The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe

Michael Grosberg · 29 Feb 2004, 14:59 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2004.mbox

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From: preacher_mg at hotmail.com (Michael Grosberg)
Subject: Re: The Snootiness of Gene Wolfe
Date: 29 Feb 2004 06:59:43 -0800
Message-ID: <c21d3ba0.0402290659.37671483 at posting.google.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <Xns949D9FE6F929Difyouwanttoemailvisi at 199.45.49.11>

Josh <if.you.want.to.email at visit.joshbrain.tripod.org> wrote in message news:<Xns949D9FE6F929Difyouwanttoemailvisi at 199.45.49.11>...
> I've read a lot of Gene Wolf (the complete Sun and Urth sequences plus a 
> short story collection who's title currently escapes me), generally with 
> great interest, the two Latros novels being a notable exception (I only 
> skimmed the second). Therefore I feel somewhat qualified to make this 
> observation: Mr. Wolfe is a snooty elitist author.

> Of course, I really should offer support for this assertion. (Well, 
> sudden realization anyway). Consider that the entire justification for 
> Severian was that Wolfe wanted to write a character who would make a good 
> halloween costume (this was revealed in an interview). The plot, etc was 
> layed on as thin veneer with elements sprinkled from Wolfe's 
> extraordinarily broad knowledge of literature and myth, and mined with 
> subtle puzzles that amused Wolfe. Taken on it's face, this series is 
> muddied, conflicted, and unbelievable. Severian himself is never fleshed 
> out.

Funny, I could say the same thing about LOTR, a book created to
provide a background for a couple of artificial languages, full of
ancient obscure words and myths. Frodo is never fleshed out, the book
is muddled (Tom Bombadil. what is he doing there? and why all the
songs?) and unbelievable (magic rings? giving the world's most
imprtant artifact to a small halfling to carry? I mean, really...).

Maybe Wolfe does this too intentionally. But the thing is - he
succeeded. I only read the Book of the New Sun so far, but I'm
definately looking fot the others (I already have the Long Sun books,
but I'm trying to find _Urth_ first).
Even on the most basic level of creating a good, readable yarn, TBOTNS
works. And of course there's so much more to it (others will be better
than I am at expanding on the meaning of TBOTNS). I didn't feel it was
too "literary", although I'm sure there's a ton of stuff I'm missing,
and I certainly didn't need to use a dictionary to read it - all the
obscure words are MEANT to stay obscure, after all.
And as for Severian, he is very well fleshed out, and very human. I
especially liked the fact that even as he was having great adventures,
his mind was always going back to the one thing on the mind of all
teenagers: girls :-)

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