Wolfe at Readercon

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 20 Jul 2009, 23:32 · from 2009-July.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:32:17 -0700
Subject: (urth) Wolfe at Readercon
In-Reply-To: <937432300907201624h5b34eb6cibf8db3a60a560cf6 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <c04.6495caeb.3796536e at aol.com>
	<937432300907201624h5b34eb6cibf8db3a60a560cf6 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370907201632m530286a2h3a3d113c9f5433aa at mail.gmail.com>

Well, Wolfe at one point was talking of having Latro ride a Phoenician boat
to the Americas. I suppose that's probably out of the question now.

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Milton Jackson<miltonwjackson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll tell you no such thing. You'll have to read the book to determine what
> you think of what Wolfe does with Latro. One thing any Wolfe fan should know
> is that Wolfe rarely gives a traditional resolution to his works. They are
> often openended and incomplete in ways that would damage other authors'
> reputations though. Wolfe is a writer who rewards both perception and
> repeated delving into his worlds by his readers. If you expect the Latro
> sequence to go from A to Z, then you're reading the wrong books. If you
> expect a more Citizen Kane-style mode of storytelling filled with lacunae,
> subtle hints, and endings that leave a sense of wonder rather than
> completion, then you're definitely reading the right books. Others may
> disagree with me, but my perception of Soldier of Sidon is that it
> effectively brings the sequence to the closest thing to closure it needs.
> Anything?else, to me--unless superbly done (something Wolfe is quite capable
> of)--would be meaningless windowdressing.
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 7:10 PM, <JBarach at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> Milton writes:
>>
>> > I think Wolfe's done all he can do with Latro short of killing
>> >?the character off. Althought Soldier of Sidon can't claim
>> >?the level of writing its predecessors had, it still was a fine
>> >?book and, I believe, a great place to end the story.
>>
>> I haven't read Sidon yet, but ... surely the matter of his memory-problem
>> has yet to be resolved.? That is, I assume Wolfe didn't intend it to be just
>> some weird feature that plays no role in the plot but that allows Wolfe to
>> do some fun stuff with the narrative.
>>
>> Of course, that may have been how the idea originated ("What if I had a
>> character who couldn't remember more than a day at a time?"), but it seems
>> to me that Wolfe usually DOES something with those sorts of ideas.? As he
>> says in one of his essays or interviews about writing, many people think
>> they have a great idea for a story when they come up with an idea for the
>> premise of a story or the opening of the story ("What if a guy couldn't
>> remember more than a day at a time?").? But what is important is knowing the
>> *end* of the story and how the story gets to it.
>>
>> So if Wolfe came up with this particular idea, it seems consistent to me
>> to think that Wolfe had some idea of where he wanted to go with the idea.
>> It's not just a gimmick to allow, for instance, characters to deceive Latro
>> because he can't remember that they were untrustworthy.? It's going
>> somewhere.? The memory loss happened for a reason, and therefore it is
>> something that is both resolvable and needing resolution.
>>
>> Or so it seems to me.? Now you'll tell me that all that stuff was cleared
>> up in Sidon....
>>
>> John
>>
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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