Wintry thoughts on Wolfe

James Wynn · 18 Feb 2003, 15:51 · from urth-v0302.mbox · original

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From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) Wintry thoughts on Wolfe
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:51:41 -0600
Message-ID: <urth-v0302-2947 at digest.urth.net>
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You didn't say you were limiting this discussion to romantic love so I'll
list characters who are not too damaged or crabbed to be genuinely
emotionally connected to another person:

V.R.T. (FhoC) hunting his mother across too planets
Dorcas (BotNS) she seemed to genuinely love Severian
Agia (BofNS) violently in love with her brother
Latro (SoA) was genuinely in love his Amazon girlfriend
Auk (BotLS) in love with Chenille and Tartaros

How is that for starting list of broadly known characters?

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Stephanides [mailto:adamsteph at earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 7:51 PM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Wintry thoughts on Wolfe

on 2/16/03 4:46 PM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at siriusfiction.com wrote:

> Adam Stephanides, post-Valentine's Day, wrote:
>> Something else that contributes to my sense of Wolfe's bleakness is the
>> absence of love from his works.  Does any of his major novels have a
>> protagonist who is genuinely capable of loving another individual (as
>> distinct from compassion)?
[snip]

> It would be easier (or should that be "possible"?) to approach this if I
> had some examples of a few authors inside and outside of genre who write
> fiction about love (monolithic
do you mean monogamous?
> or otherwise).  Fictions that you find
> convincing.

Well, the paragraph you quote was triggered by my rereading Patrick
O'Leary's THE IMPOSSIBLE BIRD, which, while it may not be "about love," does
contain convincing depictions of love.  So do John Crowley's works.  As for
non-genre authors, none spring to mind immediately.  (Obviously, there are
many who've written about love, but none that I've read recently enough, or
recall well enough, to be able to say definitely that I find them
convincing.)

But I'm not sure why you need this information to "approach" my claim.  If
you believe Wolfe's protagonists are capable of genuine love, why not say
so?

--Adam

--

--=20

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