Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun

Jim Gardner · 03 Feb 1986, 18:20 · from net.sf-lovers.1986.mbox
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From: jagardner at watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun
Date: Mon, 3-Feb-86 13:20:54 EST
Message-ID: <1090 at watmath.UUCP>
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
References: <194 at analog.UUCP> <3840005 at csd2.UUCP> <11683 at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>

>>Gene Wolfe is, quite simply, the best novelist ever to write in the
>>science fiction genre.  His prose, his ideas - all of it.  The 
>>best.  Hands down.
>
>   I haven't read the books, and for all I know they are God's gift to
>mankind, but however good the books are the above is the definition of
>bullshit.  The writer presents the following as facts (not opinions):
>
>1) These books have the most literary value of any SF ever written.
>2) No one can even question this.
>3) He has an MA in literature/writing but can't say why the books are good.
>4) Nor does he understand the books; in fact they defy understanding.
>5) If you didn't love the book you're an idiot.
>6) Once again, Gene Wolfe is the best science fiction author ever.
>
>I for one find this sort of garbage extremely offensive.  Is anyone out
>there interested in answering the original question instead of lecturing
>the rest of us on our stupidity?
>
>   -- David desJardins

Once in a long while, you read a book and the clouds part and the
sun shines and your heart begins pumping and your eyes open and you
suddenly realize that all your previous notions of what literature
can do are feeble and limited.  This is an awesome experience...and
it's a pity that the word "awesome" has been so devalued in recent
years, because "awe" is just as strong and surprising as it was millennia
ago when the human race knew doodly-squat about anything.  As Eastern
(and Western) mystics have repeated down through the years, you can't
explain "awe" rationally and you can't forcefeed it into someone who
is not receptive to it.  Nevertheless, some things/events/works of art
are awe-inspiring and those who have felt their impact are changed by
the experience.

High-falutin' words, and being a child of the cool cynical 70's and
80's, I would normally gag at the paragraph I just wrote.  But I've
read the Book of the New Sun, and I have to call a masterpiece a
masterpiece.  In my opinion, the Book of the New Sun is the greatest
piece of literature ever produced by the English-speaking SF movement.
I can think of nothing that approaches it.  I can think of no other
book that would move me to such a trite-sounding contentious statement.

So the obvious question is, "Why?"  And it would be a lot easier for
all concerned if the question had an obvious answer.  It doesn't.
Even worse, I know that any answer I can give is going to trivialize
something that is deep and strong and wise.  But here are a variety of
attempts to say why the Book of the New Sun is awesome:

(1) It expands the limits of what SF can do.  Not only is the story
    carried forward by strict narrative, but by philosopical digressions,
    a play, stories told by characters, dream sequences, flashbacks,
    offhand remarks, and so on.  The structure is complex, and frankly,
    there are times when you don't know what the hell is going on (at
    least on first reading), but the result is much more satisfying
    than "First A happened, then B, then C."  As a reader, you have to
    work and you have to think.

(2) It breaks SF cliches.  This is a book with all the SF stock and trade
    turned inside out.  Yes, there is space travel, but no one on earth
    cares about it much anymore.  Yes, there is time travel (of a sort),
    but it is embodied in a very simple artifact and used for down-to-earth
    purposes.  We have a robot in love with a woman, but feeling unworthy
    of her because he has been injured and repaired with human parts, so
    is not a "whole" being.  The Frankenstein story is turned inside-out,
    none of the aliens behave the way you expect, the hero becomes Supreme
    leader of his commonwealth in a way that is _nothing_ like any SF
    cliche, the great duel that caps the first volume is fought with
    flowers, and on and on.

(3) The book depicts a complete, very human society that is nothing
    like ours.  This is often the goal of SF, but you don't realize
    how far short other books come until you read this one.  Religion,
    culture, art, cuisine, modes of thought, are all fully envisioned
    and _different_.  Simple example: by the time the book takes place,
    relativity and heliocentrism are firmly established in everyday
    life.  Therefore, the sun never sets; earth's horizon rises to
    cover the sun.  Wolfe never slips into 20th century thought.

(4) The book is rich with allusions, humour, and anything else you
    care to name.  Things that immediately come to mind are twists
    on things we would recognize: the hero's attempt at interpreting
    a painting which is actually a photo of Armstrong on the moon;
    a funny/serious recap of the temptations of Christ inside the
    head of a mountain that has been carved to resemble a deceased
    tyrant who isn't quite dead enough; the classic fairy tale romance
    told entirely in what sound like quotations from Chairman Mao.
    Heaven knows how many of these I missed -- I'm told there are a
    lot of allusions to Borges' work, but I didn't catch them.

(5) The prose style is flawless.  This doesn't matter to the general
    reader, but it fills the writer in me with envy.  Sentences are
    seamless, varied, always easy to understand, never draw attention
    to themselves, until you actually look at what he is pulling off.
    Yes, he uses a vast number of unfamiliar words...but they are
    all nouns for objects/people/institutions that have no present-day
    counterparts.  There is none of the Stephen R. Donaldson "use a
    $10 word in some awkward way just to sound more important" nonsense.

Does this answer the question?  Probably not -- if the point of the
work could be summarized in a few paragraphs, I wouldn't be raving
about the book being truly great.  It's like trying to explain why
cold juicy oranges are more satisfying than a Snickers bar; there's
nothing wrong with Snickers, but oranges at the right time and place
are blissful.

Will everyone like the Book of the New Sun?  Of course not.  Some
people are looking for different things in their reading material.
Will everyone understand the Book of the New Sun?  Not a chance.
Which I think is a bonus.  Anything I can understand completely at
first sight is nowhere near the heights to which humans can aspire,
right?  The world is complex, art is not immediately transparent 
(although it may seem very simple), and any work that really tries
to bite off a piece of immortality is going to have depths that
only unfold with thought and time.  Literature that fully engages
the capacity of an adult mind is not something you can assimilate
in quick skimming.  (IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not saying that a book
has to be inaccessible to be good; I don't like books that keep
me in a constant state of confusion.  I am saying that something I
can wring totally dry on first reading could well be an enjoyable
book, but dammit, we're grown-ups now, and a mature writer spending
months or years producing a piece of literature can put more
resonances/tricks/delights/ironies into a story than I can pull
out in a few hours of page turning.  There _are_ heights.  There
_are_ books that yield new pleasures and revelations every time you read
them.  Those show what writing can accomplish.)

Is anyone out there persuaded?  If I were someone who hadn't read
the books, I would be extremely skeptical of what I have just written.
But I hope some people are curious enough that they will go to their
local libraries (it's free!) and get the first volume (The Shadow of
the Torturer) to see what it's like.  Note that this is not a series,
but one book in four volumes, and you'll be lost if you don't read them
in order.

For those who have started the book and see no point in continuing,
so it goes.  Some people can look at the Grand Canyon and feel
awestruck, while others wonder why they drove all the way to Arizona
to see a big hole in the ground.  If the Book of the New Sun does
nothing for you, life's too short to waste your time slogging through
tens of thousands of words in the hope that it will all suddenly make
sense.  Look elsewhere for inspiration.

But it inspired me.  A lot.

			Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
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