[HN Gopher] Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
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Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)
Author : samclemens
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-01-05 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theringer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theringer.com)
| monkeyfacebag wrote:
| Shadow of the Torturer is one of my all time favorite books. I
| confess I was less impressed with the rest of the Book of the New
| Sun as the world seemed to constrict as it went on, rather than
| expand. In spite of that, I think they're all worth reading.
| branweb wrote:
| I love the series but I think this is an astute
| observation...though I have trouble articulating why I agree
| with this. I wonder if the world constricts or if its
| possibiilties just narrow (as they necessarily must) as the
| story plays out?
| saberience wrote:
| I don't agree with it, but I can perhaps see that as you go
| through the story, more about the setting and "universe" of
| the novel is explained and revealed and so it means that your
| imagination cannot invent as many possibilities for "why
| things are as they are."
|
| When you start reading the book it could be anywhere and
| anywhen and you have no idea about the wider universe and
| setting and inevitably possibilities start to shrink as you
| read and come to understand the bigger picture.
| branweb wrote:
| right exactly, that's what I was trying to say. The
| constriction happens mainly in the imagination rather than
| in the writing. That's the theory at least.
| monkeyfacebag wrote:
| There is are some concrete things that contribute to this
| feeling for me, such as Baldanders becoming a recurring and
| central figure in the plot.
| yborg wrote:
| Also recommend The Book of the Long Sun and its sequel, set
| loosely in the same universe as Book of the New Sun.
|
| He was an industrial engineer by training, and was a senior
| editor on the staff of the journal _Plant Engineering_. This
| always tickles me given how that has to be the absolute nether
| pole of his own writing.
| bouvin wrote:
| Gene Wolfe is one of my favourite authors, and his works more
| than most reward careful (re-)readings. To that end, I can highly
| recommend Alzabo Soup [1], a podcast delving into first Book of
| the New Sun (and currently Book of the Long Sun) in very deep
| detail (it took them a couple of years, with weekly 2 hour
| episodes to make it through BoNW). I reread along with the
| podcasts, and it was well worth it.
|
| [1] https://alzabosoup.libsyn.com
| pugio wrote:
| Thank you for this. I've recently been enjoying the
| Kingslingers podcast (in-depth read-through of Stephen King's
| Dark Tower series), and have been actively looking for other
| read-along analyses of good books. At least for Kingslingers,
| it has significantly increased my enjoyment of the series.
| zabzonk wrote:
| I wouldn't really class Wolfe's books as SF or fantasy, but more
| as extended puzzles. Particularly in the case of the "New Sun"
| books, but also with the "Long Sun" ones, you spend a lot of time
| trying to work out what the heck is going on - and most times
| failing. But they are definitely well worth reading.
| saberience wrote:
| For all those who are saying now "Who's Gene Wolfe??" I strongly,
| strongly, urge you to read his tetralogy "The Book of The New
| Sun," it's one of the finest sci-fi/fantasy series I've ever read
| and I have a pretty damn critical taste when it comes to
| literature. (not trying to sound snobby by the way, I just don't
| praise books like these lightly or without good reason)
|
| So I love Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, Martian Chronicles
| (and other Ray Bradbury books), Ursula K Le Guin(Earthsea), Kurt
| Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five
| etc), Dune, Game of Thrones series, Neuromancer, Asimov
| (basically everything but especially Foundation series), Terry
| Pratchett, and so on...
|
| And I consider Gene Wolfe's work to be on a par with all of the
| above, and I would say he takes sci-fi to another realm. The Book
| of The New Sun is the first sci-fi series I read where I thought,
| "this is literature," as in, comparable with books by Dostoyevsky
| and Hemingway, and I don't believe this is hyperbole, it's just
| that good.
|
| The other amazing thing about The Book of The New Sun is that
| each time you read it you realize you missed about 100 things in
| the previous read-throughs, there is so much "hidden" in plain
| sight and the subsequent read-throughs are like reading a
| completely different book.
|
| So just read it please.
|
| Edited to include Le Guin as another example of "genre fiction"
| as literature.
| strifey wrote:
| I would concur with this. Wolfe and Le Guin, to me, both write
| sci-fi/fantasy as literature while also closely using themes
| that most would consider "genre fiction".
| saberience wrote:
| Agreed with Le Guin, I love the Earthsea books, which are
| more than simple fantasy and have a beautiful spiritual and
| philosophical quality.
| sdepablos wrote:
| Agree with both, but in the case of Le Guin I clearly
| prefer the Hainish Cycle, with classics as The Left Hand of
| Darkness, The Disposesed or The Word for World is Forest
| jowday wrote:
| The final book even concludes with the narrator/protagonist
| suggesting the reader re-read the books to grasp their true
| meaning. IMO, two reads minimum are necessary.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| I think there are many definitions of High Art here. This Is How
| You Lose The Time War is something I'd recommend also, to compare
| and contrast what is considered emotionally vivid, beautiful
| prose, and challenging literature in science fiction now compared
| to Gene Wolfe. It's super fascinating to see how some things have
| changed in its definition of the pinnacle of the art and how
| others have stayed the same.
| root_axis wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation, your setup has piqued my
| interest in terms of how I might appreciate the work as
| compared to Wolfe.
| TinkersW wrote:
| That was a good article, Wolfe has been my favorite author for
| years, so it was interesting to read a little about his life.
|
| Book of the New Sun is obviously his top work, but he had some
| other stuff that as really damn good such as his two books series
| "The Knight"/"The Wizard"
|
| Given the popularity of scifi/fantasy TV shows lately would be
| interesting to see someone attempt to adapt BoTN, but maybe that
| would be just too difficult..
| pavlov wrote:
| I love Wolfe. Which book to read first depends on your attitude
| towards the fantasy genre. If you're skeptical of it, I would
| recommend starting with the compact sci-fi short story trilogy of
| "Fifth Head of Cerberus" rather than the magnum opus of "The Book
| of the New Sun".
|
| If Cerberus works for you, there is a ton more to chew in New
| Sun, and you should absolutely read it whether or not you like
| more mainstream fantasy works.
|
| And if you like New Sun but haven't read Jack Vance's original
| take on a similar world, "Dying Earth", it's absolutely worth it.
| Nowhere near as deep as Wolfe, but way more funny -- a truly
| unique voice from the golden era of sci-fi.
| autarch wrote:
| My email address for many years has been autarch@urth.org. So
| that will tell many people just how much I love Gene Wolfe's
| work.
| laurex wrote:
| The Book of the New Sun is amazing simply for the language. I
| actually thought he was simply making up words until I got out a
| dictionary and discovered that his vocabulary simply far
| surpassed mine, and mine isn't terrible.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| I love the atmosphere and the originality, but you shouldn't go
| into the cycle expecting action - it's like expecting action
| from Blade Runner. The first book takes 100 or 200 pages to
| describe the events of a single day. Some character
| introductions are breathtaking though, I was particularly
| impressed by the hothouse. Some episodes and creatures are
| amazingly creepy.
| sdepablos wrote:
| Same happens with Cervantes. A funny thing is that the more
| languages I learn, the more vocabulary I recognize in a given
| language. In most cases obscure words from one language are
| pretty common in another.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Fuligin was the word that stuck with me.
| aardvark179 wrote:
| He has always been incredibly clever in his use of language.
| The names of people in BotNS had me checking in a dictionary of
| saints (and books on mythological monsters for the non people)
| to try and gleam more meaning from them, and I remember a
| moment of wonder when I realised the aliens' speech was weird
| because they always have an even number of syllables in each
| sentence.
|
| His books are incredible and really pay off careful rereading.
| jinpa_zangpo wrote:
| Gene Wolfe explained in a commentary to his series that the
| aliens (called hierodules) are speaking in blank verse.
| saberdancer wrote:
| I'm not a native English speaker so I find this extremely
| interesting. I usually read in English so I often notice how
| much vocabulary certain writer uses. Most of them use the same
| vocabulary I am familiar with and I read the whole book without
| looking up a word, but there are some writers where I get a new
| word every few pages and it is not a word that was forced in
| there. It made sense to use it.
|
| I never read Gene Wolfe after I started reading in English,
| I've read him in my native language. I'll need to bump him up
| in my reading list to see how it reads in English.
| ak217 wrote:
| I find it hard to appreciate art that revels in torture, graphic
| violence and emotional abuse as an end unto itself.
|
| If you want an example of science fiction as high art, personally
| I would suggest Vernor Vinge (specifically _A Fire Upon the Deep_
| and _A Deepness in the Sky_ ) and Ursula Le Guin.
| saberience wrote:
| I wouldn't agree that BOTNS "revels" in violence or torture at
| all. I personally wouldn't enjoy a book that revels in torture
| or violence, but I've read the BOTNS series many times (5 or
| 6). Sevarian clearly doesn't enjoy his path nor does he "revel"
| in it and if anything he generally tries to avoid violence.
| Gene Wolfe as a man clearly doesn't focus on violence and
| certainly doesn't celebrate it, it's just a small but real part
| of the world both in reality and BOTNS, and I think it's an
| important thing we have to explore in art, which is the
| violence of man to man, why it exists, why we do these things.
| TinkersW wrote:
| BoTN doesn't do any of those things, did you just read a
| summary or the title and make that assumption?
| root_axis wrote:
| BOTNS does not revel in graphic violence, in fact most of the
| violence in the story happens "off-screen" so to speak. It's
| also completely wrong to say that those themes are written as
| an end unto themselves, that reads to me like pretty much the
| exact opposite of the book. I'll presume you read it since
| you're offering such a strong critique, so I'd be curious to
| understand why you think this way.
| smogcutter wrote:
| I can see how you get there, but strongly disagree with that
| assessment of BotNS.
|
| It's far from an endorsement of torture and abuse. Master
| Gurloes is a deeply broken man. Severian's childhood trauma
| colors the entire story, especially his relationships with
| women. Part of Severian's maturation throughout the books is
| his slow abandonment of his life and identity as a torturer.
|
| To get anything out of BotNS you need to separate yourself from
| Severian's point of view, and Wolfe makes this deliberately
| difficult. There's what Severian believes, there's what he
| wants _us_ to believe, and there's what "really" happened.
| Between those three poles there's usually a _lot_ of empty
| space.
| branweb wrote:
| Nice to see something about Gene Wolfe here. I'm a big fan. I
| just finished re-reading The 5th Head of Cerberus and have been
| eyeing The Book of the New Sun series on my shelf. Probably time
| for a re-read of that soon.
|
| If I may put on my pedantic hat for a second: the article writes
| of the world of the New Sun tetrology: "The sun is so old that it
| is dying." I thought it was pretty well establish that the sun
| was dying of unnatural causes--possibly an artificially created
| black hole.
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