Wolfe. As I've
probably said before, PEACE was my first read, twenty-five years ago. I
loved it. SHADOW was my second. It so thoroughly disgusted me all the way
around that I actually got rid of the book. When CLAW came out, I had to buy
SHADOW and read it again. My reaction mellowed, but if not for the
'redeeming' qualities of the other "mid-Western" novels (and some of the
short stories), I might not have bothered to finish the series. I've lost
track now of how many times I've read the series, but I still look down my
nose at Severian the World Savior.

I never liked the SOLDIER books (Wolfe's plots are hard enough to follow
without having the protagonist wake up in a new world every morning), and
I've stubbornly refused to read SIDON even though I've had it since it came
out, partly because I don't look forward to reading the first two books
again, and I would have to. I really wish that Wolfe, given his age, had not
taken up the series again, though I believe I am probably in the minority.

>From time to time people here have lamented their lack of success in getting
friends and relatives to read Wolfe. My experience is the same. My wife has
read the majority of his work, but I wouldn't call her a fan. She read NEW
SUN and LONG SUN, but found the latter so boring she wouldn't even start
SHORT SUN. My older son finally read NEW SUN a few years ago but couldn't
finish URTH. My younger son read some of the mid-Western novels and some of
the short stories when he was in college, but wasn't impressed. And so it
goes.

Our sons grew up with reading parents in a house full of books, and my wife
and I have for many years had a practice of reading favorite books/authors
aloud. Both sons have fond memories of those readings. Wolfe's work does
not, generally speaking, lend itself well to being read out loud,
particularly the serial novels. I doubt that statement requires explication
in this forum. This want of fluid readability, coupled with the narrative
lacunae (such as the one between SHADOW and CLAW, or the twenty years that
lapsed for Able between KNIGHT and WIZARD), makes his work difficult to
follow without a lot of back tracking. Most people who read fiction read for
pleasure, and most people, I think, do not find reading Wolfe pleasurable.
That, in a nut shell, is why Wolfe fans have so much trouble turning other
people on to him. It is why his books do not sell particularly well even
within the genre.

-Roy

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