This Week in Google Alerts: Will No One Rid Me Of This Troublesome Writer?

Lane Haygood · 10 May 2011, 05:22 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 00:22:06 -0500
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Will No One Rid Me Of This
 Troublesome Writer?
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTi=dQua4Hvxh0YtYxFsTq0EE3P=D3g at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BANLkTi=dQua4Hvxh0YtYxFsTq0EE3P=D3g at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BANLkTi=QFjx-ptyT=uf0ObA_4wxzSBobTA at mail.gmail.com>

This is just demonstrably false to boot!  Vance's prose, his diction,
and his writing style are highly distinct from Wolfe's.  I mean, the
only line of intersection is that they each chose a certain thematic
motif (a dying world) for a few of their stories.  But Wolfe's writing
tends to be more dialogue-heavy and witty, whereas Vance eschews
dialogue in favor of lyricism and structured prose.  The "Dying Earth"
stories are lighter and more mythic (not to mention fairly
straightforward), whereas Wolfe's tend to be labyrinthine and
multi-layered.

I enjoy both, but to compare Wolfe to Vance is to compare apples to oranges.

That said, aren't all writers at least somewhat derivative?  Talk to
any of them and they can list a whole line of authors that influenced
their development. But there's a clear difference between, "Oh yeah,
Borges was totally influential on my work" and "Hey guys, I totally
rewrote a Borges story with spaceships and swords."

LH

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just in time for Gene's birthday celebrations:
> http://foreverness.createforumhosting.com/what-to-do-about-gene-wolfe-t337.html
>
>> This is driving me nuts. I'm far beyond my limit of tolerance for cover-jacket blurbs declaring Gene Wolfe to be "... the greatest writer in the English language alive today." and "... there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning." That's Michael Swanwick's embarrassing fawning, which has apparently become required promotional jibber-jabber for every book Wolfe gets published. Other literary critics who don't know anything about science fiction take this at face value, and occasionally regurgitate it with their own variations, completely oblivious to Jack Vance's work. And, readers new to science fiction (or speculative fiction if you prefer) are being grossly misled. They're amazed by the pebble but aren't told about the mountain. Don't get me wrong; I don't dislike Gene Wolfe's writing. I pounce on every new chunk of fiction he comes up with. I'll go so far as to say that his "The Book of the New Sun" i
> ?s required reading for anyone who believes that some sci-fi is serious literature equal to the best in mainstream fiction. But, Wolfe is derivative. He obviously used Vance as a starting point, whereas Vance developed his literary voice independently. Vance is authentic and original, and Wolfe is the brilliant student. It's true that Wolfe's most recent work seems to be moving in a direction that is more of Wolfe himself and less of Vance's style and technique. Hopefully, Wolfe's future works will be ships with a wind in their sails that flows from Wolfe's lungs alone. But we're still being pounded over the head with the uninformed blather of Swanwick, et al. What to do? Who will sound the trumpet for Vance? Who will illuminate Vance's status as the progenitor?
>
> --
> gwern
> http://www.gwern.net
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