Wolfe and Gaiman

Craig Brewer · 02 Jan 2011, 21:34 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 13:34:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Wolfe and Gaiman
In-Reply-To: <4D20DC66.601 at verizon.net>
References: <593148.94994.qm at web58204.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
	<4D20DC66.601 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <370928.2243.qm at web37604.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I have a very general question that I hope people don't mind me just throwing 
out there. I've finally gotten around to reading Neil Gaiman (Sandman and his 
non-comics stuff) after years of only knowing him by reputation/summary. But the 
mutual praise between Wolfe and Gaiman always made me think that he had to be 
more interesting than I suspected he might be. So now, after reading quite a 
bit, I can say that I enjoy his stuff, but it's such a different experience from 
Wolfe that I really wonder why these two so often link themselves with each 
other.

I think the main thing that amazes me is that, while both deal with a kind of 
"deep mythology" attitude toward sf/fantasy, Gaiman's procedure is very 
straightforward and fable-like while Wolfe's is so much more oblique. Of course, 
they don't have to be doing the same thing to respect each other...but I just 
feel like I see many more differences than similarities when I read Gaiman.

So am I dense? Does anyone else have some better insight into their relationship 
(personal, professional, stylistic, thematic, or otherwise) or have a more 
articulate (and interesting) way to compare them? I think this is probably a 
situation where I want to see what Wolfe sees in Gaiman, but I'm not entirely 
sure that I do.

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