The Novels of Gene Wolfe
Richard Horton
I said of Kim Stanley Robinson that he was at his best at the novella
length. I don't think precisely that can be said of Gene Wolfe,
indeed it is incumbent on me to emphasize that he has done remarkable
work at all lengths -- short stories like "La Befana" and "The
Marvelous Brass Chess-Playing Automaton", novelettes like "Empires of
Foliage and Flower", novellas like "Forlesen", novels like _Peace_,
novel series like the "Soldier" series, and even series of novel
series, most obviously the 12 volumes that make up the three "Sun"
series. But what stands out to me is still the novellas -- incredible
story after incredible story, from early in his career to the present
-- "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", "The Death of Dr. Island",
"Silhouette", "Forlesen", "Tracking Song", "The Eyeflash Miracles",
"Seven American Nights", "The Ziggurat", "Viewpoint". I don't think
any other SF writer can match that list of brilliant work at the
novella length.
But what we consider here is the novels. And they are awfully good as
well -- though there are some shocking omissions in my reading --
though no doubt others will fill in.
1. STAND ALONE NOVELS
Operation Ares (1970)
I have not read this. I understand that Wolfe has disavowed it, or at
any rate that he prefers to forget about it.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
Micole Sudberg described this the other day as a "novel disguised as a
collection". I take her to mean that this is more than just a "fixup"
-- that the three component novellas actually work better, are
enhanced by their links, which is certainly true. Indeed, only the
first novella, also called "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", was original
published separately (though Kim Stanley Robinson later reprinted the
middle story, "'A Story', by John V. Marsch" in his _Future Primitive_
anthology). The novella "Fifth Head" was a Nebula and Hugo nominee,
and I first encountered Wolfe's work when I read _Nebula Award Stories
8_ at the age of 13. I remember being both fascinated and wholly
mystified by the story. A few years later I read the novel -- the
Waldenbooks at which I worked carried paperback copies, even though it
was past its sellby date at that time, because the manager (also my
then girlfriend) liked Wolfe's work. (She had earlier worked in a
mall near Barrington, IL, Wolfe's home, and describes one day seeing a
chubby middle-aged man looking at a copy of the book -- this was, it
turns out, Gene Wolfe himself.) At any rate I remember that when
reading the novel I figured out all kinds of things I had missed while
reading the novella. Also I remember that the novel reading raised
even more questions. I reread the novel most recently a couple of
years ago, and I think I figured out even more things -- and raised
even more questions. This is not an unusual experience with Wolfe's
books.
The story is set in a system with two "twin" planets, Ste. Anne and
St. Croix. St. Croix has been colonized by humans, while Ste. Anne is
still mostly inhabited by aboriginals (the "Annese"), who many people
believe to be shapechangers. The first story concerns the coming of
age of a boy named "Number Five" on St. Croix, and his growing
knowledge of his own identity (one of the Wolfe's most famous jokes is
his real name). The second story tells of aboriginal conflict on Ste.
Anne. The third is about a man in prison, who may be John V. Marsch,
the anthropologist, or Victor Roy Trenchard, an Annese who may have
taken Marsch's shape. All three stories deal profoundly with the
issues of identity, masks, colonialism, cultural identity, and so on.
It's a dizzying performance.
Peace (1975)
As with many Wolfe books, talking about this might involve spoilers.
Let's jsut say this story is told by Alden Weer, as he remembers his
life, his "Book of Gold", and as he tells some ghost stories. A very
good book.
The Devil in a Forest (1976)
I read this story a long time ago and don't remember it well. It's
YA, set in vaguely medieval setting, with a bad witch and a young hero
and a highwayman. Darker than I had expected. Quite good.
Free Live Free (1985)
I haven't read this (shocking omission #1). In general, it seems less
well-liked among Wolfe fans than most of his stuff, though it does
have its advocates. Apparently based on Oz.
There Are Doors (1988)
In a recent interview Wolfe (reluctantly, after some prompting) named
this his favorite among his novels. It's very strange, and I think
quite good, if difficult. A man from our world enters an alternate
world ruled by women, where men die if they have sex. But he is
obssessively in love with a woman he met in his world, who seems to be
a goddess in this world. Or, he might just be insane.
Castleview (1990)
An ordinary suburban man, from Northern Illinois, is also apparently
an Arthurian hero, and is being drawn to fulfill his true destiny.
Perhaps I am simply not sufficiently familiar with the Matter of
Britain, but I really didn't "get" this book. I did enjoy the ride,
though.
Pandora by Holly Hollander (1990)
One suspects this might be a novel written some time earlier. It's a
bit YA in feel. Holly Hollander is a teenaged girl in the Chicago
area who gets embroiled in a mystery. I liked it, though it's not
earthshakingly great stuff.
2. THE SOLDIER BOOKS
Soldier of the Mist (1986)
Soldier of Arete (1989)
Shocking omission #2 -- I haven't read _Soldier of Arete_. (That's
the last shocking omission, actually.) _Soldier of the Mist_ is a
very good story about Latro, a soldier during Ancient Greek times, who
has a condition whereby he forgets everything overnight. The book is
a journal he writes every night to try to keep himself up to date. He
also has what appear to be enounters with actual gods. I don't
remember the plot well, but I do remember enjoying it. The sequel is
generally well-regarded, and a third book in the series may eventually
get written -- apparently it would be called _Soldier of Sidon_, but
it will have to wait until after Wolfe's current project.
3. THE SUN BOOKS
3a. THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980)
The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)
The Sword of the Lictor (1981)
The Citadel of the Autarch (1983)
The Urth of the New Sun (1987)
I set _The Urth of the New Sun_ off a bit because it is not
technically part of _The Book of the New Sun_, rather it is a
novel-length pendant, supposedly based on a paragraph David Hartwell
wanted Wolfe to add at the end of the original tetralogy. Also, I
list _The Sword of the Lictor_ as 1981 because that's the copyright
date, but it was a 1983 Hugo nominee, so it may not have actually
appeared until 1982. _The Claw of the Conciliator_ won the Nebula
Award.
These are thoroughly remarkable books, especially the first four.
They are told by Severian, a member of the Torturer's Guild, who
eventually leaves his guild, after falling in love with one of his
"clients" (i.e. victims), and after much wandering through a far
future Urth, proves himself worthy of becoming Autarch. In _The Urth
of the New Sun_ he travels to another world, and also apparently
another time, and brings the New Sun to revive the dying sun of Urth.
They are distinguished by remarkable use of language, an extremely
symbol-rich narrative, lush imagination, and a moral focus that is not
common, IMO, in contemporary fiction. I think they represent the
crowning achievement of 20th Century SF.
3b. THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN
Nightside the Long Sun (1993)
Lake of the Long Sun (1994)
Calde of the Long Sun (1994)
Exodus from the Long Sun (1996)
These four books are loosely linked to the New Sun books, but the
links become much stronger in the following trilogy, _The Book of the
Short Sun_. These books are set on a generation ship, the "Long Sun
Whorl", which we eventually learn was sent by Typhon, a tyrant
mentioned _The Book of the New Sun_, and which are inhabited/ruled by
uploaded "gods" who seem to be members of Typhon's family. The hero
is Patera Silk, a clergyman who receives enlightenment from another
god, the Outsider, and who ends up leading a revolution in his town,
and who causes an exodus from the "Long Sun Whorl" to the planets of
the system to which the Whorl has come. The series of books is long
and drags a bit in parts, but it's fascinating in the whole, and the
end is extremely moving. It's written in a rather clearer, simpler,
prose style than Wolfe used for the New Sun books, though there are
still plenty of ambiguities, symbols, and hard to explain events.
3c. THE BOOK OF THE SHORT SUN
On Blue's Waters (1999)
In Green's Jungles (2000)
Return to the Whorl (2001)
These novels concern the journey of Horn, a pupil of Silk's who was
the "writer" of _The Book of the Long Sun_, from his home on Blue to a
spaceship elsewhere on Blue which is intended to return to the Long
Sun Whorl. Horn wishes to find Silk and bring him to Blue, to restore
civil order. He writes his story after he returns, thus the three
books run on two time tracks, one following Horn as he is writing the
story, and at the same time fomenting revolutions and government
reforms in a number of cities, while the other track is Horn's
narrated story, of his original journey, his sojourn on Green with his
estranged son, and his eventual doings on the Long Sun Whorl.
Included are a number of astral trips to the "Red Sun Whorl" -- i.e.
Urth at the time of Severian's youth. A critical feature of the books
is the inhumi, bloodsucking shapechangers who live on Green but
sometimes invade Blue -- they take on the characteristics of whatever
they eat, thus it is morally incumbent on humans on Blue to be good,
so that the inhumi themselves will be good, if they prey on humans.
There are other secrets to the books, which I have not revealed. They
are remarkable stories, again very moving, and at the end of the seven
books of the Long Sun and Short Sun series we have a portrait of one
of the most truly good men in literature -- Patera Silk.
Wolfe's next project, near completion in first draft, I understand, is
a very long fantasy novel, probably destined to appear in two volumes,
called _The Wizard Knight_.
Wolfe is, I believe, the single finest writer the SF field has yet
produced. He is a master of prose, he possesses a magnificent
imagination, his characters (at least the males) are very well
portrayed, his narratives are subtly and ingeniously constructed, and
his works are about something -- about worthwhile moral issues, for
the most part.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Nancy Lebovitz
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
>Free Live Free (1985)
>
>I haven't read this (shocking omission #1). In general, it seems less
>well-liked among Wolfe fans than most of his stuff, though it does
>have its advocates. Apparently based on Oz.
A pretty good mainstream novel (or at least I liked it) with an
sf/ah ending that came out of left field unless I missed some
subtle clues.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
Velveeta: So vegetarians can have spam, too
Rachel Brown
> The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
>
> Micole Sudberg described this the other day as a "novel disguised as a
> collection". I take her to mean that this is more than just a "fixup"
> -- that the three component novellas actually work better, are
> enhanced by their links, which is certainly true.
Micole must be my long-lost twin, or clone, or alien impersonator. A
couple months ago here, in response to someone who hadn't read all
three stories, I wrote:
The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ only makes sense after you read the whole
thing. The title story cannot be fully understood until you finish the
other two. The book is not an anthology of linked novellas, but a
novel disguised as an anthology of linked novellas.
> The story is set in a system with two "twin" planets, Ste. Anne and
> St. Croix. St. Croix has been colonized by humans, while Ste. Anne is
> still mostly inhabited by aboriginals (the "Annese"), who many people
> believe to be shapechangers. The first story concerns the coming of
> age of a boy named "Number Five" on St. Croix, and his growing
> knowledge of his own identity (one of the Wolfe's most famous jokes is
> his real name). The second story tells of aboriginal conflict on Ste.
> Anne. The third is about a man in prison, who may be John V. Marsch,
> the anthropologist, or Victor Roy Trenchard, an Annese who may have
> taken Marsch's shape.
And, if I recall correctly, the question is raised as to whether it
makes a difference, and whether the transformation, if there was one,
was so profound that the person in question didn't know that he had
ever been anyone else.
Michael Swanwick's chilly sense of wonder story "Ginungagap" raises a
similar question in regard to transporter technology that destroys the
original person, then recreates a copy identical down to the last
atom; John Patrick Kelly's (or is it Kessel's?) even more wondrous and
chilling "Think Like A Dinosaur" takes on the same question with a
creepier, more disturbing twist.
> There Are Doors (1988)
>
> In a recent interview Wolfe (reluctantly, after some prompting) named
> this his favorite among his novels. It's very strange, and I think
> quite good, if difficult. A man from our world enters an alternate
> world ruled by women, where men die if they have sex. But he is
> obssessively in love with a woman he met in his world, who seems to be
> a goddess in this world. Or, he might just be insane.
I didn't enjoy this one as much as it deserved, because I was
expecting a different sort of novel, one which was primarily about the
man's quest for the goddess and the weird world she came from, and was
disappointed by the one I got, which was quite surreal and more about
madness and perception than love and gender relations. I think.
> Wolfe is, I believe, the single finest writer the SF field has yet
> produced. He is a master of prose, he possesses a magnificent
> imagination, his characters (at least the males) are very well
> portrayed, his narratives are subtly and ingeniously constructed, and
> his works are about something -- about worthwhile moral issues, for
> the most part.
His imagery (what you refer to as imagination, I suspect) is
marvellously strange and vivid, and showcased beautifully in the
"Urth" series: the society of torturers and their archaic rituals, the
prisoners living on iced cakes and coffee, the giants who must live
underwater lest they be crushed under their own weight. There's a
sense of haunting, ancient strangeness and beauty is his best works,
reminiscent of C. L. Moore but with a hard-edged intellectualism
replacing her romanticism.
Rachel
Richard Horton
wrote:
>Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote
>
>> The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
>>
>> Micole Sudberg described this the other day as a "novel disguised as a
>> collection". I take her to mean that this is more than just a "fixup"
>> -- that the three component novellas actually work better, are
>> enhanced by their links, which is certainly true.
>
>Micole must be my long-lost twin, or clone, or alien impersonator. A
>couple months ago here, in response to someone who hadn't read all
>three stories, I wrote:
>The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ only makes sense after you read the whole
>thing. The title story cannot be fully understood until you finish the
>other two. The book is not an anthology of linked novellas, but a
>novel disguised as an anthology of linked novellas.
>
Maybe she is your long lost twin. I remembered the phrase, and,
honest, I thought to myself "either Micole Sudberg or Rachel Brown
wrote that, I better check Google." When I did, the first reference I
saw was to Micole's post of 17 February, which has expired from my
server but which can be found on Google at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fifth+head+novel+disguised++group:rec.arts.sf.written&hl=en&scoring=d&selm=RxRb8.3385%24kL4.2883%40nwrddc02.gnilink.net&rnum=2
(Sorry about the long URL, I understand there is a way to shorten
Google search result URL's, but I don't remember it.)
In the "Novels of KSR" thread, Micole wrote:
MS>Like *The Fifth Head of Cerberus* (although
MS>*Icehenge* isn't as clever or as melancholy),
MS>it's a novel disguised as a collection.
Had I searched farther down the Google results, I'd have seen that you
wrote much the same thing only a few weeks earlier. Sorry!
>> The story is set in a system with two "twin" planets, Ste. Anne and
>> St. Croix. St. Croix has been colonized by humans, while Ste. Anne is
>> still mostly inhabited by aboriginals (the "Annese"), who many people
>> believe to be shapechangers. The first story concerns the coming of
>> age of a boy named "Number Five" on St. Croix, and his growing
>> knowledge of his own identity (one of the Wolfe's most famous jokes is
>> his real name). The second story tells of aboriginal conflict on Ste.
>> Anne. The third is about a man in prison, who may be John V. Marsch,
>> the anthropologist, or Victor Roy Trenchard, an Annese who may have
>> taken Marsch's shape.
>
>And, if I recall correctly, the question is raised as to whether it
>makes a difference, and whether the transformation, if there was one,
>was so profound that the person in question didn't know that he had
>ever been anyone else.
>
Yes, certainly.
>Michael Swanwick's chilly sense of wonder story "Ginungagap" raises a
>similar question in regard to transporter technology that destroys the
>original person, then recreates a copy identical down to the last
>atom; John Patrick Kelly's (or is it Kessel's?) even more wondrous and
>chilling "Think Like A Dinosaur" takes on the same question with a
>creepier, more disturbing twist.
>
It's Kelly's story, a great story. And that's the most interesting
part of it -- I was always surprised that Kelly wrote of it that it
was a response to "The Cold Equations" -- I always thought it more
interestingly related to _Rogue Moon_. (JPK sent me email once
acknowledging a possible thematic comparison with _Rogue Moon_ that he
could see when it was pointed out, but he says it was never in his
mind when he wrote the story.)
Very nicely put.
raymond larsson
"Nancy Lebovitz" <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote
> Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> >
> >Free Live Free (1985)
> >
> >I haven't read this (shocking omission #1). In general, it seems less
> >well-liked among Wolfe fans than most of his stuff, though it does
> >have its advocates. Apparently based on Oz.
>
> A pretty good mainstream novel (or at least I liked it) with an
> sf/ah ending that came out of left field unless I missed some
> subtle clues.
>
once ( library copy) 16 years ago)) Nancy Lebovitz missed something. Clues to
the fate of the five were shown early. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls
it "a TIME TRAVEL tale, extremely difficult to parse". I agree with the first,
probably disagree with the second because I missed part of what GW said and
found it easy to follow. I entirely missed the _Wizard of Oz_ retelling.
Well told story of well drawn (though mostly unsympathetic to me) characters who
accept an offer of free lodging (a stratagem to help save an old house), their
petty, personal, and interpersonal struggles, and the transcendental and
inevitable ( I believe)result. A quiet cosmic/urban tale without Villains or
Heroes. Not first tier GW nor my cup of tea but better than many books I have
enjoyed.
rgl (((FLF is perhaps as tightly plotted as Severian says his tale is. Worth
reading (if you like GW))))
Eric Walker
[...]
>Operation Ares (1970)
>
>I have not read this. I understand that Wolfe has disavowed
>it, or at any rate that he prefers to forget about it.
Any randomly selected two consecutive pages will show clearly
why; "potboiler" is a compliment. (In fairness, I seem to
recall that it got edited heavily from what Wolfe submitted.)
[...]
>The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972)
>
>Micole Sudberg described this the other day as a "novel
>disguised as a collection". I take her to mean that this is
>more than just a "fixup" -- that the three component novellas
>actually work better, are enhanced by their links, which is
>certainly true.
Though, as Richard notes, parts were independently published,
the meaning of each "novella" relies _massively_ on proximity
to the others. The book is a tightly integrated unit and must
be taken as a unit or most of its meaning is lost.
[...]
>Peace (1975)
>
>As with many Wolfe books, talking about this might involve
>spoilers. Let's jsut say this story is told by Alden Weer, as
>he remembers his life, his "Book of Gold", and as he tells
>some ghost stories. A very good book.
It is my personal favorite Wolfe novel. (Not that I think I
have it all on board yet.)
>The Devil in a Forest (1976)
>
>I read this story a long time ago and don't remember it well.
>It's YA, set in vaguely medieval setting, with a bad witch and
>a young hero and a highwayman. Darker than I had expected.
>Quite good.
This book could live quite as well without the "YA" tag. It is
very nearly mainstream--there is only one brief scene in the
titular forest casting doubt on the everyday medieval reality
of the tale. Gritty, more so than the "YA" tag suggests. A
small gem too easily overlooked in his large treasure pile.
[...]
>Free Live Free (1985)
>
>I haven't read this (shocking omission #1). In general, it
>seems less well-liked among Wolfe fans than most of his stuff,
>though it does have its advocates. Apparently based on Oz.
Not, I think "based," though there is doubtless a relation of
some sort. Why it is less popular, I can't say--it's a good,
solid, and in many ways typical Wolfe tale.
>There Are Doors (1988)
>
>In a recent interview Wolfe (reluctantly, after some
>prompting) named this his favorite among his novels. It's
>very strange, and I think quite good, if difficult. A man
>from our world enters an alternate world ruled by women, where
>men die if they have sex. But he is obssessively in love with
>a woman he met in his world, who seems to be a goddess in this
>world. Or, he might just be insane.
I daresay Wolfe's pronouncement surprised many people. I was
one. I need to re-read this, attending more closely. It
seemed, at first pass, atmospheric and strange, almost surreal.
>Castleview (1990)
>
>An ordinary suburban man, from Northern Illinois, is also
>apparently an Arthurian hero, and is being drawn to fulfill
>his true destiny. Perhaps I am simply not sufficiently
>familiar with the Matter of Britain, but I really didn't "get"
>this book. I did enjoy the ride, though.
I think that Wolfe meant something that just didn't come off.
It's a fair read, but not, I think, prime Wolfe.
>Pandora by Holly Hollander (1990)
>
>One suspects this might be a novel written some time earlier.
>It's a bit YA in feel. Holly Hollander is a teenaged girl in
>the Chicago area who gets embroiled in a mystery. I liked it,
>though it's not earthshakingly great stuff.
It is something of a departure for Wolfe. It is not really an
sf book (I have it filed on my meainstream-fiction shelves),
and--despite the serious business in it--there is an air of
lightheartedness, almost frivolity, about the whole thing. It
is more simple, sheer fun to read than any other Wolfe that
comes at once to mind.
>2. THE SOLDIER BOOKS
>
>Soldier of the Mist (1986)
>Soldier of Arete (1989)
>
>Shocking omission #2 -- I haven't read _Soldier of Arete_.
>(That's the last shocking omission, actually.) _Soldier of
>the Mist_ is a very good story about Latro, a soldier during
>Ancient Greek times, who has a condition whereby he forgets
>everything overnight. The book is a journal he writes every
>night to try to keep himself up to date. He also has what
>appear to be enounters with actual gods. I don't remember the
>plot well, but I do remember enjoying it. The sequel is
>generally well-regarded, and a third book in the series may
>eventually get written -- apparently it would be called
>_Soldier of Sidon_, but it will have to wait until after
>Wolfe's current project.
These are prime exemplars of Wolfe's chiefest theme, the
significance of memory. Severian can forget nothing; Latro,
the protagonist here, can remember nothing. As the Doctor
famously said, "A man is the sum of his memories." Who, then,
is Latro?
[...]
>Wolfe is, I believe, the single finest writer the SF field has
>yet produced.
There are certainly contenders--Harrison, Vance, Smith
(Cordwainer), Lafferty--but Wolfe is a strong entry.
>He is a master of prose, he possesses a magnificent
>imagination, his characters (at least the males) are very well
>portrayed, his narratives are subtly and ingeniously
>constructed, and his works are about something -- about
>worthwhile moral issues, for the most part.
Just so.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
Lucy Kemnitzer
>
>Free Live Free (1985)
>
>I haven't read this (shocking omission #1). In general, it seems less
>well-liked among Wolfe fans than most of his stuff, though it does
>have its advocates. Apparently based on Oz.
I haven't read much Wolfe, and this is one that I have read, and I
can't see how it's based on Oz. If it is in response or homage to
anything it is
SPOILER, I think
"By His Bootstraps," maybe.
>
>There Are Doors (1988)
>
>In a recent interview Wolfe (reluctantly, after some prompting) named
>this his favorite among his novels. It's very strange, and I think
>quite good, if difficult. A man from our world enters an alternate
>world ruled by women, where men die if they have sex. But he is
>obssessively in love with a woman he met in his world, who seems to be
>a goddess in this world. Or, he might just be insane.
This, and _Free Live Free_, both beguiled me with their writing, but
the stories just don't make sense if you pay any attention. They are
both hauntingly beautiful, but I wish he had wrestled with the story
parts to make them make sense.
Thank you for finally putting the Sun Books in order for me. I kept
looking for a _volume_ called "Book of the New Sun."
Lucy Kemnitzer
Eric Walker
[...]
>Unless I read it in an alternate universe (or my memory fails
>( I only read it once ( library copy) 16 years ago)) Nancy
>Lebovitz missed something. Clues to the fate of the five were
>shown early. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls
>it "a TIME TRAVEL tale, extremely difficult to parse". I
>agree with the first, probably disagree with the second
>because I missed part of what GW said and found it easy to
>follow. I entirely missed the _Wizard of Oz_ retelling.
Well, the likelihood of a connection is rather unsubtle. On
page 2, a minor character says "I wish they'd run _The Wizard
of Oz_ again." The character referred to continually as "the
witch" calls the protagonist--named Osgood Barnes--"Ozzie."
And there are also a few _obvious_ points. . . .
>Well told story of well drawn (though mostly unsympathetic to
>me) characters who accept an offer of free lodging (a
>stratagem to help save an old house), their petty, personal,
>and interpersonal struggles, and the transcendental and
>inevitable ( I believe) result. A quiet cosmic/urban tale
>without Villains or Heroes. Not first tier GW nor my cup of
>tea but better than many books I have enjoyed.
Free lodging? Yes, the ad in the paper gives the book its
title: "Free! Live free!" A stratagem to save an old house--
oh dear me, I think a discreet telephone call to the Allegory
Squad is warranted. "Live Free!" Save an old house. Gene
Wolfe.
My name is Friday, ma'am; all we want are the facts, ma'am.
Richard Horton
<ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
[_Fifth Head_]
>Though, as Richard notes, parts were independently published,
>the meaning of each "novella" relies _massively_ on proximity
>to the others. The book is a tightly integrated unit and must
>be taken as a unit or most of its meaning is lost.
This is of course very true, except the first novella, "The Fifth Head
of Cerberus", holds plenty of meaning all by itself. Indeed it's
magnficent. Then you read the other stories and everything changes.
bluejack
> > this his favorite among his novels. It's very strange, and I think
> > quite good, if difficult. A man from our world enters an alternate
> > world ruled by women, where men die if they have sex. But he is
> > obssessively in love with a woman he met in his world, who seems to be
> > a goddess in this world. Or, he might just be insane.
>
> I didn't enjoy this one as much as it deserved, because I was
> expecting a different sort of novel, one which was primarily about the
> man's quest for the goddess and the weird world she came from, and was
> disappointed by the one I got, which was quite surreal and more about
> madness and perception than love and gender relations. I think.
Interesting. Most people think of this as one of his minor novels,
but it has always been one of my favorites. Among other things, it
was published at a time when (in my opinion), Wolfe was having a
hard time finishing things, and was also getting a bit trapped by
the growing reputation of the New Sun books and epic-sized works.
_There Are Doors_ is tightly written, it has a sharp ending, and
it explores a theme without seeming to require the massive undertaking
of a major series.
-bluejack
Ian McDowell
> His imagery (what you refer to as imagination, I suspect) is
> marvellously strange and vivid, and showcased beautifully in the
> "Urth" series: the society of torturers and their archaic rituals, the
> prisoners living on iced cakes and coffee, the giants who must live
> underwater lest they be crushed under their own weight. There's a
> sense of haunting, ancient strangeness and beauty is his best works,
> reminiscent of C. L. Moore but with a hard-edged intellectualism
> replacing her romanticism.
I would have cited Clark Ashton Smith rather than Moore, but on
reflection I think Rachel has the right of it. Wolfe's use of archaic
or obscure words is superficially suggestive of Smith (albeit with
Wolfe it's a deliberate, carefully-utilized choice rather than the
result of self-education), but the flavor, so to speak, is indeed like
an intellectualized Moore (Smith is also colder than Moore, but his
coldness seems to be more aesthetic than intellectual).
I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators, runs from
the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET STATION, with stops
along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, and, of course, Peake. I
hadn't really thought about there being a related form of SF (or
Science Fantasy), but clearly there is, from Smith (again) and Moore
to Vance's Dying Earth, Aldiss's spider-webbed-linked moon and earth
and Wolfe's Urth. Any other significant examples?
Ian McDowell
> On 3 Mar 2002 17:29:52 -0800, rpho...@mediaone.net (Rachel Brown)
> wrote:
> >Micole must be my long-lost twin [snip]
> Maybe she is your long lost twin.
Ah, but which is the Evil one?
Andrew Plotkin
> I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
> Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators, runs from
> the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET STATION, with stops
> along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, and, of course, Peake. I
> hadn't really thought about there being a related form of SF (or
> Science Fantasy), but clearly there is, from Smith (again) and Moore
> to Vance's Dying Earth, Aldiss's spider-webbed-linked moon and earth
> and Wolfe's Urth. Any other significant examples?
Pierce's _Darkangel_ series is in that category, or one nearby. I
would call it fantasy, but I'd also call Vance's Dying Earth fantasy,
so we're around there somewhere.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
David Silberstein
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
>Maybe she is your long lost twin. I remembered the phrase, and,
>honest, I thought to myself "either Micole Sudberg or Rachel Brown
>wrote that, I better check Google." When I did, the first reference I
>saw was to Micole's post of 17 February, which has expired from my
>server but which can be found on Google at:
>http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fifth+head+novel+disguised++group:rec.arts.sf.written&hl=en&scoring=d&selm=RxRb8.3385%24kL4.2883%40nwrddc02.gnilink.net&rnum=2
>
>(Sorry about the long URL, I understand there is a way to shorten
>Google search result URL's, but I don't remember it.)
>
"groups" is a very powerful CGI program with lots of features (now that
they've turned on threading), but the one argument you want to
remember that this program uses is "selm" (which I suppose stands
for "single element"). That tells the program to take the message-ID
of the post (theoretically unique for each of the billion^Wzillions^W
google newsposts), and return only that post.
So the above can be modified to:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=RxRb8.3385%24kL4.2883%40nwrddc02.gnilink.net
and it will return only that post.
Note, however, that it is still a little too long. That's because
(in this case) certain characters ($,@) are escaped in the URL.
You can get the actual Message ID by clicking on Original Format,
and selecting (duh) the Message-Id: header, and pasting that after
the "selm" (you don't need the opening and closing angle brackets),
thus:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=RxRb8.3385$kL4....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net
Depending on how you access the article, you may also have displayed
at the top of the page something like the following:
Viewing message <<Message-ID>>
This is the same Message ID that's in the header of the post, of course.
Is the Google not nifty? Worship the Google.
Richard Horton
wrote:
>I
>hadn't really thought about there being a related form of SF (or
>Science Fantasy), but clearly there is, from Smith (again) and Moore
>to Vance's Dying Earth, Aldiss's spider-webbed-linked moon and earth
>and Wolfe's Urth. Any other significant examples?
I suppose Paul McAuley's Wolfe hommage/reaction _Confluence_ would
count.
How about Moorcock's _Dancers at the End of Time_?
Rachel Brown
> rpho...@mediaone.net (Rachel Brown) wrote:
> > There's a
> > sense of haunting, ancient strangeness and beauty is his best works,
> > reminiscent of C. L. Moore but with a hard-edged intellectualism
> > replacing her romanticism.
>
> I would have cited Clark Ashton Smith rather than Moore, but on
> reflection I think Rachel has the right of it. Wolfe's use of archaic
> or obscure words is superficially suggestive of Smith (albeit with
> Wolfe it's a deliberate, carefully-utilized choice rather than the
> result of self-education), but the flavor, so to speak, is indeed like
> an intellectualized Moore (Smith is also colder than Moore, but his
> coldness seems to be more aesthetic than intellectual).
You give me too much credit. I don't think I've read any Smith, so did
not consider, then discard him as Wolfe's closest analogue. (I did do
that with Jack Vance.)
> I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
> Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators, runs from
> the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET STATION, with stops
> along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, and, of course, Peake.
How are you defining Arabesque?
I personally tend to think of those (haven't read VATHEK) as
"imaginary-world urban fantasy," and would include P.C. Hodgell's _God
Stalk_ and Mary Gentle's _Rats and Gargoyles_. Funny thing: I'm going
by setting and you're going by tone, but that doesn't produce
significantly different sets. I wonder if there's something about an
imaginary world city setting that's inherently grotesque, or if it's
that writers who would rather write those than pastorals are simply
following their own grittier natures.
> I
> hadn't really thought about there being a related form of SF (or
> Science Fantasy), but clearly there is, from Smith (again) and Moore
> to Vance's Dying Earth, Aldiss's spider-webbed-linked moon and earth
> and Wolfe's Urth. Any other significant examples?
I can't think of any, but one could argue (and Mary Gentle does) that
_Rats and Gargoyles_ is science fantasy, and so is _Perdido Street
Station_. (One could also argue (I'm not sure whether I want to or
not) that Meredith Pierce's gorgeous _The Darkangel_ does not belong
in this category, as while it's indeed science fantasy and certainly
has grotesque and even horrific elements, overall the tone is far more
poetic and dreamlike than harsh.) Again, something inherent in the
form, or inherent in the setting that tends such works to blend the
genres?
Rachel
whoever
"bluejack" <ma...@bluejack.com> wrote in message
news:1103_10...@news.seanet.com...
This is one of my favorite books. It's one of those books that really haunts
me. I found it sweet and sad and life-affirmingly strange.
Wellsoul
Eric Walker
[...]
>I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
>Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators,
>runs from the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET
>STATION, with stops along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock,
>and, of course, Peake. I hadn't really thought about there
>being a related form of SF (or Science Fantasy), but clearly
>there is, from Smith (again) and Moore to Vance's Dying Earth,
>Aldiss's spider-webbed-linked moon and earth and Wolfe's Urth.
>Any other significant examples?
Candidates:
-----------
At the head of the class would be M. John Harrison's four
"Viriconium" books, closely followed (if we class them s.f.) by
Edward Whittemore's "Jerusalem Quartet." And if we are
admitting Vance's "Dying Earth," we have to include Eric Van
Lustbader's "Sunset Warrior" cycle.
Then, there are--
Brian Aldiss, _Report on Probability A_.
Terry Bisson, _Wyrldmaker_.
James Blaylock, _Homonculus_, _The Digging Leviathan_, arguably
some others on the edge of fantasy.
Angela Carter, _The War of Dreams_.
Charles Finney, _The Unholy City_.
K. W. Jeter, _Infernal Devices_.
Herbert Lieberman, _Sandman, Sleep_.
Sean Stewart, _Galveston_, possibly others.
Somtow Sucharitkul, the "Inquestor" books.
Martha Wells, _City of Bones_.
Michael Williams, the "Hawken Family" books.
Ian McDowell
> mcdol...@hotmail.com (Ian McDowell) wrote
> > I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
> > Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators, runs from
> > the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET STATION, with stops
> > along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, and, of course, Peake.
>
> How are you defining Arabesque?
Damn and blast, madam, must you go calling a fellow's bluff and asking
him to define his terms? To be painfully honest, I wasn't defining
it, other than vaguely thinking of titles like Poe's TALES OF THE
GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE. Bruising myself on the compact OED, I see
that it means "Arabian or Moorish in ornamental design," "strangely
mixed, fantastic" and "a species of mural or surface decoration in
colour or low relief, composes in flowing lines of branches, leaves,
and scroll-work, fancifully intertwined."
Which, it turns out, was roughly what I had in mind; ornate, fanciful,
a mixture of moods and elements, showing the influence of A Thousand
Nights and a Night.
> I personally tend to think of those (haven't read VATHEK) as
> "imaginary-world urban fantasy," and would include P.C. Hodgell's _God
> Stalk_ and Mary Gentle's _Rats and Gargoyles_. Funny thing: I'm going
> by setting and you're going by tone, but that doesn't produce
> significantly different sets. I wonder if there's something about an
> imaginary world city setting that's inherently grotesque, or if it's
> that writers who would rather write those than pastorals are simply
> following their own grittier natures.
Yes, that's it. Prior to Tolkien, much (if not all) fantasy was
Arabesque or Orientalist, even if the depicted Neverlands had as much
resemblence to their inspirations as the Japan of The Mikado has to
the real one. One of Lin Carter's 70s anthologies of vintage fantasy
that I read as a kid was called GOLDEN CITIES, FAR, and that hints at
the moodscape of these works.
Post-Tolkien fantasy is often as not set in landscapes inspired,
however distantly and vaguely, by those of the Eddas and the
Mabinogian, or the countryside of Arthurian Romance, where adventures
may begin with court intrigues at Camelot (which, besides being A
Silly Place, seems no larger or more populous than a World Fantasy Con
hotel) but usually involve lots of clomping over hill and dale. These
settings are delightfully encapsulated in the "Landscape" double-page
spread of Barbara Ninde Byfield's essential THE BOOK OF WEIRD,
originally published as THE GLASS HARMONICA (if you're not familiar
with this, you ought to and will be, as you're one of the few people
I'll trust with my copy), which illustrates such terms as Moor, Heath,
Downs, Thickets, Marshes, Bogs, Fens, Mountains, High Passes, and
Gorges (in the latter trio, Byfield tells us, one is apt to find Wind,
Snow and Returning Kings).
Prior to Tolkien, the iconic fantasy landscape seemed less
topographical and more architectural, a blending of Babylon, Samarkand
and the Baghdad of _Alf layla wa layla_ (The Thousand Nights and a
Night, the setting of which apparently owes more to 14th Century Cairo
than to Haroun El-Raschad medieval capital, and I'll leave you to
guess as to whether or not I had to look up the Arabic). Of course,
it was a thoroughly European conception of The East, peopled by
characters as Western as those in KISMET or THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF
SINBAD.
This urbanization is true not only of deliberately Orientalist and
Arabesque works like VATHEK or Dunsany's THE GODS OF PEGANA (whose
quasi-oriental dreamlands, I'll grant, are also suffused with the
Celtic Twilight), but of much sword and sorcery of the WEIRD TALES
school. Conan may have come from a bleak Nordic landscape (although
his own tribe were proto-Celts and and his character Robert E.
Howard's conception of Black Irish, making Ahnuld completely wrong for
the part), but his adventures more often than not took place in
glittering, decadent cities. Leiber, of course, narrowed the focus to
_the_ city, with Llankmar becoming the Babylon, Baghdad, and Rome of
Newhon.
> I can't think of any, but one could argue (and Mary Gentle does) that
> _Rats and Gargoyles_ is science fantasy, and so is _Perdido Street
> Station_. (One could also argue (I'm not sure whether I want to or
> not) that Meredith Pierce's gorgeous _The Darkangel_ does not belong
> in this category, as while it's indeed science fantasy and certainly
> has grotesque and even horrific elements, overall the tone is far more
> poetic and dreamlike than harsh.) Again, something inherent in the
> form, or inherent in the setting that tends such works to blend the
> genres?
A very good question. Note, however, that Grotesque doesn't just (or
even mostly) mean "gross" or "horrific," for all that we've both
largely been using it that way. Risking further lap injury, I again
take up the OED: "representations of human and animal forms,
fantastically combined," "comic distortion or exageration,"
"fantastically extravagant, bizarre and quaint," "ludicrous from
incongruity," and "Romantic" or "Picturesquely irregular."
David E. Siegel
I think that most of the works cited in this thread are fantasy, or
near the border of fantasy. i would definately include the "Dying
Earth" books as fantasy. the Aldis "Long Afternoon" i'm not sure of.
I would not include urban-based fantasy (Or SF) which had a mostly
cynical tone in this "Grotesque and Arabesque" sub-catagory, for
example the Vald Taltos books are right out, as is _Grunts_. Some of
Fritz Leiber's Lakhmar stories would be in, perhaps enough to put the
whole series there. Hmm what about his _Our Lady of darkness_?
Certianly urban, and influenced by Smith, yet more by classic horror
than the fantasies, perhaps. A very original work, in any case. Some
of L Sprague deCamp's Fantasies seem to be trying to enter this
catagory, but not always sucessfully, IMO. By tone, perhaps Blish's
_Midsummer Centuary_ would fit, although it is not at all urban? How
about _Mythago Wood_? It has soemthing of the "Grotesque" feel, at
least to me.
Someone in this thread meantiond word-poetry -- I think that would be
an important part of many of the works in this group, perhaps even a
defining one.
-DES
Nancy Lebovitz
Rachel Brown <rpho...@mediaone.net> wrote:
>
>> I've posted before about the "Grotesque and Arabesque" line in
>> Fantasy, which, largely bypassing Tolkien and his imitators, runs from
>> the Arabian Nights and VATHEK to PERDIDO STREET STATION, with stops
>> along the way for Smith, Leiber, Moorcock, and, of course, Peake.
>
>How are you defining Arabesque?
>
>I personally tend to think of those (haven't read VATHEK) as
>"imaginary-world urban fantasy," and would include P.C. Hodgell's _God
>Stalk_ and Mary Gentle's _Rats and Gargoyles_. Funny thing: I'm going
>by setting and you're going by tone, but that doesn't produce
>significantly different sets. I wonder if there's something about an
>imaginary world city setting that's inherently grotesque, or if it's
>that writers who would rather write those than pastorals are simply
>following their own grittier natures.
>
category even though some of them take place in the wilderness.
It may be that arabesque/grotesque stories require not so much cities
as a lack of concern with the details of getting by. Those details
can be backgrounded more easily in an urban setting (at least for
readers who are used to cities), but if one focuses on the doings
of gods, heros who are good at wilderness living or kings with
entourages, then the wilderness is just as good a place for that
dreamlike atmosphere.
I consider _Godstalk_ and _Perdido Street Station_ to be marginal
cases precisely because the cities are too well worked out.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>A very good question. Note, however, that Grotesque doesn't just (or
>even mostly) mean "gross" or "horrific," for all that we've both
>largely been using it that way. Risking further lap injury, I again
>take up the OED: "representations of human and animal forms,
>fantastically combined," "comic distortion or exageration,"
>"fantastically extravagant, bizarre and quaint," "ludicrous from
>incongruity," and "Romantic" or "Picturesquely irregular."
Note that one of the grotesque techniques in litritshur is often
denoted by the exaggeration of ... how can I call them ... actions?
Details probably. One of the frequently mentioned examples is Bierce's
"An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge" where he depicts the
protagonists features in exaggerated details, like the depiction of
pupils and such.
The word itself comes from the Italian word for cave, grotta, because
of fantastic (grotesque) paintings found in some caves.
vlatko
--
_Neither Fish Nor Fowl_
http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr (Vlatko Juric-Kokic) says:
>
>On 5 Mar 2002 04:37:38 -0800, mcdol...@hotmail.com (Ian McDowell)
>wrote:
>
>>A very good question. Note, however, that Grotesque doesn't just (or
>>even mostly) mean "gross" or "horrific," for all that we've both
>>largely been using it that way. Risking further lap injury, I again
>>take up the OED: "representations of human and animal forms,
>>fantastically combined," "comic distortion or exageration,"
>>"fantastically extravagant, bizarre and quaint," "ludicrous from
>>incongruity," and "Romantic" or "Picturesquely irregular."
>
>Note that one of the grotesque techniques in litritshur is often
>denoted by the exaggeration of ... how can I call them ... actions?
>Details probably. One of the frequently mentioned examples is Bierce's
>"An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge" where he depicts the
>protagonists features in exaggerated details, like the depiction of
>pupils and such.
>
>The word itself comes from the Italian word for cave, grotta, because
>of fantastic (grotesque) paintings found in some caves.
>
Heh. Thanks for the etymology, which is new to me.
How about picaresque? -- since we're working through the -esques.
Etymology?
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
--
Ian McDowell
and Mouser stories, which Leiber submitted to WEIRD TALES before
placing in UNKNOWN, were set in desolate wastelands far from Llankmar
(indeed, in ADEPT'S GAMBIT, written first but not published until
later, Leiber hadn't even invented Llankmar yet). It was only when he
took up the series again for Cele Goldsmith that he exchanged the
Howling Towers and Bleak Shores of the early tales for the jostling
alleys and thoroughfares of "Lean Times in Llankmar" (inspired by DOWN
AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON). And I'm leaving out the influence of
18th and 19th century Fairy Tales, as much as such can be
distinguished from the Nordic and Celtic strains in High Fantasy; the
"Fairy Tale for Adults" is arguably a seperate subgenre.
Still, I think my point remains; prior to Tolkien, the most iconic
geography of fantasy tended to be urban, even it was an antique
urbanity distinct from what we now mean by "Urban Fantasy." It's no
accident that such fantasy was often (although hardly always) darker
and, in the modern sense, more grotesque than Tolkien's, as well as
racier and more cynical. After all, the City has long been identified
with Vice, the Countryside with Virtue.
Joseph Michael Bay
>>The word itself comes from the Italian word for cave, grotta, because
>>of fantastic (grotesque) paintings found in some caves.
>>
>Heh. Thanks for the etymology, which is new to me.
>How about picaresque? -- since we're working through the -esques.
>Etymology?
"Picaresque" is from "picaro", a rogue or "Bohemian". I think
picaro is a Spanish word but it's also used in English sometimes.
--
Joseph M. Bay Lamont Sanford Junior University
Putting the "harm" in molecular pharmacology since 1998
The worst thing about censorship is ( deleted ) .
Do you like http://www.stanford.edu/~jmbay gladiator movies?
Ethan Merritt
Ian McDowell <mcdol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Still, I think my point remains; prior to Tolkien, the most iconic
>geography of fantasy tended to be urban, even it was an antique
>urbanity distinct from what we now mean by "Urban Fantasy."
I am not convinced. What about George MacDonald's work, from
_Phantastes_ to the Princess books to _Lilith_. What about Oz?
What about Edgar Rice Burroughs _Tarzan_? What about all of
H R Haggard? I would have guessed the most iconic geography
of fantasy to an early twentieth century reader would be
either jungle/wilderness or pastoral dreamscape.
--
Ethan A Merritt
Rachel Brown
> > "imaginary-world urban fantasy," and would include P.C. Hodgell's _God
> > Stalk_ and Mary Gentle's _Rats and Gargoyles_. Funny thing: I'm going
> > by setting and you're going by tone, but that doesn't produce
> > significantly different sets. I wonder if there's something about an
> > imaginary world city setting that's inherently grotesque, or if it's
> > that writers who would rather write those than pastorals are simply
> > following their own grittier natures.
>
> Yes, that's it. Prior to Tolkien, much (if not all) fantasy was
> Arabesque or Orientalist, even if the depicted Neverlands had as much
> resemblence to their inspirations as the Japan of The Mikado has to
> the real one.
Hmm. E.R. Eddison, certainly. William Morris' _The Well at World's
End_ I haven't read, but isn't that set in a fantasy-ized England?
George MacDonald worked off a different template than either
Arthurian/Celtic/Edda or Arabesque, fairy-tales with a large dash of
Christian mysticism. He may have started the "third branch" of
fantasy, which I am having some trouble defining but know when I see
it, which is often but not inherently intended for children, and in
which I place, purely by feel, Narnia and Oz.
> These
> settings are delightfully encapsulated in the "Landscape" double-page
> spread of Barbara Ninde Byfield's essential THE BOOK OF WEIRD,
> originally published as THE GLASS HARMONICA (if you're not familiar
> with this, you ought to and will be, as you're one of the few people
> I'll trust with my copy), which illustrates such terms as Moor, Heath,
> Downs, Thickets, Marshes, Bogs, Fens, Mountains, High Passes, and
> Gorges (in the latter trio, Byfield tells us, one is apt to find Wind,
> Snow and Returning Kings).
Is it a slightly more serious and illustrated book in the genre of
Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough Guide to Fantasyland_?
> A very good question. Note, however, that Grotesque doesn't just (or
> even mostly) mean "gross" or "horrific," for all that we've both
> largely been using it that way. Risking further lap injury, I again
> take up the OED: "representations of human and animal forms,
> fantastically combined," "comic distortion or exageration,"
> "fantastically extravagant, bizarre and quaint," "ludicrous from
> incongruity," and "Romantic" or "Picturesquely irregular."
Hmm. I'm still having trouble deciding whether Pierce's _The
Darkangel_ is closer to this tradition or to the George MacDonald one.
Perhaps square in the middle.
Rachel
Ian McDowell
in some conceptions of Faerie, going back to such props and plot
elements as the Indian boy that Oberon and Titania are bickering over
in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. A rather undiscriminatingly asiaphilic
(and equally undiscriminating fantasy fan) aquaintance of mine once
confessed to being attracted to "Oriental" men (and women) because,
she said, "they're like the closest thing there is to Elves." In even
more debased form, a similar association crops up in the horror
fiction of Arthur Machen and Robert E. Howard, where the "little
people" of legend are actually degenerate, subterranean and distinctly
non-European subhumans with yellow skin and slanted eyes, although
there the Orientalism has horrific rather than exotically seductive
associations.
Regardless of its ethnicity and cultural trappings, the Seelie and
Unseelie Court is often portrayed as the the realm of glittering urban
sophisticates, as distinct from the simple (and often rustic) mortal
folk they ensnare. When Jack Yeoman or Ranger Arvid is lured into
their midst, he's like Jimmy Stewart in the big, bad city.
This is all still garbled and inchoate, and I'm clumsily address two
somewhat distinct ideas; the fantasy realm as redolent of the exotic,
vaguely "Eastern" Other and the fantasy realm as sophisticated/squalid
metropolis. The ways in which the two tropes intersect are something
I'm not sure I can diagram.
Andrew Plotkin
>> settings are delightfully encapsulated in the "Landscape" double-page
>> spread of Barbara Ninde Byfield's essential THE BOOK OF WEIRD,
>> originally published as THE GLASS HARMONICA (if you're not familiar
>> with this, you ought to and will be, as you're one of the few people
>> I'll trust with my copy), which illustrates such terms as Moor, Heath,
>> Downs, Thickets, Marshes, Bogs, Fens, Mountains, High Passes, and
>> Gorges (in the latter trio, Byfield tells us, one is apt to find Wind,
>> Snow and Returning Kings).
> Is it a slightly more serious and illustrated book in the genre of
> Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough Guide to Fantasyland_?
Same genre, opposite spirit.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
Aldiss and Wingrove describe it nicely in _Trillion Year Spree_. (I
think that *that* part was done by Aldiss.) There was a period at the
end of the 19th ct/beginning of the 20th ct which had a flood of "lost
world" stories: Haggard, Doyle, Verne, Burroughs, and I think there
are others. (A more thourough exploration of the planet lead to that.)
But it wasn't, by all means, the sole background of fantastic stories.
Remember _Dracula_, _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ ... Burroughs's _Tarzan
in Opar_ (?) which combines the two, for instance. There's Wells, too.
Although I'd say that the tendency towards urbanism is a thing of the
twentieth century, when people started living in cities more and more.
BTW, Ian, I think that the racier and darker citiscape is not a matter
of city vs. country, but a matter of the exploration of the darker
side of the human nature.
Ian McDowell
> til...@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) writes:
> >How about picaresque? -- since we're working through the -esques.
> >Etymology?
> "Picaresque" is from "picaro", a rogue or "Bohemian". I think
> picaro is a Spanish word but it's also used in English sometimes.
Also picaroon, meaning a rogue, brigand or pirate. Hence picaresque
fiction typically depicts the adventures of rogues and knaves. The
etyymology is doubtful, but it's possibly derived from picarre, to
prick or stab.
Ian McDowell
> I am not convinced. What about George MacDonald's work, from
> _Phantastes_ to the Princess books to _Lilith_. What about Oz?
> What about Edgar Rice Burroughs _Tarzan_? What about all of
> H R Haggard? I would have guessed the most iconic geography
> of fantasy to an early twentieth century reader would be
> either jungle/wilderness or pastoral dreamscape.
Reasonable points, but I'm using "fantasy" in the sense that it now
exists as a marketing category (although it didn't then), meaning
stories written for adult readers and set in a coherent secondary
world with some attempt at internal logical, in which magic works and
supernatural creatures exist. Hence, no children's fiction or dream
narratives. Obvious, this is restrictive, but something has to be
excluded if one's to talk about the topography of fantasy, since, even
separated from sf and horror, the term actually covers everything
_Topper_ to _The Man Who Was Thursday_. Besides, The Lost Race novel,
as practiced with varying degrees of fantastic elments and imagery by
Haggard, Merritt and Burroughs, is practically its own genre, but is
more usually allied with SF (certainly, the Burroughsian variety is).
Of course, these neat subdivisions didn't exist then. In the 30s,
_Weird Tales_ published Edmund Hamilton's space opera, Otis Adelbert
Kline's Burroughs pastiches, Howard's Conan stories, the cosmic horror
of H. P. Lovecraft and the supernatural adventures of Seabury Quinn's
Jules de Grandin side-by-side. Even with the dawn of Campbellian SF,
writers moved from it to horror and fantasy with an ease that's
unusual now, although not unheard of (while I can think of some
contemporary authors who've been prolific in two of those strands and
have ocassionally dipped into a third, I can't recall any who work as
steadily in all three at once as Leiber did).
Like everyone else, I'm shaped by my generation and early reading
habits. While Tolkein was read to me when I was very small and his
books were everywhere when I began reading on my own, he hadn't
inspired a legion of imitators (the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
was packaged as being in his tradition, but mostly consisted of
predecessors). I sometimes forget that the most common paperback
manifestitation of the form is no longer Sword and Sorcery, a term
which from the 60s until the mid-to-late 70s meant both the low end
(Lin Carter, John Jakes) and the high end (Leiber, Moorcock, De Camp,
possibly Poul Anderson, although in retrospect he wrote more _about_
the subgenre than in it) of category fantasy.
Joe Bernstein
Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
> BTW, Ian, I think that the racier and darker citiscape is not a matter
> of city vs. country, but a matter of the exploration of the darker
> side of the human nature.
I'm ambivalent about the argument Ian MacDowell and Rachel Brown have
been developing but do have trouble coming up with evidence for a
counter-argument I'd have liked to make, that fantasies also depicted
Cities of Light.
The problem with this is that those weren't fantasies; some of them
were science fiction stories, and others were real-life planning
documents. Paris's name "the City of Light" is itself, or so I've
unreliably heard, an artifact of its 19th-century rebuilding.
I'd be delighted to hear of fantasies that embody this sort of thing,
but wouldn't be surprised if there aren't any.
Your point that I quoted is supported by a fantasy of George MacDonald's
that hasn't been cited here, <The Princess and Curdie> (title? anyway,
the second book about the titular pair). In which MacDonald makes it
Very Very Clear that the city is the home of all things evil, and
cannot be redeemed in the end, precisely because of the ills of
human nature.
Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and early 20th-
century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with fantasy's historic
conservatism? Keep in mind that literate conservatives in these
times will tend to have come from or to have aspired to, in English-
speaking countries, the rurally landed gentry. I wonder if, say,
Russian or French literature produced different patterns. Anyway,
this isn't a cure-all - Dickens also has cities as Bad, and is not
really a conservative although he also isn't really a liberal by his
time's standards. But it is *some* piece of an explanation.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://these-survive.postilion.org/>
Nancy Lebovitz
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>In article <lkkb8u48n3bdjn692...@news.cis.dfn.de>,
>Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
I'm thanking everyone in this thread--these discussions of orientalism
and of landscape in fantasy are new material--or at least something
I haven't seen before in rasfw.
>> BTW, Ian, I think that the racier and darker citiscape is not a matter
>> of city vs. country, but a matter of the exploration of the darker
>> side of the human nature.
>
>I'm ambivalent about the argument Ian MacDowell and Rachel Brown have
>been developing but do have trouble coming up with evidence for a
>counter-argument I'd have liked to make, that fantasies also depicted
>Cities of Light.
>
In general, fiction isn't about good places to live--or if they exist
at the beginning of the story, they are soon enough left or destroyed.
Still, it's probably no coincidence that the Shire isn't the City or
even the Town.
>The problem with this is that those weren't fantasies; some of them
>were science fiction stories, and others were real-life planning
>documents. Paris's name "the City of Light" is itself, or so I've
>unreliably heard, an artifact of its 19th-century rebuilding.
>I'd be delighted to hear of fantasies that embody this sort of thing,
>but wouldn't be surprised if there aren't any.
>
>Your point that I quoted is supported by a fantasy of George MacDonald's
>that hasn't been cited here, <The Princess and Curdie> (title? anyway,
>the second book about the titular pair). In which MacDonald makes it
>Very Very Clear that the city is the home of all things evil, and
>cannot be redeemed in the end, precisely because of the ills of
>human nature.
>
>Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and early 20th-
>century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with fantasy's historic
>conservatism? Keep in mind that literate conservatives in these
Is there any reason why fantasy should tend to be conservative?
I think it does. I have a notion, though it's short of a theory.
I strongly believe that the stranger the matter of a story, the
more conventional the means of telling needs to be. [1] The reader
needs something to get a grip on and a way to tell the metaphors
from what is literally true for the characters. It's no coincidence
that _Ulysses_ and _Finnegans Wake_ are about ordinary days of
ordinary people.
Perhaps fantasy tends to be conservative because it's enough to
have intrusions from the imagination into the world--it's too much
to ask people to focus on the remaking of society at the same time.
>times will tend to have come from or to have aspired to, in English-
>speaking countries, the rurally landed gentry. I wonder if, say,
>Russian or French literature produced different patterns. Anyway,
>this isn't a cure-all - Dickens also has cities as Bad, and is not
>really a conservative although he also isn't really a liberal by his
>time's standards. But it is *some* piece of an explanation.
One datapoint, though I'm not sure what it proves: Chesterton's
_The Napolean of Notting Hill_, which is a tale of the future
(no fantasy elements, except perhaps for a bit of wish-fulfillment
for gamers) about the defense of a city against its own government.
[1] There's _Moonwise_, of course--strange events and *very* idiosyncratic
telling, but most people find it to be a difficult book.
Ed Falis
> Is there any reason why fantasy should tend to be conservative?
>
> I think it does. I have a notion, though it's short of a theory.
> I strongly believe that the stranger the matter of a story, the
> more conventional the means of telling needs to be. [1] The reader
> needs something to get a grip on and a way to tell the metaphors
> from what is literally true for the characters. It's no coincidence
> that _Ulysses_ and _Finnegans Wake_ are about ordinary days of
> ordinary people.
>
> Perhaps fantasy tends to be conservative because it's enough to
> have intrusions from the imagination into the world--it's too much
> to ask people to focus on the remaking of society at the same time.
Of course, then there are counter-examples (not to everyone's tastes)
like Delany's Dhalgren, Stars in My Pocket ..., and the Neveryon series.
But they're admittedly difficult works.
- Ed
Ian McDowell
[Of Byfield's _The Book of Weird_]
> Is it a slightly more serious and illustrated book in the genre of
> Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough Guide to Fantasyland_?
I never actually read the _Tough Guide_, although I've heard of it and
think it sounds delightful
Byfield, Barbara Ninde
The Book of Weird: Being a most Desirable Lexicon of the Fantastical,
Trolls and Vampires, Wherein Kings and Dragons, to say nothing of
Elves and Gnomes, Queens, Knaves and Werewolves are made Manifest, and
many, many further Revelations of the Mystical Order of Things are
brought to light.
A Dolphin Herald, 1973.
It's in alphabetical order and contains many delightful entries on
such topics as "Amulets," "Dragons," "Giants" (with a useful chart
showing the size differences between them, trolls and ogres), "Gore,
or the Hazards of the Course" and much else. Handy tables in the back
list tonics and tinctures and what they cure and show the proper times
for matins and vespers and when to celebrate Candlemas, Beltane, and
Michaelmas.
Sadly, it's OP, but Amazon has it used, as presumably do various
dealers.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385065914/104-6205323-3244742
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
>Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and early 20th-
>century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with fantasy's historic
>conservatism?
My shot at the theory:
Ummm, it's difficult to explain and is implied in my previous post.
As I said, there obviously was a flood of "lost world" stories
inspired by the more thorough "exploration"* of the planet. The
population of the same planet* was concetrating more and more in
cities. That was the foundation.
Add overpopulation in the cities and WWI.
Add the apparent silliness of stories about goblins putting a hex on
your only milk cow, or a witch living deep in the woods over the hill,
told to *the inhabitants of the cities*.
Cook in a writer's head and voila!
I think that I've might have mentioned my opinion on "stories for
children" here. Quite a lot of what's considered fit only for children
used to be high literature of its age. But was thought not
sophisticated or high-brow enough for adults later. The same thing
probably happened to the fantastic literature. They needed something
that they could directly relate to. Hence the cities. And the dark
things happening in the cities ... well ... I mentioned the
overpopulation and WWI. There's poverty that was quite present then,
too. I think the dark fantasies were just a reflection of the general
situation.
And the idylls and pastorals were relegated to "good old days".
* Well, yes, exploration etc. Of course, I'm talking from the
viewpoint of the Western civilisation.
Ian McDowell
> Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and early 20th-
> century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with fantasy's historic
> conservatism?
Possibly, but I also think that "Wicked" might be a better term than
"Bad." In many of these stories, cities are luxurious, immoral
places, quite possibly Evil, but the author _likes_ them and finds
them interesting. Fritz Leiber wrote about corrupt, decadent,
murderous Lankhmar because he enjoyed spending imaginary time there,
not because he was setting it up in opposition to some imagined Good
Place, and Clark Ashton Smith's ghoul- and monster-haunted cities on
the last continent of Zothique were the places where Interesting
Things Happened, not an offstage menace like Mordor. Maybe they did
indeed see cities as Bad, but they, or at least some of them, liked
them that way. Such places might be sinkholes of depravity, inhabited
by whores, cutpurses, cults and monsters, but that's what made them
fun to visit. They aren't "bad" in the sense that Lovecraft saw New
York as being Bad in "The Horror at Red Hook."
As Rachel points out in the Dan Simmons thread, you can sort of see
this dichotomy in _Song of Kali_ vs. Poppy Z. Brite's "Calcutta, Lord
of Nerves." They're both writing horror stories, but while Brite sees
her post-apocalyptic Calcutta, shambling zombies and all, as a garden
of charnal delights, Simmons seems to view Calcutta as a place best
gotten out of as soon as possible.
Richard Horton
>Your point that I quoted is supported by a fantasy of George MacDonald's
>that hasn't been cited here, <The Princess and Curdie> (title? anyway,
>the second book about the titular pair). In which MacDonald makes it
>Very Very Clear that the city is the home of all things evil, and
>cannot be redeemed in the end, precisely because of the ills of
>human nature.
MacDonald's two Curdie stories were _The Princess and the Goblin_ and
_The Princess and Curdie_.
The latter is indeed the second book, though it was the first
MacDonald book I encountered as a child -- I never saw, nor knew of
the existence of, _The Princess and the Goblin_ until just a few years
ago.
Eric Walker
[...]
>Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and
>early 20th-century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with
>fantasy's historic conservatism?
As to this whole topic: does no one recall "The City of God"?
Or the "City of the Sun"? Has no one looked at what Google
turns up for "Heavenly City"?
City = Bad is a rather _new_ equation.
Ethan Merritt
>
>> I am not convinced. What about George MacDonald's work, from
>> _Phantastes_ to the Princess books to _Lilith_. What about Oz?
>> What about Edgar Rice Burroughs _Tarzan_? What about all of
>> H R Haggard? I would have guessed the most iconic geography
>> of fantasy to an early twentieth century reader would be
>> either jungle/wilderness or pastoral dreamscape.
>
>Reasonable points, but I'm using "fantasy" in the sense that it now
>exists as a marketing category (although it didn't then), meaning
>stories written for adult readers and set in a coherent secondary
>world with some attempt at internal logical, in which magic works and
>supernatural creatures exist. Hence, no children's fiction or dream
>narratives.
I was thinking specifically of _Phantastes_ when I proposed
dreamscapes, and that is adult fiction and meets your other
criteria as well. Framing a story as a dream was simply a convention
of the time, and not only for fantasy. IIRC, Didn't ERB's John Carter
visit Mars by falling asleep in a cave?
And anyhow, I dispute your implication that fantasy as a genre is
currently being written for and sold to adults, to the exclusion of
children. So far as I am concerned, a large fraction of the best
fantasy is actually marketed as YA. I don't know whether
that is an attempt to straddle both the children's and adult markets,
or whether it reflects a continuing notion that fantasy is somehow
not quite an adult medium.
>Obvious, this is restrictive, but something has to be
>excluded if one's to talk about the topography of fantasy, since, even
>separated from sf and horror, the term actually covers everything
>_Topper_ to _The Man Who Was Thursday_. Besides, The Lost Race novel,
>as practiced with varying degrees of fantastic elments and imagery by
>Haggard, Merritt and Burroughs, is practically its own genre, but is
>more usually allied with SF (certainly, the Burroughsian variety is).
At the end of the 19th Century, the coherent secondary world of a
fantasy could still be plotted as lying in the African interior.
Today it would be absurd to do so, except as a nod to Haggard and
Burroughs. So I don't think you can argue that Haggard and Burroughs
were not writing fantasy simply because they didn't place the settings
in another world altogether.
>Of course, these neat subdivisions didn't exist then.
Right. And even a century later I wish we could do away with the
recurring interminable discussions attempting to separate science
fiction from fantasy. So let's not go there.
--
Ethan A Merritt
Ethan Merritt
Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>As to this whole topic: does no one recall "The City of God"?
>Or the "City of the Sun"? Has no one looked at what Google
>turns up for "Heavenly City"?
>
>City = Bad is a rather _new_ equation.
Well, there was Sodom. I've heard that usually reliable sources
equated that city with sin a long time before Augustine started
nattering about his vision of a city :-)
--
Ethan A Merritt
Eric Walker
That was _a_ city. Sodom was such an exceptional place that it
received an exceptional treatment; cities as an institution
were not nuked.
There was Jerusalem.
David Johnston
>
> On Thu, 7 Mar 2002 05:25:24 +0000 (UTC), Ethan Merritt wrote:
>
> >In article <enfsjbjypebsgpbz...@news.cis.dfn.de>,
> >Eric Walker <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>As to this whole topic: does no one recall "The City of God"?
> >>Or the "City of the Sun"? Has no one looked at what Google
> >>turns up for "Heavenly City"?
> >>
> >>City = Bad is a rather _new_ equation.
> >
> >Well, there was Sodom. I've heard that usually reliable
> >sources equated that city with sin a long time before
> >Augustine started nattering about his vision of a city :-)
>
> That was _a_ city.
So was Enoch. That's the whole point of the story of Cain
and Abel, you know. Don't trust farmers, and don't trust
city folk, because they are murderers of fine upstanding
God-loving nomadic herdsmen.
Sodom was such an exceptional place that it
> received an exceptional treatment; cities as an institution
> were not nuked.
>
> There was Jerusalem.
Which had prophets regularly coming down out of the hills to
denounce it for wickedness.
Nancy Lebovitz
If it matters, _Stars in My Pocket_ is definitely science fiction,
and what I've read of the Neveryon books lack what I'd call fantasy
elements. There are "dragons", but they're really large gliding
lizards unable to support the weight of an adult humans. There something
called magic, but it disappears into a blur of literary criticism and
doesn't offer any fodder for power/fear/knowledge wish-fulfillment.
Science fiction generally and Delany's in particular has a lot less
of the "anything can happen" aspect than fantasy does.
There's a lot of blur between the two, but if I'm right, then science
fiction has more slack for being oddly told.
It may not be a coincidence that _The Book of the New Sun_ is science
fiction with fantasy trappings.
Ed Falis
> If it matters, _Stars in My Pocket_ is definitely science fiction,
> and what I've read of the Neveryon books lack what I'd call fantasy
> elements. There are "dragons", but they're really large gliding
> lizards unable to support the weight of an adult humans. There something
> called magic, but it disappears into a blur of literary criticism and
> doesn't offer any fodder for power/fear/knowledge wish-fulfillment.
>
> Science fiction generally and Delany's in particular has a lot less
> of the "anything can happen" aspect than fantasy does.
>
> There's a lot of blur between the two, but if I'm right, then science
> fiction has more slack for being oddly told.
>
> It may not be a coincidence that _The Book of the New Sun_ is science
> fiction with fantasy trappings.
>
Yes, good points. (I admit I lost the context of the discussion a bit
with what I said).
- Ed
Rachel Brown
>
> > Come to think of it, how much of the reason why 19th- and early 20th-
> > century fantasies saw cities as Bad has to do with fantasy's historic
> > conservatism?
>
> Possibly, but I also think that "Wicked" might be a better term than
> "Bad." In many of these stories, cities are luxurious, immoral
> places, quite possibly Evil, but the author _likes_ them and finds
> them interesting.
This is the point I didn't make, but should have when I was referring
to fantasy cities with terms like "gritty" and "grotesque." Hodgell's
Tai-Tastigon is those g-words squared, but it's lively and there's
always exciting things happening and interesting new people to meet,
and, as in our cities, may be statistically dangerous, but those
statistics mostly apply to people who lead dangerous lives or hang out
with people who do.
I'd a thousand times rather live there than in the Shire. A while back
I was listening to an audio CD of LOTR with a friend who'd never read
it, and was startled by her reaction to the hobbits: she hated them,
saying that they were greedy and nosy and smallminded and generally
represented everything she loathed about small towns.
In a city, you're always meeting new people, and in a pastoral setting
you know everyone already. Which is more appealing to a writer may
determine a lot.
> As Rachel points out in the Dan Simmons thread, you can sort of see
> this dichotomy in _Song of Kali_ vs. Poppy Z. Brite's "Calcutta, Lord
> of Nerves." They're both writing horror stories, but while Brite sees
> her post-apocalyptic Calcutta, shambling zombies and all, as a garden
> of charnal delights,
Carnal, or were you thinking of charnel house? A most fortuitous typo,
if it was one, and true either way.
Rachel
Ian McDowell
> mcdol...@hotmail.com (Ian McDowell) wrote
> > As Rachel points out in the Dan Simmons thread, you can sort of see
> > this dichotomy in _Song of Kali_ vs. Poppy Z. Brite's "Calcutta, Lord
> > of Nerves." They're both writing horror stories, but while Brite sees
> > her post-apocalyptic Calcutta, shambling zombies and all, as a garden
> > of charnal delights,
>
> Carnal, or were you thinking of charnel house? A most fortuitous typo,
> if it was one, and true either way.
I was indeed thinking of charnel and trying to be clever, but I didn't
mean to actually combine the words.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>I'd a thousand times rather live there than in the Shire. A while back
>I was listening to an audio CD of LOTR with a friend who'd never read
>it, and was startled by her reaction to the hobbits: she hated them,
>saying that they were greedy and nosy and smallminded and generally
>represented everything she loathed about small towns.
There was an interesting observation in hr.rec.sf the other day: that
Bilbo's birthday in the film looks like OktoberFest in Munich. IE,
hobbits were behaving like cartooned burgeoisie (sp?) having a ball.
Yes, there's quite a lot of burgher-like things in them, even when
they are not behaving like Sackville-Bagginses.
William Clifford
> In article <6a88873e.02030...@posting.google.com>,
> Ian McDowell <mcdol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>mer...@u.washington.edu (Ethan Merritt)
>>
>>> I am not convinced. What about George MacDonald's work, from
>>> _Phantastes_ to the Princess books to _Lilith_. What about Oz?
>>> What about Edgar Rice Burroughs _Tarzan_? What about all of
>>> H R Haggard? I would have guessed the most iconic geography
>>> of fantasy to an early twentieth century reader would be
>>> either jungle/wilderness or pastoral dreamscape.
>>
>>Reasonable points, but I'm using "fantasy" in the sense that it now
>>exists as a marketing category (although it didn't then), meaning
>>stories written for adult readers and set in a coherent secondary
>>world with some attempt at internal logical, in which magic works and
>>supernatural creatures exist. Hence, no children's fiction or dream
>>narratives.
>
> I was thinking specifically of _Phantastes_ when I proposed
> dreamscapes, and that is adult fiction and meets your other
> criteria as well. Framing a story as a dream was simply a convention
> of the time, and not only for fantasy. IIRC, Didn't ERB's John Carter
> visit Mars by falling asleep in a cave?
Just a short note. He visited Barsoom by *dying* in that cave. He got
better--but that cost him his life on Barsoom. My interpretation of what
goes on at the beginning of _The Gods of Mars_ and the "secret" of
traversing between worlds is rather morbid. But considering that Ulysses
Paxton came to Barsoom by the same means I feel somewhat justified in
it.
--
| William Clifford | wo...@yahoo.com | http://wobh.home.mindspring.com |
|"I find in favor of your claim, in newsgroup style justice. However |
| I also find completely in favor of myself." |
| --"philipm" in <JEZ78.134$Gv3.1...@typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net> |
Thomas Lindgren
rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) writes:
> Thank you for finally putting the Sun Books in order for me. I kept
> looking for a _volume_ called "Book of the New Sun."
Funny, I've been looking for something called the "Book of Gold" for a
long time, now.
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren
I'd rather write programs that write programs than write programs-[R. Sites]
William December Starr
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> said:
> Wolfe is, I believe, the single finest writer the SF field has yet
> produced. He is a master of prose, he possesses a magnificent
> imagination, his characters (at least the males) are very well
> portrayed, his narratives are subtly and ingeniously constructed,
> and his works are about something -- about worthwhile moral issues,
> for the most part.
But does have to work so damned _hard_ at making his books so damned
hard to understand? (At least, I hope he has to work hard at it.
Something I saw in an interview with him gives me pause though --
after mentioning the Apollo moon landings, he said something like
"That which people long ago thought of as a lamp, we see as an
island," and even though I knew that he'd just been talking about the
Moon I _still_ was thrown for a loop. Frankly, it scares me a bit
to think that his mind might really work like that, _so_ deeply into
symbology and metaphor as a matter of course.)
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Rachel Brown
> Speaking of fairy tales, there are tenuous suggestions of Orientalism
> in some conceptions of Faerie, going back to such props and plot
> elements as the Indian boy that Oberon and Titania are bickering over
> in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. A rather undiscriminatingly asiaphilic
> (and equally undiscriminating fantasy fan) aquaintance of mine once
> confessed to being attracted to "Oriental" men (and women) because,
> she said, "they're like the closest thing there is to Elves."
Lois Bujold's _Cetaganda_ has an unusual Asian/elf merging, being hard
biological sf rather than fantasy. The upper class Cetagandans, whose
society seems inspired by early Japan, have genetically engineered
themselves to the point where Miles meeting one of their women is like
Thomas the Rhymer meeting the Queen of Elfland.
I am intrigued by your friend's rather icky comment, but will try to
analyze it later.
> In even
> more debased form, a similar association crops up in the horror
> fiction of Arthur Machen and Robert E. Howard, where the "little
> people" of legend are actually degenerate, subterranean and distinctly
> non-European subhumans with yellow skin and slanted eyes, although
> there the Orientalism has horrific rather than exotically seductive
> associations.
Not to start a "racism in Tolkien" thread, but there's his swarthy
orcs and slant-eyed easterners, "like that friend of Bill Ferny's in
Bree."
> Regardless of its ethnicity and cultural trappings, the Seelie and
> Unseelie Court is often portrayed as the the realm of glittering urban
> sophisticates, as distinct from the simple (and often rustic) mortal
> folk they ensnare. When Jack Yeoman or Ranger Arvid is lured into
> their midst, he's like Jimmy Stewart in the big, bad city.
Yes, but that's the _Court_. There's also the lower class faeries--
brownies and so forth-- but we never seem to see the parts of Elfland
where they live. Emma Bull's _War For the Oaks_ is the only fantasy
novel I can think of offhand, other than some bad semi-comic fantasies
which shall remain mercifully nameless, in which a class struggle in
going on in Elfland.
The allure of Elfland is that it's different, glamorous, and scary.
From a Western common person's point of view, East fits that bill, and
so does city if said person's from the country, and court if they're
from the city. I'm thinking of fairy tales here, following your
mention of the Seelie Court.
I'll think more upon this, but am too tired now.
Rachel
Lois Tilton
> Frankly, it scares me a bit
> to think that his mind might really work like that, _so_ deeply into
> symbology and metaphor as a matter of course.)
Got to say I think it actually does.
--
LT
jere7my tho?rpe
wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
> But does have to work so damned _hard_ at making his books so damned
> hard to understand? (At least, I hope he has to work hard at it.
I met him at a con a few weeks ago, and he told me (with a straight
face) he thinks his writing is rather straightforward. I theorize that
it's because he started out writing mysteries, in which a careful reader
can assemble dozens of easily-missed clues into a coherent solution, and
his natural inclination is still to use that method for worldbuilding,
character development, plot, theme, even mood. It's just that now his
clues aren't misplaced pinking shears and an uncorked bottle of arsenic;
they're the color of the light shining through the window or the lack of
a certain word in a certain character's greeting. As far as I've found,
that technique is unique to Wolfe -- John Crowley does something similar
with his plots and his worlds, but only Wolfe is brave/cruel/daft enough
to present entire books that require extensive puzzling in every aspect.
(See _Peace_.)
----j7y
--
*************************************************************************
jere7my tho?rpe / 734-769-0913 "Homo sum: humani nihil a me
http://homepage.mac.com/jere7my alienum puto." ---Terentius
stan
>Funny, I've been looking for something called the "Book of Gold" for a
>long time, now.
>
>Best,
> Thomas
If I remember correctly Wolfe have said it is "The Dying Earth" by
Jack Vance.
Matthew Austern
I believe he has said something different: that *for him* it was _The
Dying Earth_.
And I've never been quite able to understand that, because I find _The
Dying Earth_ far less sophisticated than _The Book of the New Sun_:
I'd describe _The Dying Earth_ as pleasant but mostly forgettable.
Maybe it shows I'm missing something in _The Dying Earth_, or maybe
part of being the Book of Gold is that it's something you read at the
golden age (12) and I didn't read Vance when I was that young, or
maybe it's just that Wolfe's and my tastes differ.
LizM7
> 2. THE SOLDIER BOOKS
>
> Soldier of the Mist (1986)
> Soldier of Arete (1989)
>
> Shocking omission #2 -- I haven't read _Soldier of Arete_. (That's
> the last shocking omission, actually.) _Soldier of the Mist_ is a
> very good story about Latro, a soldier during Ancient Greek times, who
> has a condition whereby he forgets everything overnight. The book is
> a journal he writes every night to try to keep himself up to date. He
> also has what appear to be enounters with actual gods. I don't
> remember the plot well, but I do remember enjoying it. The sequel is
> generally well-regarded, and a third book in the series may eventually
> get written -- apparently it would be called _Soldier of Sidon_, but
> it will have to wait until after Wolfe's current project.
I haven't read _Soldier of the Mist_, but I just finished SoA (stupid
library, stocking sequals without their predecessors). It's decent,
though the plot seems to fall apart towards the end of the book (as
in, there were entire chapters where I was left thinking "WTF?", and
the final section was even more so), and he commits the unforgivable
sin of having three or four major characters with names beginning with
the same letter. Among other irritants, he doesn't bother to even
attempt something resembling a map, and the publishers apparently
couldn't afford to spend two or three more pages so they could
duplicate the terms from SotM in the glossery in the back of the book.
(Which is really bad, as he apparently re-introduces a few characters
from SotM towards the end of the book. There isn't at all enough time
to allow the new readers to figure what the SotM characters are like
or who they are, etc., nor to even bother giving an infodump on them.
One would *think* that the main point of a glossery would thus be to
provide a quick infodump for such characters, but, no, instead it's
dedicated to providing unneeded info about gods, etc., who are barely
mentioned in the book.)
Latro's forgetfulness seems to spread to real-life as well, as I found
the entire book to have this amazingly disjointed feeling to it. I
would be in the middle of the book, and there'd be a reference to an
event towards the beginning, and I could barely remember what had
happened or why they were doing anything that they were doing.
You know, I'm beginning to wonder why I liked the book in the first
place.
*frowns* Funny how that is....
- Liz
jere7my tho?rpe
hsel...@hotmail.com (LizM7) wrote:
> Among other irritants, he doesn't bother to even
> attempt something resembling a map,
There is a map in _Soldier of the Mists_. I'd strongly recommend
reading it before SoA anyway (which advice comes too late for you, I'm
afraid), since I can't imagine SoA making much sense without it.
Gerry Quinn
I agree with that. I don't know what the Book of Gold is, but I always
assumed it is a book of fairy-tales. The Dying Earth is one such, but
hardly sufficiently matured.
I have always thought that Silverberg's _Nightwings_ is the precursor of
BOTNS - but I don't think Wolfe likes Silverberg one bit...
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
>>with his plots and his worlds, but only Wolfe is brave/cruel/daft enough
>to present entire books that require extensive puzzling in every aspect.
>(See _Peace_.)
It seems clear to me the protagonist is being punished, but why? At
first I thought perhaps he killed Lois, although he does not say, and it
is plausible that she skipped town. But later, it occurred to me that
it was to do with his business. There's something obscene about the
artificial plastic orange on which the child sucks, that supersedes the
real orange. And the local farms failed. There's been a murder - not a
character in the story, but some part of the natural world or our
relationship to it, and Weer is being called to account.
[And at a later time in RL we learn that Wolfe invented Pringles. And
the artificial orange is made of potatoes.]
_Peace_ is obscure. What are other peoples' readings of it?
- Gerry Quinn
Eric Walker
[...]
>> If I remember correctly Wolfe have said it [_The Book of
>> Gold_] is "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance.
>
>I believe he has said something different: that *for him* it
>was _The Dying Earth_.
>
>And I've never been quite able to understand that, because I
>find _The Dying Earth_ far less sophisticated than _The Book
>of the New Sun_ . . . .
In some ways, it certainly is. The tales are not
intellectually complex, nor correspondingly freighted with
meaning as Wolfe's are. On the other hand, that is not what
they purport to be: rather, they are mood pieces, keyed to
emotion rather than cerebration. (Though they have their fair
share of wit, usually Vance's trademark mordant style.) And as
mood pieces--especially considering that this was Vance's first
published book--they are consummate.
>I'd describe _The Dying Earth_ as pleasant but mostly
>forgettable. Maybe it shows I'm missing something in _The
>Dying Earth_, or maybe part of being the Book of Gold is that
>it's something you read at the golden age (12) and I didn't
>read Vance when I was that young, or maybe it's just that
>Wolfe's and my tastes differ.
I suspect it's primarily the latter. The book could well be
The Book of Gold in that it serves to excite a mood, a sense,
an atmosphere of place and time, a _longing_ for that place and
time and mood--it is, in that sense, not the treasure chamber
but the key to the lock on the chamber door.
Lawrence Person
wrote:
BIG SPOILER
First of all, the thing to understand about Peace (if you haven't already) is
that the narrator is dead when the book starts. He's a ghost, and the house he
wanders through is the hall of his own memories.
Another point is that notice how none of the stories started in the book is ever
finished.
Sirius Press published a Peace Indexion chapbook a couple of years ago. You
might try to find a copy of that if you're really interested.
Despite considerable critical opinion in it's favor, Peace is far from my
favorite Wolfe book.
--
Lawrence Person
lawrenc...@jump.net
New 2001 Lame Excuse Books Catalog now available! Ask for one!
Current Lame Excuse Books Stock Online at: http://www.abebooks.com
Gerry Quinn
>In article <aLRi8.6586$W8.5...@news.indigo.ie>, ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
>
>wrote:
>
>> In article <jere7my-D16AB6...@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu>,
>> "jere7my tho?rpe" <jer...@mac.com> wrote:
>> >>with his plots and his worlds, but only Wolfe is brave/cruel/daft enough
>> >to present entire books that require extensive puzzling in every aspect.
>> >(See _Peace_.)
>>
>> It seems clear to me the protagonist is being punished, but why? At
>> first I thought perhaps he killed Lois, although he does not say, and it
>> is plausible that she skipped town. But later, it occurred to me that
>> it was to do with his business. There's something obscene about the
>> artificial plastic orange on which the child sucks, that supersedes the
>> real orange. And the local farms failed. There's been a murder - not a
>> character in the story, but some part of the natural world or our
>> relationship to it, and Weer is being called to account.
>>
>> [And at a later time in RL we learn that Wolfe invented Pringles. And
>> the artificial orange is made of potatoes.]
>>
>> _Peace_ is obscure. What are other peoples' readings of it?
>>
>BIG SPOILER
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>First of all, the thing to understand about Peace (if you haven't already) is
>that the narrator is dead when the book starts. He's a ghost, and the house he
>wanders through is the hall of his own memories.
I agree, but that works okay with my theory. [It can be read as if he
is simply dying from a stroke, though, but I think that's a less
interesting hypothesis.]
>Another point is that notice how none of the stories started in the book is
> ever
>finished.
Isn't that always a matter of definition?
>Sirius Press published a Peace Indexion chapbook a couple of years ago. You
>might try to find a copy of that if you're really interested.
>
>Despite considerable critical opinion in it's favor, Peace is far from my
>favorite Wolfe book.
It's not mine, either, but it's an enigma that remains puzzling. (Come
to think of it, it's years since I read it - perhaps I should have
another go.)
- Gerry Quinn
Ethical Mirth Gas
> Something I saw in an interview with him gives me pause though --
> after mentioning the Apollo moon landings, he said something like
> "That which people long ago thought of as a lamp, we see as an
> island," and even though I knew that he'd just been talking about the
> Moon I _still_ was thrown for a loop. Frankly, it scares me a bit
> to think that his mind might really work like that, _so_ deeply into
> symbology and metaphor as a matter of course.)
That may be an unfair example. The man thinks about islands more than
most of us. He's written stories titled:
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories"
"The Death of Doctor Island"
"The Death of the Island Doctor"
"The Doctor of Death Island"
(Island is one of those words that begins to look wrong if you type it
over and over.)
All of these stories/novellas are excellent except for the last which
is merely quite good. In fact, the collection _The Island of Doctor
Death and Other Stories and Other Stories_ (the ten-years-later
punchline to the joke of the title of the first story listed above) is
probably the best short-story collection I've ever read (Egan's
_Axiomatic_ is the other contender). It's definitely the best
collection of novellas/novelletes:
"The Death of the Island Doctor"
"Tracking Song"
"The Eyeflash Miracles"
"Seven American Nights"
These are some of the best novellas I've ever read, and several of the
short stories are also great ("Alien Stones," "The Hero as
Werewolf,"). In fact, if someone were wanting to try Wolfe for the
first time, I might suggest this story collection rather than one of
this series or novels.
SMTIRCAHIAGEHLT
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> (Island is one of those words that begins to look wrong if you type it
> over and over.)
It's because, at least according to David Crystal, its spelling was
twisted out of its phonetic naturality by saddling it with a false
etymology - it was thought that it came from "insula", so the "s" was
inserted, while it turns out it didn't.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
Gens una sumus
Mark Jason Dominus
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@tin.it> wrote:
>Ethical Mirth Gas <stra...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
>
>> (Island is one of those words that begins to look wrong if you type it
>> over and over.)
>
>It's because, at least according to David Crystal, its spelling was
>twisted out of its phonetic naturality by saddling it with a false
>etymology - it was thought that it came from "insula", so the "s" was
>inserted, while it turns out it didn't.
Lest this confuse people further, let me add what Anna omitted: The
's' was added by analogy with the word 'isle', which *is* derived from
'insula'.
--
Mark Jason Dominus m...@plover.com
Philadelphia Excursions Mailing List: http://www.plover.com/~mjd/excursions/
Jerry Friedman
> On Sun, 3 Mar 2002 22:36:34 -0600, raymond larsson wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >Unless I read it in an alternate universe (or my memory fails
> >( I only read it once ( library copy) 16 years ago)) Nancy
> >Lebovitz missed something. Clues to the fate of the five were
> >shown early. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls
> >it "a TIME TRAVEL tale, extremely difficult to parse". I
> >agree with the first, probably disagree with the second
> >because I missed part of what GW said and found it easy to
> >follow. I entirely missed the _Wizard of Oz_ retelling.
>
> Well, the likelihood of a connection is rather unsubtle. On
> page 2, a minor character says "I wish they'd run _The Wizard
> of Oz_ again." The character referred to continually as "the
> witch" calls the protagonist--named Osgood Barnes--"Ozzie."
> And there are also a few _obvious_ points. . . .
"That's a cool name, man. Reminds me of them flying monkeys." Or
words to that effect.
Anyway, I missed it. In my defense: I never saw the movie of TWoO all
the way through or read any of the books. I'd refer to Ozzie as "a",
not "the" protagonist, and I guess I was distracted by the Popeye
thing. Now which one is he--the Tin Woodman? Oh, it's not that
simple?
> >Well told story of well drawn (though mostly unsympathetic to
> >me) characters who accept an offer of free lodging (a
> >stratagem to help save an old house), their petty, personal,
> >and interpersonal struggles, and the transcendental and
> >inevitable ( I believe) result. A quiet cosmic/urban tale
> >without Villains or Heroes. Not first tier GW nor my cup of
> >tea but better than many books I have enjoyed.
>
> Free lodging? Yes, the ad in the paper gives the book its
> title: "Free! Live free!" A stratagem to save an old house--
> oh dear me, I think a discreet telephone call to the Allegory
> Squad is warranted. "Live Free!" Save an old house. Gene
> Wolfe.
You lost me there. Anyway, I like this book a lot, though I think it
could have used another paragraph at the end. (Apparently GW now has
Web access--I hope he doesn't read this!) As Algis Budrys said in his
review, _The Book of the New Sun_ convinces you that Wolfe *must* have
ruled a country at some point, even if it was only a small one in the
Balkans, and _Free Live Free_ convinces you that he must have been
down and out in a big city.
--
Jerry Friedman
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>In general, fiction isn't about good places to live--or if they exist
>at the beginning of the story, they are soon enough left or destroyed.
>
>Still, it's probably no coincidence that the Shire isn't the City or
>even the Town.
Well, no, not when you consider Tolkien's particular brand of pastoral
romantic longing. The Shire being inspired by the villages of his youth
and all.
Also, it's far less easy for a city to be autartic and insular then it's
for the shire...
Martin Wisse
--
Oh, sure. We're a thriving commercial republic. What do you expect?
<...>
Civilization.
Pete McCutchen and Jo Walton, RASSEFF, talking about the US
LizM7
> cities as an institution
> were not nuked.
>
> There was Jerusalem.
Which was condemned as evil, too; and nuked (or the Roman equivolent
thereof) to boot.
- Liz
Eric Walker
Still there last time I looked. (Although these days one has
to look pretty often to be sure of anything in those parts.)
David Cowie
> On 17 Mar 2002 22:28:50 -0800, LizM7 wrote:
>
>>"Eric Walker" <ra...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>>> cities as an institution
>>> were not nuked.
>>>
>>> There was Jerusalem.
>>
>>Which was condemned as evil, too; and nuked (or the Roman
>>equivolent thereof) to boot.
>
>
> Still there last time I looked. (Although these days one has
> to look pretty often to be sure of anything in those parts.)
>
>
Well, they've had 2000 years to rebuild it... Seen Carthage lately?
--
David Cowie
There is no _spam in my address.
"You had to do WHAT with your seat?"