The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe

Doug · 29 Feb 2004, 10:46 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2004.mbox

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From: trike at cinci.rr.com (Doug)
Subject: Re: The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe
Date: 29 Feb 2004 02:46:35 -0800
Message-ID: <db01bae.0402290246.75833e69 at posting.google.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <Xns949D9FE6F929Difyouwanttoemailvisi at 199.45.49.11> <lawrence-43D2DE.01241529022004 at news-central.ash.giganews.com>

Lawrence Person <lawrence at io.com> wrote ...
> 
> 
> And the reason none of them was professional writers is
> that it is obvious none realized just how hard the effects
> Wolfe achieves are to carry off, and just how 
> effortlessly he does so. I am. I do. And you're wrong.
> 
> It's as if you said that J. S. Bach was "boring," and Mozart,
> Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Copeland,
> Bernstein, Sodheim, Glass, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Paul
> McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and Louis Armstrong all said you
> were wrong. We can believe you, or we can believe the dozen
> experts in the field who say you're wrong.

I'm not a fan of Wolfe's.  To continue your analogy -- and I do love a
good analogy -- Wolfe for me is like the musician Richard Thompson.

I can appreciate his talent, and I get why other professionals in his
field hold him in such high esteem, but the work just doesn't do
anything for me.

It's not a case of right or wrong, it's a case of taste, and we each
respond to different flavors in different ways.

I feel the same way about Howard Waldrop, too... and he's even written
one of my all-time favorite SF stories, "The Ugly Chickens."

http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/waldrop/waldrop1.html

Doug

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