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Chichevache posted:Nah, it wouldn't be meaningless. It would just be Hellenic Don Quixote, which is still a ton of fun. Will definitely be re-reading with this in mind!
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Apr 25, 2015 22:36
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I think it pretty much becomes that in the last book, Soldier of Sidon. Read the thing twice and still cannot find any rhyme or reason to it.
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Apr 25, 2015 22:44
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One thing I'd like to add to this thread is just how wonderfully Wolfe portrays friendship. I feel like he just nails it in that regard. Jonas in The Book of the New Sun is one example, and there's a character that Able hangs around with near the beginning of The Knight that really resonated in this regard for me as well. Can't remember his name atm.
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Apr 25, 2015 23:30
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Also, I guess I'm in the "hardcore" Gene Wolfe fandom, seeing as how I like later Gene Wolfe novels. I enjoyed Soldier of Sidon, Knight/Wizard, The Land Across, Etc. I even enjoyed Castleview! Home Fires and An Evil Guest have... issues. I definitely prefer Wolfe when he relies less on dialogue.
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Apr 25, 2015 23:50
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Loved the Soldier of the Mist series. Wolfe managed to create an elaborate fantasy world simply by insisting on the known history and archeology of the ancient Greeks.
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Apr 26, 2015 16:16
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anilEhilated posted:I think it pretty much becomes that in the last book, Soldier of Sidon. Read the thing twice and still cannot find any rhyme or reason to it. I couldn't finish Sidon. Late Wolfe is p unreadable for me, unfortunately.
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May 2, 2015 23:30
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Now I feel weird. I thought Soldier of Sidon was easy (easygoing, not simple) reading. Aimless, perhaps, though I have never been good at sussing out Wolfe's deeper layers without assistance. But I've probably read An Evil Guest three times, and found it engaging and evocative every time. The only thing I didn't like was the lack of resolution in the ending. Then I stumbled across some crazy internet theories that didn't sound as crazy as I know they should, and I've been meaning to reread it with those things in mind. Basically: Time travel is established early on. Wolfe is a huge fan of time travel. Cassie goes to the place where time travel comes from to figure out how to save now-dead Bill. The strongest feeling I get when reading that book is that it was set up to have a sequel. Consider this: Cassie's attempt to save Bill sends her into the past. (Theory theory, yadda yadda) Margaret Briggs is really future Cassie trying to alter the events of the past. The story is its own sequel. I'm not entirely sure I buy this, but it just sounds like such a Wolfean thing to do that I've got to give it another run-through. That's one of the things that I love about Wolfe and really can't find anywhere else. I can read a book, enjoy it, come back to it later or with a different mindset or a new idea, and have a completely different reading experience. The first time I read The Wizard Knight, I enjoyed the first book but lost interest during the second; not much happened. I read them again a few years later, and it was like a completely different (second) book. I seriously wondered what was wrong with my brain the first time, that I could miss out on all of the Oof and Oh and This This This; there were all kinds of acts of significance. Someone else mentioned it a while ago, but I get genuinely concerned whenever there's activity in this thread, because it might mean he's died and then I will never again get that unique experience of reading a Wolfe novel for the first time (wrong but fun, then completely different but fun an indeterminate number of future times).
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May 4, 2015 21:49
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This is out of left field but I discovered the song "venus in furs" by velvet underground and read a little about the orginal 1870's novel and can't help but think that severian is an obvious reference.
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May 7, 2015 05:36
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WOLFE IS NOT DEAD, I REPEAT WOLFE IS NOT DEAD. With that out of the way, I've been rereading Wizard Knight and would love to hear some opinions on this one. First time I read it, I more or less focused on the whole "kid's idea of what a knight should do compared to actual morals" angle and this time around Able seems a lot less of a jerk than I remember him being. One thing I only noticed now from it is that it seems very much aware of its world just being a story, describing Mythgarthr as "the clearing where stories are told" and putting it on same level as dreams. I also like how Able is repeatedly being made a messianic figure for various forces - and repeatedly failing at it.
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May 10, 2015 20:16
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anilEhilated posted:WOLFE IS NOT DEAD, I REPEAT WOLFE IS NOT DEAD. I've only read it once, but in both books I thought Able was always striving to be who he wanted to be. Like he literally gets made into a man via sex with the Faerie queen. His passage into being a knight has that path as well: he starts off by just being this big guy who calls himself a knight, and by steps, eventually becomes that ideal. This seems to be related with the various layers of reality, since every layer worships the creatures on the higher layer - and this makes a fair bit of sense when Able gets that magic helmet that can pierce illusions. The Faeries are revealed to be in his eyes something less than human - even his beloved Faerie queen. So, yeah, striving to be better, definitely a major theme of the book. Incidentally, if there was a casual reader was going through this thread looking for opinions, The Knight/Wizard is very firmly on the "to read" Gene Wolfe list, right? I thought it was brilliant.
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May 17, 2015 23:28
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Nebakenezzer posted:I've only read it once, but in both books I thought Able was always striving to be who he wanted to be. Like he literally gets made into a man via sex with the Faerie queen. His passage into being a knight has that path as well: he starts off by just being this big guy who calls himself a knight, and by steps, eventually becomes that ideal. This seems to be related with the various layers of reality, since every layer worships the creatures on the higher layer - and this makes a fair bit of sense when Able gets that magic helmet that can pierce illusions. The Faeries are revealed to be in his eyes something less than human - even his beloved Faerie queen. Wizard Knight is probably my most read Wolfe. It's the one that I find the easiest to read for fun. I can just turn my brain off and go along for the ride, you know? It is also great when you want to do a close reading as well. I certainly think it is his most balanced book.
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May 18, 2015 00:07
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DONT CARE BUTTON posted:This is out of left field but I discovered the song "venus in furs" by velvet underground and read a little about the orginal 1870's novel and can't help but think that severian is an obvious reference. Having read "Venus In Furs," I couldn't pick out any obvious connection. Severin used to be a more popular name than it is now, and I see Gene Wolfe's use of the name as another example of him appropriating old words to use in his own manner.
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Jun 4, 2015 02:11
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Just about all the characters in Book of the New Sun are named after saints.
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Jun 4, 2015 09:41
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Just like real people! I think I read somewhere that the Severan dynasty was connected to the decay and fall of the Roman empire, could be a reference too.
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Jun 4, 2015 09:46
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Disappointing egg posted:Just about all the characters in Book of the New Sun are named after saints. More specifically, humans are named after saints, aliens are not.
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Jun 4, 2015 10:30
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:More specifically, humans are named after saints, aliens are not. Palaemon is both a saint and a god. Some people think that he's really Ossipago, partly on this basis, Palaemon's relationship with Severian, and also because of the eye stuff he has.
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Jun 4, 2015 11:39
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:More specifically, humans are named after saints, aliens are not. Not quite! You forgot Loyal to the Group of Seventeen. And didn't Baldanders begin as a human? Also (UotNS, I think) all the robots are called "Steel" or "Iron" in different languages. I seem to recall hearing about a heretic named Severian - perhaps an early bishop - too. But then there are probably heretics called Paul or Stan, too.
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Jun 4, 2015 16:09
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House Louse posted:Not quite! You forgot Loyal to the Group of Seventeen. And didn't Baldanders begin as a human? Also (UotNS, I think) all the robots are called "Steel" or "Iron" in different languages. He was a preacher in Syria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severian_of_Gabala
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Jun 8, 2015 18:30
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I can't believe he died as soon as I started reading one of his books.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:38
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Stravinsky posted:I can't believe he died as soon as I started reading one of his books. Gene Wolfe's not dead.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:43
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Jun 16, 2015 15:50
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You're a class act, Stravinsky.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:52
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so hosed up
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Jun 16, 2015 16:02
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Stravinsky posted:I can't believe he died as soon as I started reading one of his books. Which one of his books are you reading?
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Jun 16, 2015 16:03
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Stravinsky posted:I can't believe he died as soon as I started reading one of his books. Hahahahahaha You rear end. Just started rereading the Latro books. I might try an effort post at some point, if anyone is interested, but I think there might be some evidence that Wolfe intends for Latro to be an Olympian who took mortal form and lost his memory of his divinity in battle. Or perhaps he was possessed by a god prior to the injury and now the god is still trapped within him. I was thinking Zeus, at first, but parts of the second book have me considering whether or not he could be Ares instead. I'll have to complete the three before making up my mind, but I do think it is worth considering.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:22
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Easiest way to find this thread without using bookmarks. Now that I am at a real keyboard here are some unsolicited thoughts now that I finished the first half of the book of the new sun: First off the two central conceit(s?) of the book do much in the way to allow wolfe to sidestep several problems. First is the way that he eschews the use of made up words that plague so many scifi/fantasy stories by stating that this is all brought back from the future and decided to translate this from an unknown language and instead of inventing uses words that are in relative proximity to what is actually meant. Many works devote up to a whole paragraph explaining how a creature used for travel is so many hands high has ten legs, glows in the dark, two heads, and feeds only on human milk which in the end it tells you that it is a horse but not really but that not really has zero bearing on the actual story. Wolfe instead just says its a horse and moves on. It is really refreshing. The other conceit being that of the unreliable narrator that is severian. This allows the reader to decide that certain goofy parts (the whole man ape encounter for example) are goofy because severian is changing the events to benefit him in some way. While this may not be intentional but it allows the possibility because after all death of the author and all that.Several people have told me that this book "transcends genre fiction and becomes literature with a capital L," or essentially something to that affect. I wholeheartedly disagree. It is thoroughly a piece of genre fiction and could not exist without the context that it is a scifi/fantasy story(which by the way is cool that wolfe fully embraces the whole any technology far enough advance seems to be magic to those who do not understand it btw). It is not to say that it is not well written, and that it is not literature. It is the thought that purely due to the fact that it is a piece of scifi/fantasy that it has a mark against it that I disagree with. The genre fiction ghetto is a real thing that exists not because works within are inherently poor due to being genre but rather that because those who write inside of genre work hard to detach themselves from the greater context of literature to create small ponds from which they hope to be big fish (evidence of which for the scifi/fantasy ghetto being the nebula award, the sfwa, and more) thus atrophying standards that allow books that would otherwise be eaten by the bigger fish of the world, say the nabokov or the pynchons (who is himself, especially with bleeding edge, a genre writer) and so to make it stand tall where they would otherwise not. To disconnect wolfe is a mistake and makes it seem better than it is placing it on a pedestal that does not and should not exist. So far it is a good book, maybe I will change my views completely by the end of it. Also noticed the naming conventions that are used. I have not read this thread and so do not know if it has been brought up. So far it seems that those who are close (in an emotional sense) to severian have name of saints or religous figures from judeao-christian/muslim teachings. Those who are not but are important characters in their own right have names coming from mythology.
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Jun 16, 2015 17:59
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Names in Book of the New Sun vaguely follow these lines: Saint Names: Human Names of mythic origin: non-human SPOILERS AGAIN, MIGHT WANNA FINISH THE SERIES BEFORE YOU READ THE REST Names that tend to fall between the two, or are something else entirely, are aliens, often attempting to pass as human.
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Jun 16, 2015 23:27
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If that's how the naming conventions work, then explain Typhon.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:44
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CountFosco posted:If that's how the naming conventions work, then explain Typhon. He's probs an alien/non-human.  Else he could just be "monstrous" in his tyranny, and prior to adopting the name Typhon he had a "normal" human name. There really aren't any hard and fast rules to Wolfe's onomastics. Generally that is how names seem to work in BotNS, but information is fed to us in such a way that it is really difficult to see the whole picture.Edit: I forgot to mention, Wolfe actually declares this to be the case in his essay on onomastics in Castle of Days. If you look it up on Google books it is page 252. Unfortunately the essay cuts of there, and I don't have a copy of it yet. 
Chichevache fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 18, 2015 16:54
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He's probably an alien given the fact he's one of the few capable of using technology to its full extent and aware the existence of space without resorting to mythical explanations (since, y'know, Long Sun happens). Humans are generally caught up on this magical world they live in and not aware of the wider scope of things, the Autarch being the exception. Alternately, he was a human that became aware of the situation and took up the name as a means of renouncing his humanity. Anyway, does it explicitly state he's human anywhere? I admit I forgot.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:23
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anilEhilated posted:Anyway, does it explicitly state he's human anywhere? I admit I forgot. It does not. However since he is grafted to that extremely large man when we meet him- the name escaped me- he is possibly genetically human. Perhaps Wolfe intends for his new life to be a renunciation of his humanity? I think that is one of my favorite things about Wolfe. There don't really seem to be any answers to these problems. Instead it seems that he wants each reader to make them work for themselves, however it is they choose to do it.
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Jun 18, 2015 19:39
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Chichevache posted:It does not. However since he is grafted to that extremely large man when we meet him- the name escaped me- he is possibly genetically human. Perhaps Wolfe intends for his new life to be a renunciation of his humanity? The big dude is named Piaton, after the saint, so definitely human. Typhon prolongs his life through possession of an unwilling human host, simultaneously playing God and the devil, so yeah maybe that's the source of his loss of humanity.
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Jun 19, 2015 00:26
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My favorite author. It always feels like I am an an idiot watching a murder mystery. It is always so deep, like clues I have missed, etc. I will eventually buy everything he has every written. He has earned his own shelf.
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Jun 19, 2015 07:40
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Argali posted:Ugh, Home Fires is really, really bad. Picked it up from the library and I'm 75 pages in...no reason to go on. I want some explanation, but I know everyone makes up their own, which is wonderful and confusing. Has anyone figured it out? I bought a dictionary book for dad to try to explain. Is there some coherent explanation of what happened?
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Jun 19, 2015 07:47
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The narrator lying to me while having a perfect memory was a mindfuck. I am working on the short stories, but that earns a re-read, with skepticism.
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Jun 19, 2015 08:06
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Levitate posted:This is amazing I... Wow.
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Jun 19, 2015 08:19
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thewireguy posted:I want some explanation, but I know everyone makes up their own, which is wonderful and confusing. Has anyone figured it out? I bought a dictionary book for dad to try to explain. Is there some coherent explanation of what happened?
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Jun 19, 2015 09:34
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Stravinsky posted:Several people have told me that this book "transcends genre fiction and becomes literature with a capital L," or essentially something to that affect. I wholeheartedly disagree. It is thoroughly a piece of genre fiction and could not exist without the context that it is a scifi/fantasy story(which by the way is cool that wolfe fully embraces the whole any technology far enough advance seems to be magic to those who do not understand it btw). It is not to say that it is not well written, and that it is not literature. It is the thought that purely due to the fact that it is a piece of scifi/fantasy that it has a mark against it that I disagree with. The genre fiction ghetto is a real thing that exists not because works within are inherently poor due to being genre but rather that because those who write inside of genre work hard to detach themselves from the greater context of literature to create small ponds from which they hope to be big fish (evidence of which for the scifi/fantasy ghetto being the nebula award, the sfwa, and more) thus atrophying standards that allow books that would otherwise be eaten by the bigger fish of the world, say the nabokov or the pynchons (who is himself, especially with bleeding edge, a genre writer) and so to make it stand tall where they would otherwise not. To disconnect wolfe is a mistake and makes it seem better than it is placing it on a pedestal that does not and should not exist. So far it is a good book, maybe I will change my views completely by the end of it. Well when people say stuff transcends its genre they either mean it's good, or they're trying not to admit liking genre trash. Not quite sure what the rest of your points are; today, yes, sf is a bit more of a self-imposed ghetto than 50 years ago, but I also think it's good that it's self-aware and engaging with itself. And stuff like the Nebulas isn't evidence of a ghetto. Why do you call Pynchon a genre writer, and why's it a mistake to disconnect Wolfe from literature in general? I don't think that just using fantastic elements is enough to qualify as genre. Incidentally I think the second book is the worst. btw if you enjoyed the calling an alien horse a horse stuff you might like Paul Park, who goes so far with this idea that he invents a culture of people without names so he doesn't have to give them made up fantasy names. quote:Also noticed the naming conventions that are used. I have not read this thread and so do not know if it has been brought up. So far it seems that those who are close (in an emotional sense) to severian have name of saints or religous figures from judeao-christian/muslim teachings. Those who are not but are important characters in their own right have names coming from mythology. Wolfe says that everything is named for what it is: the humans have human names, the monsters have names of monsters, etc. Wolfe's into mythology and history.
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Jun 19, 2015 14:59
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I got 3 books of short stories and they are fantastic. He just edged out Neil gaiman as my favorite author.
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Jun 20, 2015 13:13
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thewireguy posted:I got 3 books of short stories and they are fantastic. He just edged out Neil gaiman as my favorite author. I really like Golden City Far in Starwater Strains. If you haven't read that collection give it a shot.
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Jun 22, 2015 18:48
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