Gene Wolfe in SFE

António Marques · 08 Nov 2011, 22:08 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:08:15 +0000
Subject: (urth) Gene Wolfe in SFE
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Gwern Branwen wrote:
> http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/Entry/wolfe_gene
>
> Reads like a pretty good entry, although given recent threads, I can
>  see many interpretive claims list regulars will reject. Conclusion
> is interesting:
>
>> It may be that Wolfe has never had an original sf idea, or never a
>> significant one, certainly none of the calibre of those generated
>> by writers like Larry NIVEN or Greg BEAR. His importance does not
>> reside in that kind of originality. Setting aside for an instant
>> his control of language, and his intensely applied control over
>> structure in general and the paced revelation of story in
>> particular, it is possible to claim that Wolfe's importance lies
>> in a spongelike ability to assimilate generic models and devices,
>> and in the quality of the transformations he effects upon that
>> material. Wolfe's actual language is at times visibly parodic, and
>> many of his short stories are designed deliberately and
>> intricately to echo earlier models, from the whole pantheon of
>> GENRE SF. But the relationship between current and previous texts
>> is not only in the "music" of the words themselves. A further
>> musical analogy might be the Baroque technique of the PARODY
>> cantata, in which a secular compo sition is transformed by reverent
>> transformations (some recondite) into a sacred work (or vice
>> versa); such parodies, in the case of the greater composers, can
>> often only be deciphered after long study. Wolfe's importance has
>> been, therefore, twofold: the inherent stature of his work is
>> deeply impressive, and he wears the fictional worlds of sf like a
>> coat of many colours. In 1996 he was given a WORLD FANTASY AWARD
>> for Life Achievement; and he was inducted into the SCIENCE FICTION
>> HALL OF FAME in 2007. [JC/John Clute]

Not unlike the Outsider transforms folks into doing his work, heh?

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