"Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

Marc Aramini · 29 Apr 2011, 20:43 · from 2011-April.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:43:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <4DBB1060.1020105 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <794632.94323.qm at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Some of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality.  "Looking for the thumb print under the lily"?  Oh, it was a lily, huh?  

Anybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head?  I feel like that little exercise is SO classic Wolfe.  Sets up a scenario, throws in a random plastic toy, and then leaves us to figure out how the concluding event went down.  I think it is not necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a bit inscrutable to fully "get" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really mad? What happened to the toy?  why is the unconscious guy back there at the end of the bar?  Is that his toy bird?)

I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained mystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our everyday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable laws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction, (but we all know what he was really saying, anyway).

--- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Friday, April 29, 2011, 12:24 PM
> I just read this quote by Wolfe.
> 
> Irony? Pot-Meet-Kettle?
> 
> J
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