What The Book Of The New Sun Means To Me (In 25 Words Or More)

William Ingogly · 07 Feb 1986, 23:21 · from net.sf-lovers.1986.mbox

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From: wfi at rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Subject: Re: What The Book Of The New Sun Means To Me (In 25 Words Or More)
Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 18:21:34 EST
Message-ID: <650 at rti-sel.UUCP>
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
References: <53 at druri.UUCP>

In article <53 at druri.UUCP> dht at druri.UUCP (TuckerDH) writes:

>What is The Book Of The New Sun about? I don't really know. I do know
>that it fascinated me more than any novel I have read, that it left
>me with a feeling of dislocation in this world that I have never experienced
>from a book, that feeling of having lived another life with which I have
>nothing in common, of having been someplace that I could never imagine
>being. ...

In Gene Wolfe's "The Fifth Head Of Cerberus," there is a passage in
which the son of the joyhouse owner (can't remember his name) recalls
leaning out his bedroom window ringed with alien flowers to look out
at the bay; as he does so, he observes a plume of water rising where a
starship has fallen into the ocean's water. Above the city hangs the
planet's companion, a world of watery meadows and legendary aborigines.
I remember first reading this passage and reacting to it in the same
way you describe your reaction to BotNS, Davis: recognition. A sense
almost of deja vu, something I get rarely from SF (uh, oh: watch those
flames, buddih!). Wolfe makes these worlds live for us, and by doing 
so brings us to new understandings of our own world through his 
universe's similarities to and differences from our own. His characters 
and landscapes truly have the feel of REALITY. Thanks, Gene. And thank 
you, Davis, for a beautiful description of your own appreciation of 
Wolfe's work.

                           -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly

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