academic commentary

Craig Brewer · 30 Nov 2010, 17:50 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:50:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) academic commentary
In-Reply-To: <551229.13019.qm at web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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I think this is how many more people approach the text (at least on this list):

>>David said:
>>>Another possible angle is one I would not expect Wright to use, and that is to 
>>>ask, IF the Increate/divine is "present" in BOTNS, where is he/it? Perhaps this 
>>>is backwards,
>>>but again: once we have counted and catalogued the trees, isn't it time to talk 
>>>about forests?

The bigger point of Wright's book is to say that Wolfe is usually doing 
something opposite and even intentionally disruptive of that. One way to put it 
is that Wright thinks that Wolfe is almost always pretending to write "fantasy" 
(whether that "fantasy" be magic, the supernatural, or even religious notions) 
when, in fact, he's writing science fiction. He seems to think that there is 
always a mundane, "rational," materialistic explanation for the otherworldly. 
(Wright would LOVE LOVE LOVE the notion floated awhile back about _The 
Sorcerer's House_ which suggested that the whole thing was a complicated scam 
rather than an actual story of magic.) Or if that's too extreme (I mean, even 
Wright admits that Latro does actually talk to gods in his stories), then it's 
rather than Wolfe's narrators or narrative voice is always being deceptive about 
*something* (perhaps even self-deceptive), and the reader's job is disabuse them 
of those deceptions. It just so happens that Wright's examples of "deception" 
are usually when Wolfe does "fantasy/magic/religion."

Anyway, I do recommend it, even if I don't agree with it. Wright knows when he's 
saying things that a lot of Wolfe fans will disagree with, and he makes his case 
knowing that it might be a minority opinion. And I found his arguments to be 
thoughtful rather than arbitrary, which is what you want when you're looking for 
a good discussion.

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