Wolfe in decline?

Jonathan Goodwin · 14 Apr 2009, 17:31 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: joncgoodwin at gmail.com (Jonathan Goodwin)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:31:58 -0500
Subject: (urth) Wolfe in decline?
In-Reply-To: <FDDFE864-E0DB-474F-9F9C-BDD6BECF5AE8 at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
References: <mailman.16094.1239726601.12296.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
	<FDDFE864-E0DB-474F-9F9C-BDD6BECF5AE8 at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Message-ID: <37bfbeb60904141031w5120359ahb65faf6c7a6db35d at mail.gmail.com>

That would be silly about the time-travel, I agree, so I'm glad not to
have suggested it. What I did write was that time-travel aspect of PF
seemed a particularly 'Wolfean' addition to the book, one conditioned
by the expectations of his earlier work and not integral to the
narrative. In particular, I wrote in my post that it seems to
introduce (lazily) potential ambiguities for readers inclined to spot
them that would thereby increase the apparent moral and narrative
complexity of an undeveloped work.

I also mentioned in my post the nagging suspicion I had that the
entire pirate story was a fantasy transformation of a youth spent in
more prosaic and chronologically suitable crime. Did anyone else see
it this way? I also then thought that I would never even have
considered such a baroque interpretation in a work by another writer
(and would have indeed set the book down long before finishing it).
That kind of reaction, if shared by anyone here at all, is what I'm
particularly interested in hearing about.

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Kieran Mullen <kieran at nhn.ou.edu> wrote:
>
> ? Sorry to omit previous discussions....
>
> ? I don't think Wolfe jumped the shark with Pirate Freedom. ? I thought that
> it was an interesting story as well as an exploration of good and evil in a
> much more violent world. ? The narrator is unreliable, of course as most are
> in Wolfe. ? ?It seems silly to state that involving time travel immediately
> implies a poorIy written story. ?I ?even liked the Wizard-Knight series. ? I
> found "The FIfth Head of Cerberus" to be unenjoyable - the story too thin
> and the narrative layers too complex.
>
> ? ?As for "An Evil Guest," ?I didn't like it because it wandered all over
> the genre map, so that it seemed incoherent. ? The Lovecraftian elements
> were pulled out in the end without enough foreshadowing, and I could not
> find a character with whom I could empathize. ? However, I think I need to
> reread it based on some insights brought up by this mailing list. ? It's a
> bit like seeing "Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead" ?without any
> knowledge of Shakespeare. ? You can admire parts of it, but it seems a bit
> incoherent. ? I am still looking for some key understanding that will make
> AEG make more sense.
>
> Kieran Mullen
>
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