Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?

Jason H · 23 May 2011, 16:54 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: beet31425 at gmail.com (Jason H)
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 09:54:43 -0700
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's brilliance or my denseness?
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Thanks for the recommendation, James. I've seen that article before, but I'm
going to hold off on actually reading it until I read _Urth of the New Sun_
(which will happen once I finish my reread of the four books).

I agree with a lot of what folks are saying, and I do think Wolfe makes you
figure lots of things out. But to me, the only things for us to figure out
are things that Gene Wolfe himself knows about and intentionally put in. I
can't imagine him saying, if asked, that he really intended e.g. Agia to be
Sev's cousin-- that he purposely and cleverly scattered clues so that a
careful reader would receive that particular revelation. Whereas it's clear
that he intended the Citadel towers to be rockets, even though you have to
work to see it, and might miss it.

I'm not saying New Sun doesn't contain deep mysteries. I'm saying its
mysteries are more ambiguous, and less answer-oriented, than these kinds of
identity puzzles, which seem made up by the readers. No disrespect intended
to Robert Borski or anyone on these forums who finds these kinds of analyses
fruitful. You guys are awesome, and I hope to get to know the novels as well
as you. I just disagree with you in some ways on what's interesting here. :)

-Jason

p.s. The issue of puzzles and author intentions can get tricky. When I read
Margaret Atwood's _The Handmaid's Tale_, I thought I was so clever by
figuring out the narrator's true name. It was subtle, but it was clearly
there. Or so I thought. Years later, I heard Atwood interviewed on the
radio, and someone asked about that name. She said that she understood why
people thought it was what I had thought, but this was totally unintentional
on her part! I was shocked. I'm still not sure if I believe her. :)

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:29 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jason H. wrote:
>
>> Wolfe is smart and clever, but I don't think the way he shows his
>> cleverness is by leaving elaborate clues at that level of misdirection. At
>> the level of tower-as-rocket, yes. But more elaborate and obscured than
>> that, I've never seen evidence for. It just doesn't strike me as the kind of
>> thing he's interested in (based on reading interviews and Castle of the
>> Otter).
>>
>
> Jason,
> I rather than a response, I recommend to you this essay as a starting
> place:
> http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10536
>
> Wolfe seems to deliberately write his stories with much more back-story
> than he intends his narrators reveal or know. And the elements of that
> back-story are often not incidental.
>
> J.
>
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