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Digest urth.v028.n069
↰ answers Michael Straight
· by quotation
2 quoted lines
On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 12:46:00 -0700 (PDT), Rostrum wrote:
I wonder if we could put together a list of the "easiest" or "most accessible" Wolfe? "Wolfe for Beginners"? I recently saw someone recommend "Fifth Head of Cerebrus" as a place to start with Wolfe, but that seems to me to be one of his more obscure and difficult works (but then I'm biased, because it's my least favorite, for some reason).
That may have been me, if you saw it on rec.arts.sf.written. In that case, I was generalizing from personal experience, in that the novella "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" was the first Wolfe I read.
The Book of the Long Sun actually isn't a bad place to start.
Among the novels, I guess Peace is a good choice, also.
Among the short stories, why not "Trip Trap"? A whole lot of people started perforce with that story. Also the funny ones ("How I Lost the Second World War ...", "The Rubber Bend") might not be bad. "La Befana" is short, effective, and very Wolfean.
Tusk (Rich Horton)
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