Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Daniel Petersen · 14 Dec 2011, 10:34 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:34:57 +0000
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
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On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 10:12 PM, Larry Miller <decanus1284 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Can you really spoil a Wolfe novel anyway?

Ha, good point.  Although, I have to say, I for some reason read On Blue's
Waters first and only then went back and read Long Sun before starting over
and completing Short Sun.  As much as I* loved* Long Sun in many ways, a
bit of the oomph was taken out by my hazy familiarity with some of the
characters and set up.  I think if I'd gone into the first volume of Long
Sun having NO IDEA what was coming, it would have just blown me away on the
conceptual, framework level.  It still did, but without quite as much of
the sense of mystery and surprise it probably would have without prior
awareness.

Then again, my first reading of On Blue's Waters will always remain an
intensely magical moment for me as I was plunged into the midst of a richly
dense storyworld already well-developed and a narrative far into its themes
and trajectories.  The effect was utterly intriguing, delightful, and
awe-inspiring.  I can still close my eyes and feel the strange, pleasantly
baffled, open-spaced wonder of first contact with Blue's flora and fauna
and the glimpses of interstellar back story.  To this day I don't know
which is the better way to approach the whole thing.  (John Clute wondered
in his review of OBW whether it was the best place to start with Wolfe.
I'm still wondering that.)

-DOJP
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