Pathos for Latros

PMorris33 at aol.com · 19 Mar 2010, 21:19 · from 2010-March.txt.gz

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From: PMorris33 at aol.com (PMorris33 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:19:34 EDT
Subject: (urth) Pathos for Latros
Message-ID: <28e12.21fa7296.38d54466 at aol.com>

Does anyone know if there will be another book coming out in the Latros  
series?  

In a message dated 3/19/2010 2:07:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
urth-request at lists.urth.net writes:

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Today's Topics:

1.  Pathos for  Latros (Son of  Witz)

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Message:  1
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:34:38 -0400
From: "Son of Witz"  <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
To: Urth at urth.net
Subject: (urth)  Pathos for Latros
Message-ID:
<4a322928e1c85c142f2fbf50f2d26399.squirrel at email.fatcow.com>
Content-Type:  text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

I just began part II of Soldier of Sidon  this morning. I'm really loving
this book. Very spooky.

It's really  easy to get caught up with Wolfes puzzle-boxes and amazing
writing chops,  but now and then his books hit me on such an emotional
level that I'm  stunned. In Short Sun, the "Oh Scylla" exclamation had me
crying. In Sidon,  chapters 27 & 28 have me close to tears. Were I reading
it alone at  home I might shed some, but as it was I read it on the train,
so I manned  up and choked em in.  ;)

In 27 everything goes haywire, they are  caught after escaping the mines.
In 28, he's in a sick bed, sold into  slavery, and is saved / and saves
Myt-Ser'eu. Poor Latro. I can't imagine  having this dilemma. The moments
where his love shines through his lack of  memory, and he kills Kitty's
abusers are heart wrenching.

Chapter 28  really illustrates his dilemma. Where would he be without a
friend to help  him out? It's easy to read his story and almost forget the
absolute  discontinuity of his experience. He has friends and a bit of the
night  before to help him out. When he wakes up in the sick bed in Chap 28
though,  he's really lost. He doesn't even know for sure if he is the "L"
that  writes. Reading that really struck me. I'm not a man who looks back
to the  past very much at all, but these books make me extremely grateful
for  memories and friends.  I don't have the words to express how  chilling
this chapter was for me.

Another aspect of Wolfe that  amazes me is his ability to put himself into
this world and find the small  details another writer wouldn't even
imagine.  It's simple details  that summon profoundly human musing that
really floors me, such as the  geese in this quote.

[quote]
Geese fly overhead, flying by night,  calling like new boots across the sky
to their fellows. It may be the last  sound I hear.  Every man hears a last
sound. For many it must be the  clash of arms. That is a good last sound,
but the shouts of geese is a  better one.  We sink into the earth, down
into the lands of the dead.  Where I shall drink from Death's river to
forget a life I cannot  remember.
[/quote]

This is a paragraph written by a man with  remarkable depth of soul.  Gene
Wolfe may be a great and tricky  science-fantasy author, and a lot is made
of his head scratching  acrobatics, but first and foremost he is human with
a profound sense of  empathy and an amazing gift for conveying it across
the gulf between our  souls. I'm grateful to read his work. I think Latro
might be my favorite of  his narrative voices. So very  human.

~Witz

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