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rufius posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels like some of Wolfe's stuff is non-sensical. I had a similar experience with deciding to reread the BotNS, but once I got started I didn't regret it at all. I don't expect to understand everything even after a second reading (I haven't read UotNS or BotLS yet at all) but a lot of scenes that seemed completely arbitrary the first time around become a lot more relevant in context.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:17
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rufius posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels like some of Wolfe's stuff is non-sensical. Honestly you might be better off not trying to interpret the writing and just read it for what all the literary meaning is hung on: a classic coming-of-age adventure story. Don't feel too bad if you skip all the stuff that seems opaque, like Severian/Jolenta/Baldanders/Dr. Talos's play. If you want, you can always come back later.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:38
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rufius posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels like some of Wolfe's stuff is non-sensical. But there is genuine nonsense associated with his books: a lot of what passes for interpretation of his books, in my opinion, are stupid reader theories that get more attention than they deserve because the readers in question are obviously very smart. But even smart people (I'm thinking of people like Borski and Clute) can't help but project their own ideas on what is at times more of a Rorschach inkblot than a picture. rufius posted:I'm struggling to convince myself to finish the fourth. I found the writing of the first three interesting but at times tedious. I hate leaving things unfinished but I can't seem to get up the energy to focus on the last book.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:50
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Lex Talionis posted:My advice, contra some of the others who have already responded, is if you don't like Wolfe then don't force it. Lots of people don't like Wolfe. It's true that many people have reported a much better experience the second time through BOTNS, but life's too short to read books that aren't for you. Agreed. I've asked about 10 friends to read his books and nobody ever likes them. I just give up and read the books they suggested in turn 
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Dec 3, 2012 23:03
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Lex Talionis posted:I'd say that sometimes (maybe even frequently) Wolfe writes too cryptically, so that whatever meaning he intends is unreachable by his readers. The interesting thing (to me) about my experience is that I did actually enjoy what I was reading. I think the writing (mechanically speaking) is just hard to adapt to. The cryptic nature of the work is frustrating but not entirely off-putting. You're advice is accurate. I'll read some non-fiction for a bit and revisit it after that
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Dec 4, 2012 00:54
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rufius posted:The interesting thing (to me) about my experience is that I did actually enjoy what I was reading. I think the writing (mechanically speaking) is just hard to adapt to. The cryptic nature of the work is frustrating but not entirely off-putting. You're advice is accurate. You'll probably have a better time with Long Sun, which is leagues more readable and quite pulpy by Wolfe standards, so my advice to is power through, dude.
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Dec 4, 2012 06:27
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I just finished Urth of the New Sun, and I have a couple questions about the ending I'm hoping people can shed some light on: It seems like it's a really odd and random place to end, with Severian walking toward "where the other gods sleep." Is there significance here I'm not getting? The last appendix about the miracle of Apu-Punchau talks about how Severian held back the dawn (which I hadn't even realized he'd done, drat it Gene Wolfe). It mentions the possibility of an eclipse, with something coming in between Urth and the sun, and says "the thoughtful reader will find little difficulty in advancing at least one plausible speculation." I must not be thoughtful because heck if I can figure it out.
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Dec 4, 2012 13:21
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Thinky Whale posted:I just finished Urth of the New Sun, and I have a couple questions about the ending I'm hoping people can shed some light on: The moon?
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Dec 5, 2012 04:14
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The ship.
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Dec 5, 2012 09:05
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Neurosis posted:The ship. Yeah. No doubt.
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Dec 5, 2012 10:23
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Neurosis posted:The ship. Oooh. Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.
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Dec 5, 2012 10:38
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Neurosis posted:The ship. This was my second guess.
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Dec 5, 2012 19:41
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If nothing else Gene Wolfe taught me that I vastly prefer reading other people's interpretations to doing my own. I just don't enjoy reading analytically for pleasure as a general rule, but I love seeing the depths that people pull out of these things.
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Dec 5, 2012 21:32
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rufius posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels like some of Wolfe's stuff is non-sensical. A bit of a necro quote, but I am left feeling pretty blah after finishing the first book of the BoTNS series. I'm guessing from the love you guys are showing the series that there is more to it than meets the eye, but from a straight writing and story standpoint it's been extremely lackluster. The characters are not terribly interesting. Severian reminds me of the Plinkett Episode 1 Review when they asked people to describe Qui Gon Jinn. There is really nothing much there to describe outside of literally describing who he is. Considering he's the guy narrating the tale, it's pretty damning that his characterization has been so poor. Dorcas, so far, is basically 'mysterious plot device the character'. Also, the book itself just kind of ends out of nowhere. I'm not entirely sure what the climax was. The duel? The play? I've read books with odd writing, but this comes off more like bad writing than just being intentionally weird and obtuse. EDIT: And another thing...the setting itself is interesting, but poorly described. I'd love to know more about it, but Wolfe so far has proven to be terrible at writing in a way that helps you visualize just about anything with any level of clarity. I do, however, have a perfect visualization of Severian's fuligin cloak because it's described repeatedly throughout the book. DFu4ever fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 19:35
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DFu4ever posted:I'm guessing from the love you guys are showing the series that there is more to it than meets the eye, but from a straight writing and story standpoint it's been extremely lackluster. Wolfe does not follow the conventional plot structures, or at least doesn't appear to. The Book of the New Sun begins, develops, and ends in a climax. But although it seems like this is supposed to be an action/adventure story, it's not, and therefore the climax isn't going to be a three way swordfight between Severian, Vodalus, and the Autarch. Swordfights do happen, but they won't align with the rhythms you expect out of a narrative because this is not a story about swordfights. This is why Wolfe didn't spoil his own book when he ends the first chapter with Severian mentioning he eventually rises to the throne. The other thing is that Wolfe does not write with the aim of clearly communicating information. The clear action and dialogue in any Wolfe book is just the scaffold for what he is trying to indirectly convey. In New Sun he tells very few specifics of the setting outright and instead tries to create an atmosphere by using words the reader won't know but are built out of the Latin and Greek structures that are the foundation of our actual language. By the same token, Severian tells you little about what he thinks or feels, but his character emerges from the gaps and from details he accidentally lets slip (people like to say he lies, but he does this rarely if ever, he just omits key information). For instance, most authors, wanting to communicate something about the impact of Severian's upbringing on his attitude toward torture, would have either him as a narrator flat out tell us or else provide a different character who would persuasively tell Severian (who might not listen, but we as readers would) why he thinks the way he does. Wolfe expects us to notice how Severian rationalizes torture, how the longer he's away from the guild the less comfortable he is with it and the more desperate his rationalizations become, and to see from his actions (because he doesn't tell us) his increasing degree of estrangement from his origins. You're free to interpret all this as "Wolfe is a bad writer". Many people do. But many other people, including lots of critics and authors but also random people in this thread, think he's doing something almost uniquely amazing (when it works, which it doesn't always).
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Feb 27, 2013 03:28
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DFu4ever posted:A bit of a necro quote, but I am left feeling pretty blah after finishing the first book of the BoTNS series. I'm guessing from the love you guys are showing the series that there is more to it than meets the eye, but from a straight writing and story standpoint it's been extremely lackluster. It sounds like these aren't the books for you. I suggest finding a warhammer 40k novel or perhaps something with a star wars logo on the front.
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Feb 27, 2013 11:31
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DFu4ever posted:A bit of a necro quote, but I am left feeling pretty blah after finishing the first book of the BoTNS series. I'm guessing from the love you guys are showing the series that there is more to it than meets the eye, but from a straight writing and story standpoint it's been extremely lackluster. It's actually the greatest piece of science fiction ever written, but if you aren't enjoying it now, you probably won't enjoy it later. I struggle to think of another piece of sci-fi that works so well on so many levels at once.
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Feb 27, 2013 12:41
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Here's something that might interest people:quote:I was in the enviable position of seeing an advance copy of the upcoming Wolfe Tribute Anthology, Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe, edited by J.E. Mooney and Bill Fawcett. It will be coming out August 27th. No one should be surprised that Swanwick did a good tribute of Wolfe, since he already did an admirable job of it in Stations of the Tide.
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Mar 2, 2013 15:23
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DFu4ever posted:
This is to do with the book having been written from Severian's point of view. In the book's introduction (in the edition that I have, anyway), Wolfe speaks of three distinct levels of technology existing at that time: a basic, medieval level that would be familiar to everyone; a considerably higher level available to the aristocratic classes and certain other groups and a 'galactic' level of technology, brought to Earth from outside the Solar System. These three levels of technology roughly correspond to Severian's understanding of the world and hence, his ability to describe that world. Things like swords, torture and yes, his fuligin cloak, he is intimitely familiar with and can describe in great detail. Of the wider world and the more arcane technologies that exist in it, he knows very little and his descriptions are necessarily much more vague and incomplete. The aliens and alien technologies that he encounters are practically incomprehensible to him: he is only able to speak of them in an extremely abstract and basic fashion: "... and then I saw this weird thing that did a weird thing to some other weird things." So it comes back again to the unreliable narrator (unreliable in these cases, because he often has very little idea what he's talking about).
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Mar 2, 2013 18:27
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Personally, half the fun of the books is figuring out when Severian is outright lying. If you read carefully, you can find several contradictions that aren't a plot-hole, but a clue.
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Mar 3, 2013 11:51
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my dad posted:Personally, half the fun of the books is figuring out when Severian is outright lying. If you read carefully, you can find several contradictions that aren't a plot-hole, but a clue. Example?
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Mar 3, 2013 14:35
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BuckarooBanzai posted:Example? He insists that he's not sleeping with Thecla through the first book, then later on he fondly looks back at all the sex he had with Thecla.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:44
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Weird how a guy with perfect memory would forget what he previously wrote. Or is that totally the point? Are his obvious inconsistencies there just to prove his memory is in fact poo poo? Or is Severian recalling the perceptions of several Severians, whose realities differ from one another's?
Carly Gay Dead Son fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 23:37
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Maybe he's misremembering things as Thecla.
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Mar 4, 2013 02:29
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:He insists that he's not sleeping with Thecla through the first book, then later on he fondly looks back at all the sex he had with Thecla. I could be misremembering, but I don't think he ever outright claims to not sleep with Thecla. I think he just omits it.
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Mar 4, 2013 03:24
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Beyond sane knolls posted:Weird how a guy with perfect memory would forget what he previously wrote. Or is that totally the point? Are his obvious inconsistencies there just to prove his memory is in fact poo poo? Or is Severian recalling the perceptions of several Severians, whose realities differ from one another's? Severian often mentions not being able to remember something small, or a memory being hazy, but he quickly rationalizes it away--things were so intense that he wasn't concentrating, or he was concentrating so intently on one thing that he didn't pay attention to others, etc. But he does it enough that you eventually realize that his memory's definitely not as good as he thinks it is--he's so wedded to the idea that it's perfect that he ignores all evidence to the contrary even when he's aware of it. Off the top of my head I remember him forgetting what meal he brought Thecla during a given encounter and being unable to recall a lot of details about the boat battle in volume 4, but there are a bunch of others, as well. Thing is, he mentions these things so offhandedly that I personally didn't even notice them on the first read-through--we're used to narrators saying "I kind of forget this little detail" because hey, that's what people do, so our brain doesn't make a special note of it when it pops up. Once you're familiar with Severian's character and how much he defines himself by his memory, though, the little inconsistencies pop out at you and make you question Severian's version of things.
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Mar 4, 2013 22:04
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BuckarooBanzai posted:I could be misremembering, but I don't think he ever outright claims to not sleep with Thecla. I think he just omits it.
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Mar 5, 2013 02:04
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Neurosis posted:Here's something that might interest people: Yeah, anyone who's enough of a fan to be reading this thread should pick up Stations of the Tide - it's the best Gene Wolfe novel Gene Wolfe didn't actually write. I can't wait to see how Swanwick riffs off of Fifth Head of Cerberus.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:13
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Well, I never expected to get Michael Swanwick recs from this thread, because the two novels of his I've read have been some of the worst stuff I've ever encountered. To this day I actually use paragraphs from one of them (Jack Faust, specifically) to teach my freshmen students how not to construct sentences. I'll keep an eye out for Tide, though, and that tribute antho sounds neat.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:46
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H.P. Shivcraft posted:Well, I never expected to get Michael Swanwick recs from this thread, because the two novels of his I've read have been some of the worst stuff I've ever encountered. To this day I actually use paragraphs from one of them (Jack Faust, specifically) to teach my freshmen students how not to construct sentences. Seriously? I feel like Swanwick is a good enough writer to break the rules of grammar for effect. (Unlike most freshman students.) Could you quote those paragraphs here?
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Mar 5, 2013 22:17
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Cherry Dare posted:Seriously? I feel like Swanwick is a good enough writer to break the rules of grammar for effect. (Unlike most freshman students.) Could you quote those paragraphs here? I don't use them because they break the rules of grammar. I use them because they're completely correct technically and they're still godawful writing. Swanwick has a tortuous and purple style (in, admittedly, the two novels I've read -- they may be flukes). Wolfe can be purple, too, but he's purple in a calculated way -- he often puts his weirdest words in the mouths of first-person narrators, which lets him sell strangeness as an idiolect. This also suggests his greater attention to prose as a medium. Swanwick seems to favor third-person omniscient narrators, narrators who talk about whispers in an "ophidian darkness" during a seduction scene without a hint of irony, and as a result those narrators end up sounding like an author trying to be incredibly self-important. I'm not going to bother quoting the paragraph I use with my students, since this isn't the "poo poo on Michael Swanwick" thread, but I'll PM you.
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Mar 6, 2013 00:13
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I've only read three Swanwick novels but I got the impression the style of prose in each was a conscious choice for the purposes of writing that novel rather than Swanwick possessing a homogeneous authorial voice. Obviously, that doesn't excuse the flaws of a given book, but it means that the problems in a given book are not necessarily pervasive in his other works. Stations of the Tide is a very good facsimile of Wolfe. The odd word choice is there but from recollection they were almost always for a certain effect. I haven't read his take on Faust, yet, so I couldn't comment on that book.
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Mar 6, 2013 07:37
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Just finished The Book of the New Sun. It was definitely ambitious and unique and worth reading, but I was still bored for most of it. Severian's narration and the general style Wolfe employs throughout is absolutely fantastic for worldbuilding, and for dropping tantalising little glimpses of the world (i.e. in the first book when Severian is describing the Citadel and just casually mentions a room that was originally "the structure's propulsion chamber"), but it fails at actually telling a compelling and entertaining story (with a few exceptions; the alzabo at the mountain cabin was gripping.) There's a lot of deus ex machina and philiosphical metaphors and I never really shook the notion that Severian was a puppet being jerked about on a string. Overall it's the kind of book where I prefer reading about the subtext and implications and the background of the world from third party sources rather than from the book itself. I have no doubt it's the kind of series that would reward careful re-reading; the problem is I have no inclination to ever read it again. I am confused about Severian being an unreliable narrator, which I've heard everywhere but didn't notice much at all in the book. There's the aforementioned stuff about how he did/didn't have sex with Thecla, and I read that list floating around online which proves that he doesn't have a perfect memory because every single time he mentions that, he then recalls a memory imperfectly, but usually in an unimportant way (like the exact placement of the Claw on somebody's body.) My understanding was that an unreliable narrator lies to the reader to conceal what would otherwise be a dramatic twist in the plot, but I can't point to any lying or dishonesty on Severian's part that actually had an impact on the story.
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Mar 11, 2013 16:45
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I think someone posted a comment like this a while ago. Since the BotNS is basically an autobiographical account of his own rise to power, Severian's lies are more about embellishment than deception. I also remember all things perfectly, so don't feel the need to question this statement! Also, did you read Urth? It's a lot more straightforward as a narrative as by that point he has already transcended to a divinity, having reconciled humanity with the universe, and does a lot make sense of things that happen in the main book. It's a story where some of the characters literally move backwards through time, so it kind of demands at least one re-read to fully grasp the intricately crafted plot detail. I'll also take this moment to say my favorite part of the story is the duel of magic and the digression that follows about light and darkness. Womyn Capote fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 18:28
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Lex Talionis posted:I'd like to do another reread first (I've read so much wildly wrong stuff about New Sun I can't help but fear I'm similarly deluded) but it will be a few weeks minimum before I get to it. I think he explicitly states this, from memory. And it's very much in line with how the Claw which is just channelling his own power is working. 02-6611-0142-1 posted:Oh, awesome, thanks! I've been wondering about that for a long time. Maybe I will even try the third book. I have a strange disconnect with later Gene Wolfe, which includes the third Soldier book. I absolutely love BotNS, the Fifth Head of Cerberus and the first two Soldier books but find everything after unbearably ploddy and drawn out. I read about half of the Long Sun and it felt like the characters spent the whole time explaining the plot to each other. Does anyone else feel this way? sebmojo fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 01:51
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I felt similarly about the Long Sun, which made me even more surprised reading Short Sun. poo poo goes down, and fast. Also Long Sun does pick up towards the end. And then the ending is  I just finished up a reread of the Wizard/Knight books, which I wouldn't say is overly plodding. There's some dialogue heavy sections, or ones where not a whole lot is accomplished, but outside of those plenty goes on. Blog Free or Die fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 06:19
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DONT CARE BUTTON posted:Also, did you read Urth? It's a lot more straightforward as a narrative Uhhhh...really? If someone found the first four books dense I'd guess they're liable to think Urth is nigh-on goddamn impenetrable. sebmojo posted:I read about half of the Long Sun and it felt like the characters spent the whole time explaining the plot to each other. Does anyone else feel this way? Part of this is, I think, because part of Silk's character is that he's didactic to a fault--he never stops being a teacher and preacher--, but also because in large part the Long Sun books take a lot of their cues from detective novels. Silk has any number of moments where he says something to himself and you scan the preceding paragraphs for what the hell he's talking about, and then pages later he gets his "parlor scene" where he recaps the clues he spent the last twenty pages quietly piecing together (without alerting the reader to the fact that there was even a mystery). The most memorable for me is in Nightside when he remarks, "Only she didn't, did she?" to no one in particular upon discovering a corpse, and no elaboration is provided for it. A few chapters later he explains that she was named after a type of flower that's also known as "Live-Forevers," and he was remarking upon this to himself at the time. I spent at least five minutes scanning the preceding scene trying to figure out who in God's name he was responding to and what that line meant before deciding to just keep reading...and this was on my second read-through. But you're not alone in noticing the tendency toward explanatory conversations--if there's one part of the Long Sun books that sort of sets them back for me, it's how prone the characters (but Silk especially) are to imparting very verbose lessons to one another. PateraOctopus fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 07:47
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PateraOctopus posted:Uhhhh...really? If someone found the first four books dense I'd guess they're liable to think Urth is nigh-on goddamn impenetrable. I just meant from a reliability standpoint. Yeah the story gets into some really strange metaphysical areas, weaving in and out of time, but I think without the deceptiveness or embellishment of the main book.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:01
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freebooter posted:There's a lot of deus ex machina and philiosphical metaphors and I never really shook the notion that Severian was a puppet being jerked about on a string. He is being manipulated. He knows this at the time of writing but not at the time of the events described. The hierodules travel backwards in time and change things whenever they require up to and including reviving Severian when he dies, which happens more than once. Palaemon isn't who he says he is and most likely manipulates Severian into falling in love with Thecla. I can't think of anything else right now but those are two of the biggest.
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Mar 12, 2013 18:36
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That's actually what I don't really remember, is he reviving himself or are the hierodules reviving him every time he dies?
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Mar 12, 2013 19:43
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