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BOTNS is a pretty good series but it is as much genre fiction as as any other fantasy work. And while I really enjoy the language, the plot is far-fetched and near unintelligible at parts, and it's two books too long. Again, I liked the books, the only reason I tend to criticise them is because Wolfe threads fill up with people stamping the series as Literature with a capital L Amethyst fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 8, 2011 |
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Sep 8, 2011 02:35
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Vertigus posted:Yeah I didn't really like Lord of the Rings either Read my post and point out where I said I didn't like it. EDIT: Here is a quote from a far more articulate blogger than I, it sums up what I feel is the main problem with the text as a piece of Literature quote:But where the book most seriously fails in its ambitions is on a more fundamental level, which is that in the stability of the text itself. We know that Severian is a liar quite early on. We also know that what he is writing is destined for public consumption by people in his world, and that Wolfe claims to be acting as a translator of Severian’s manuscript which has traveled long and far, without knowing anything about that audience. These two facts cause the book to be underdetermined with regard to Severian’s motives and to the purpose of the text itself. Because we do not know what intent may be behind Severian’s lies, we can’t derive from the whole what the meaning of any particular piece is, because we do not have the whole context. If Severian were known to be telling the truth, we could inductively grasp the meaning of his history in the world. But because both are uncertain, the book loses sense structurally. This is not a matter of obscurity; rather, it is an intentional choice that indicates a serious failure on the part of Wolfe to push his book past the realm of entertainment. Without our being able to grasp the deeper sense of Severian’s words other than as a maybe-true story, he reduces the book to decontextualized apocrypha, a gnostic gospel without an accompanying authoritative text. This, to me is what makes BOTNS a (very good) sci-fi curio rather than a deeply meaningful work. Another, far less serious criticism I have for these books is that some parts are just plain goofy, like the chapter where Severian fights off a bunch of cave monkeys 
Amethyst fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Sep 8, 2011 |
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Sep 8, 2011 02:42
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Vertigus posted:It was a joke! Oops, misread you then.
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Sep 8, 2011 06:10
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Juaguocio posted:Have you read Sword and Citadel, the second half of the story? If you haven't, I see no value in your insufferably smug "review," because you haven't even gotten to the parts that explain why the books are written the way they are. I would be more inclined to see the value of your arguments if you weren't so busy patting yourself on the back for your stunning feats of hyperbolic vitriol. A book should stand on it's own merits, regardless of weather it's part of a series. I also wouldn't call his opinion hyperbolic or particularly vitriolic. I have read the four books in the series, and judging from his opinion so far, the explanation for the writing style won't satisfy him.
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Sep 12, 2011 04:12
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:The Book of the New Sun is the book, Shadow and Claw is the first two acts of it, so no, he hasn't read it. His opinion was smug but far from vitriolic, are you aware that you are posting on something awful dot com? EDIT: To be clear, the explanation for the obtuse narrative isn't revelatory. In fact, rather than illuminating any of the preceding narrative, it further obfuscates it. Amethyst fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Sep 12, 2011 |
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Sep 12, 2011 05:29
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ElGroucho posted:Basically What's complex about him? As far as I can tell he just bumbles around doing whatever. His main drive seems to be "going forward"
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Apr 1, 2019 01:03
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I read these books years ago in my early 20s and strongly disliked them. I did not understand them and felt the impulse to dissect the plot but ultimately came away frustrated by both the confused mass of potential meaning and by the online discussion that constantly alluded to intracate webs of interconnectedness without ever adequately articulating what it actually was, or what it ultimately meant. Looking back, it's a lot more clear. BOTNS is an expression of spiritual and moral crisis from from an adult convert to Catholicism. Severian is raised into sin and his attempts to escape are confounded by lust, and his distance from divinity. Amethyst fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Apr 1, 2019 |
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Apr 1, 2019 01:56
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How on earth can they run a book discussion podcast with a "no spoiler" policy? That's absurd.
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Apr 1, 2019 02:14
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I think another reason I found these books so frustrating when I read them is that I instinctively shied away from any kind of religious reading. Trying to wrestle a coherent theme from these books without Jesus Christ getting involved is doomed to endless confusion. I believe this is something that afflicts sci fi fandom in general, hence the bewilderment around these books, though I could be projecting.
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Apr 1, 2019 03:36
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Gene Wolfe has talked about this directly. Amazingly I never once saw this quote back when I was desperately rummaging around for an explanation about these books:Gene Wolfe posted:It has been remarked thousands of times that Christ died under torture. Many of us have read so often that he was a "humble carpenter" that we feel a little surge of nausea on seeing the words again. But no one ever seems to notice that the instruments of torture were wood, nails, and a hammer; that the man who built the cross was undoubtedly a carpenter too; that the man who hammered in the nails was as much a carpenter as a soldier, as much a carpenter as a torturer. Very few seem even to have noticed that although Christ was a "humble carpenter," the only object we are specifically told he made was not a table or a chair, but a whip. Wow that's really helpful! Why don't I see this quote in every discussion threa- Gene wolfe, continued from previous posted:And if Christ knew not only the pain of torture but the pain of being a torturer (as it seems certain to me that he did) then the dark figure is also capable of being a heroic and even a holy figure, like the black Christs carved in Africa. Oh.
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Apr 1, 2019 03:41
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CountFosco posted:I like the alzabo soup guys well enough, but I seriously wish they'd stop mapping every single thing onto "the virgin/whore" idea. This is extremely funny. That podcast sounds dumb.
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Apr 1, 2019 03:42
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I get the impression that all of the books after Citadel of the Autarch are similar to the Foundation books Asimov published after the first thee: unnecessary additions written at the request of the publisher because they sold more than all his others. Possibly unfair since I haven't read them. Do they feel like this to read?
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Apr 2, 2019 00:17
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Reading a thousand pages of boring stuff so you can read some good stuff after it is a fool’s errand. There are plenty of great books that don’t require you to slog through rubbish.
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Apr 2, 2019 23:15
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The Vosgian Beast posted:This is the logic of late capitalism What?
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Apr 3, 2019 06:08
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my bony fealty posted:what's any of this have to do with Gene Wolfe anilEhilated posted:Basically it's worth it to tough it out through Long Sun because Short Sun is (IMO) the best of the bunch and makes absolutely no sense without having read Long Sun first.
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Apr 3, 2019 23:24
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ElGroucho posted:I'm sure some people will really like it, it just didn't do anything for me. I think I enjoy the mystery too much. Even though I know it's a sci-fi story, to me it works better as a fantasy story. I enjoy being as clueless as Severian. The enjoyment I might get from unraveling one of the mysteries (with science!) isn't as good as the feeling I read the first time I read about the Atrium of Time, or the encounter with the witches. Have you read "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny?
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Apr 5, 2019 02:35
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