Gene Wolfe (1931 - 2019)

David Duffy · 17 Apr 2019, 10:43 · from rec.arts.sf.written.2019.mbox

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From: David Duffy <davidD at qimr.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe (1931 - 2019)
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:43:50 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <q97014$1ngj$1 at gioia.aioe.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
References: <q92gj7$e8n$1 at reader2.panix.com> <43ad0685-05c7-41ab-902a-4928bc87cc9f at googlegroups.com> <acd4eb35-b105-4dfa-b912-c49bcead50d8 at googlegroups.com> <ln3dbela3a9uu0mcq6tbuvge0f3he5n7v3 at 4ax.com> <q9698u$21i$1 at dont-email.me>

Titus G <noone at nowhere.com> wrote:
> On 17/04/19 2:31 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 12:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
>> <ahasuerus at email.com> wrote:
>> 
>>       I never cared much for Wolfe's work.  What I tried was opaque to
>> me, and thereafter, I avoided it.  Since we are on a RIP thread, could
>> someone please point me and others to Wolfe works that we might like
>> along with some whys?
> 
> My experience was similar. I began _The Book of the New Sun_ once but 
> did not finish the second and remember nothing about it so will echo 
> your request with the added query; which authors is he similar to?

Charles Dickens? G.K. Chesterton? If you have read _The Death of Dr Island_, 
_The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ (SF) or _Peace_ (something else) and didn't 
enjoy them, then there's probably not much point reading other stuff - though
maybe _The Wizard Knight_ (High Fantasy) might be more approachable.  Those
who enjoy tricksy whodunnits are one audience that would enjoy rereading
Wolfe to unpack all the Easter eggs (which are literal in some of
cases).  I think of him as a Modernist, a la Joyce etc.

I will give away one famous bit of 5th Head, where our narrator goes up
to top of the local library to find if they have any books by his father.
At the very top of the spiral ramp (where presumably he expects they
would be alphabetically) there are "a misplaced astronautics text, _The
Mile-Long Spaceship_ by some German [Kate Wilhelm]...leaning against
a book about the assassination of Trotsky [Bernard Wolfe, _The Great
Prince Died_ - *that* Wolfe wrote the SF novel _Limbo_]...and a
crumbling volume of Vernor Vinge's short stories that owed its presence
there some long dead librarian's mistaking V. Vinge for Winge...". Since
5th Head is about genetics, the fact that his father is an author at
the top of a helix among the SF novelists beginning with W, [and lives
in the _Cave Canem_] is either extremely enjoyable or extremely tedious.
This is all in one sentence.

Cheers, David Duffy.

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