PF review

James Crossley · 30 Nov 2007, 23:48 · from 2007-November.txt.gz

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From: ishmael at drizzle.com (James Crossley)
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:48:37 -0800
Subject: (urth) PF review
In-Reply-To: <605329.12133.qm at web44909.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <C375E155.61E9%ishmael at drizzle.com>

On 11/30/07 2:22 PM, "paul witcover" <gdeonn at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>   
>> I've been a little disappointed by the critical reception of this novel so
>> far -- the majority view seems to be that it's a light-hearted romp, just
>> pure fun, without any of the weightier issues normally present in his work.
>> It's baffling to me that the book could be so significantly misapprehended.
>> 
Not that I think he wants to be misunderstood, but Wolfe tends to purposely
disguise his meanings, and in PF he seems to have pushed that tendency about
as far as it can go.  The book almost begs for readers to see it as simply a
boy?s adventure.  I?d bet that a significant portion of casual readers (if
Wolfe still has any of those) wouldn?t be aware of the SF nature of the
story, granting that time travel is a mite fantastical, but not even
noticing that Chris?s reverse time travel begins in our future.  The moral
questions are buried even deeper.

Wasn?t there something in the review about the brightness of  the Caribbean
sun helping us forget about the inevitable shadows? That says it right.

James
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