Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Finished Interlibrary Loan. The first half is alright, then it gradually gets more and more incomprehensible. Toward the end you can tell Old Man Wolfe knew he didn't have much time left and just wanted to get the thing finished.

The last page, though, is incredible. What a loving way to go out.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2023 22:19

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 04:32

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

I liked Land Across. The atmosphere made up for the weak narrative.

I thought the last half of The Sorcerer's House was pretty bad, until I realized it's just a bunch of poo poo the protagonist made up so he could lure his brother into the house and murder him

I haven't read the third Latro book because I'm afraid it's going to be bad and retroactively color my opinion of the first two, which I really enjoyed.

My favorite is Silhouette. Hard sell since it's crammed in the very back of Endangered Species, but I think it's a good intro because it's a lot shorter than the ones people typically recommend.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 05:03

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

anilEhilated posted:

I have literally no idea who any of those people are which makes me kind of wary of their fanfiction.

Can't be as bad as Driussi's

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 02:20

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Osmosisch posted:

Typhon also having two dongs is a pretty good sight gag, but I don't think I'll be going for a book by randos, Wolfe is inimitable.

It's a riff on a throwaway line from Long Sun. They go through a church that's been converted to a brothel, and see that someone vandalized the painting of Pas (uploaded mind of Typhon) so that he's jacking off his pair of erections.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2023 07:19

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

The setting of Wizard/Knight is pretty bland compared to Solar Cycle. The giant kingdom is my favorite part.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 20:52

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

I recommend Interlibrary Loan next. It's not properly edited because Old Man Wolfe wrote it on his deathbed, so the last quarter is incomprehensible and has characters from the first book popping in where he clearly just spoonerized the names. But the payoff at the end is incredible.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2023 17:53

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

The best part of Evil Guest is when the private detective gets transported to R'lyeh and resurrected on the beach. That's the only part that sticks in my memory as good.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2023 00:11

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Old Swerdlow posted:

A lot of the fan-service part really hampered my enjoyment of the series and kind of retroactively made previous parts of the series worse through unnecessary explanations.

This is the one thing you've said that I completely agree with. Going back in time and meeting Severian was dumb as hell and added nothing to the story.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2023 22:23

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

I like There Are Doors but I don't think I could ever convince anyone else to read it. The best part is the atmosphere, and it's difficult to communicate that without just quoting large parts of the book verbatim. Plus the description on the softback makes it sound unappealing and communicates next to nothing about the actual contents.

Gaius Marius posted:

It is if The Whorl is Yesod.

I have yet to be convinced of the whole urth equals blue lune equals green yesod equals whorl deal. And to be honest even if it's true it doesn't change how I feel about it. That revelation could have been delivered any number of ways besides bringing back the protagonist from New Sun for a cameo.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2023 07:39

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Old Swerdlow posted:

I found in my reading that is was fairly obvious Green is Urth; and I don�t mean it in a condescending way. The first point is that Gene is obviously going to subvert green = lune, Urth was flooded so = blue.; he loves to be a trickster and the Solar Cycle books have him constantly subvert our expectations. I viewed Blue as hell and Green as heaven (even if it suck there too!; but that�s just because the inhumu are a reflection of mankind) The more evidence based part is that Horn/Silk constantly compares the inhumu city to the red whorl city. Lastly, the Neighbors literally get Horn to recreate Sevarian�s New Sun arrival by having him trudge into the sewers and hack away at a giant mass of bodies to release a flood to clean everything up.

Sorry if this comes off as snarky or condescending, no ill will or anything of that intended!

You're absolutely correct that there are obvious thematic parallels, but I don't consider that proof that they're literally the same location.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2023 19:53

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Gaius Marius posted:

I swear there is a part in Urth where someone in Typhon's camp outright states that he built a fleet and sent it out to return and reconquer Urth as a backup plan, but I cannot find it with a simple text search, one of the few drawbacks of the baroque vocabulary used.

You may be thinking of Cyriaca's story about the ancient autarch (though they were not called autarchs then) and his plan if his empire should fail him, where he would retreat into a vault of stories that he had, in imitation of the ancients, been determined to cast aside. That's the only Typhon backup plan I can think of, though it's been a long time since I read Urth so he might have one there. The story of the ancient machines is my favorite part of New Sun and I've basically got it committed to memory.

It would be disingenuous of me to argue with you about the rest, because internal lore consistency was never really my problem to begin with.

Pistol_Pete posted:

I've mostly have no idea what's going on in Wolfe novels, 'cos I'm dumb (and a lazy reader): I'm just along for the ride. I don't know how you guys come up with all this stuff like: "Obviously Corrian's digressionary journey through the shifting city echos the arc in the previous book where that protagonist (who may or may not be related to Corrian) lost his powerful faith and wandered helplessly for a time. It also contains clear references to the parable of the Prodigal Son, in that yadda yadda yadda."

And I'm all: "The main dude just chopped that bad guy with his sword: cool! And now he's following a mysterious cloaked figure into a cave for some reason. Perhaps there's treasure in there!"

I think this gets right to the heart of the matter. A mystery is worth solving if it's attached to a compelling narrative. I think when people say Short Sun (or Long Sun, or any book) has nothing going on, what they're really saying is they didn't think the juice is worth the squeeze. I liked Short Sun, but when Severian showed up and said "wow this is wacky, I'd better not tell anyone about this!" it didn't leave me with the urge to investigate further. The flashback sequences had their moments though, especially Scylla finding the corpse of her original body.

To Pistol Pete I will also say that Gene Wolfe's books are inspired by pulp stories he loved as a kid (vampires, werewolves, noir detectives, pirates, wizards, knights, science fantasy, post apocalypse) and I suspect a lot of stuff in his books is there because he thought it was cool, rather than for lore reasons. Obviously there's no way to prove it one way or the other, but it's good to keep in mind that sometimes fun things are there for fun.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2023 17:47

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Silk being a clone of Pas is not something I ever considered, but it does give new context to a throwaway line from Sword of the Lictor.

In New Sun Typhon says he had his head transplanted onto a new body rather than just his brain because it was important that people recognize his face. I originally interpreted that as an inability to rekey retinal, facial and voice scanners that let him use lost technology. But if Silk is a clone of Typhon, and a guy with genetically engineered super-charisma as the characters in Long Sun suggest, then Typhon might have had genetic super-charisma powers that required him to keep his original face. Severian's description of his initial encounter with Typhon implies the guy was some kind of psychic, but it's not clear whether that's actually what's happening or his own interpretation.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2023 19:40

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Gaius Marius posted:

Dude has a serious problem of talking with authority on poo poo he completely fails to grasp.

Glad nobody here does that.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2023 00:28

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

my bony fealty posted:

I have no idea why but for some reason Fifth Head is a Christmas story to me, moreso than the actual Christmas stories he wrote, so I'll be rereading that for the nth time soon.

The two Christmas stories I remember were real downers. There's the one where the toys have to fight to avoid being incinerated, and the one where the living house holds a Christmas party for the kid while his parents are dead in the freezer then the house burns down and I think he gets molested by a guy in a Santa outfit.

I did enjoy the New Years story in Book of Days. It has one of my favorite endings, up there with Interlibrary Loan.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2023 06:03

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Wrapped Pandora by Holly Hollander. It doesn't have a fantastical setting like New Sun, or rich atmosphere like There Are Doors, but I still liked it. The character voice is very different from Wolfe's other first person narrators like Severian and Abel and Latro. It's a little similar to the guy from Land Across, but demonstrates that the author has a good range.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 22:09

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Working on Castleview now. It feels like a mix of Devil in a Forest (teenage protagonists face a supernatural threat in an isolated community where the authorities are powerless) and Land Across (vampires and general vibe). It's not my favorite so far but I'm interested to see how all the pieces fit together.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 00:14

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 04:32

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

Lex Talionis posted:

Please report back. It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall I definitely felt like the pieces did not, in fact, fit together. Or rather, it seemed like they did in Gene's head, but he just didn't write enough of it down.

I'm with you on this. I can understand what's happening in the broad strokes (there's a place where the barrier between worlds is weak, the events of the novel are caused by a power struggle on the fey side that spills over into our world) but as for picking out why individual events happen or specific characters do what they do, I'm at a loss. My biggest issue is the pacing. Most of the book is spent with groups of characters scattered across the map, trying to meet up or find one another. Once they all get together the whole thing ends very quickly in a rush of supernatural action, with new characters popping out of nowhere.

I'm sure if I went back through I could find lots of clues explaining who everyone is and why he wrote it the way he did, but I reserve that type of deep reading for things I actually enjoy. Even the lesser Wolfes usually have segments which I think about to this day. The sequence in An Evil Guest where the private detective gets sucked down to Ryleh, or the ending of Interlibrary Loan. I can't think of anything in Castleview that grabbed me the same way.

It feels like a prototype for later stories that would dig into the same subject matter with greater success. Arthurian fantasy with a power struggle in an alternate fairy world gets a more complete exploration in Wizard/Knight, while Vampire Noir gets room to breathe in The Land Across.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:52

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Gene Wolfe: these books are basically the Dark Souls of reading