The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Mo Holkar / UKG · 17 Mar 2009, 17:16 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: lists at ukg.co.uk (Mo Holkar / UKG)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:16:31 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
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At 17:03 17/03/2009, Pedro wrote:
>Although I don't remember the books by heart, I frankly don't see 
>much (from what I remember) in Wolfe's books to say without a doubt 
>that he is a "defender" of the view that every citizen has the right 
>to have guns. The world of Short Sun is a savage one (inhumi, cities 
>attacking other cities, enslavement, etc) and it's normal that 
>people would be using weapons for personal protection, and hence the 
>particular book excerpt you gave us. On the same token if I was 
>writting a fiction book on the Roman conquest of, say, Gaul I could 
>certainly say that it was good that my heroe's Celtic tribe had 
>weapons to defend itself from the Romans and that would not imply 
>that as a 21th century european I defend the free use of weapons by everyone.

Also, it seems to me it's self-evidently unwise to try and deduce 
Wolfe's own political opinions based on what he presents in his 
fiction. I don't think you have to be a frenzied post-modernist to 
accept that people may often write stories from viewpoints different 
to those they hold themselves.

We have plenty of interview material with Wolfe where he talks fairly 
openly about some of his beliefs, so I don't think that adducing 
arguments along the lines of "X hero-like character is shown doing Y, 
therefore Wolfe must support it" is likely to be very worthwhile.

best wishes,

Mo

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