On 10/13/08 4:02 PM, "Fernando Q. Gouvea" <fqgouvea at colby.edu> wrote: I don't find the initial experience of reading Wolfe off-putting, no. Orson Scott Card once wrote a review (of, I think, Free Live Free, but I may be misremembering) saying that for him Wolfe had reached or passed that point. So folks can disagree on that.
I'm a little amazed at the Strange Horizons review. I find An Evil Guest perfectly accessible on a first reading, and a great deal of fun. It certainly doesn't clarify the moral status of Reis and Chase, but hey, when does life ever do that? (My tendency is to think that both of them are trying to be as moral as they can, though they approach this with very different premises.) There are certainly mysteries all over the place, but not all mysteries need to be explained.
Someone mentioned that there is some sort of connection between Finney's "The Circus of Dr. Lao" and "An Evil Guest" (at the very least because of the name "Woldercan"). But one of the remarkable features of "Dr Lao" is exactly Finney's refusal to come up with any explanations at all. The circus is there and it is what it is, and the novel is concerned with other things. Similarly, "Guest" doesn't explain a lot of its mysteries; perhaps it's just that Wolfe is interested in other things.
It seems to me that "An Evil Guest" is something of a romp, and it can and should be enjoyed as such. Yes, Wolfe's conservative take on a lot of things is evident in it, and yes, there are a lot of mysteries left over after my first reading. So what?
Fernando
James Crossley wrote:
The Strange Horizons review captures a great deal of what I think about Wolfe, especially recent works such as "Memorare," Pirate Freedom and now
Evil Guest. All have hidden depths that make them well worth exploring and reward rereading, but am I the only one who feels that Wolfe is on the verge (if not past it) of making the initial reading experience off-putting?
James
Urth Net