Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Daniel Petersen · 16 Dec 2011, 11:23 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:23:17 +0000
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
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Dang it.  This thread totally got away from me.  Since I started the
current genre discussion with a comment to the effect that BotNS has a
'feel' of SnS (at first), let me just remind those who saw that comment
that I rather clearly said that this is just a feel and NOT that the series
IS SnS (in whole or in part).  I still think I'm right that it has a
significant SnS genre element in some of its contours - at least for a
while.

Also, I want to chime in with the 'Amen' chorus on Craig Brewer's excellent
comments.  He really nailed it.  I agree with a fair bit of what Stockhoff
and Danehy-Oakes's are saying.  However, I don't agree with Stockhoff's
harsh belittling of Quinn (yet I do find the latter frustrating in what
does indeed seem to be a rather obtuse attitude that could do with more
nuance and the ability to try to see from within others' worldviews - not
least, Wolfe's own).

I have to say I always feel C. S. Lewis gets nearly zero justice in these
discussions.  He's just not the overbearing, moralistic, proselytising,
simplistically allegorical or didactic writer these (admitted)
oversimplifications of his works imply.  He's just not.  But I'm not going
to get into it. (And yes, I know I'm partly talking to one or two of his
'fans' - but I still don't think you're doing him justice.)  Still, it's an
interesting and surely at least partly fruitful perspective to see Wolfe
somewhere between Lewis and Tolkien in certain respects.  I also just think
he's probably a *tertium quid* altogether in other respects (rather than a
'middle way').  (Very similar comparisons and classifications could be said
of Lafferty and Powers also.)

Finally, as regards genre, though Wolfe seems to airily (and amusingly!)
dismiss it in interviews, having recently studied it a bit more myself, I
do think Magical Realism is a useful lense on aspects of his work also (a
recognition and application of which might go some ways toward refuting
reductionistic interpretations of Wolfe ala G.Q.).

-DOJP
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