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HamsterPolice posted:I mean, isn't Severian like 15 years old? And yeah he lives in some kind of medieval environment. He lost his virginity to clone prostitutes iirc. Something like 15-16 when he starts his (physical) journey, yeah, and more than a decade older when he pens the Book of the New Sun that we read. After that, I'm not sure talking about age as a function of linear time makes sense.
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May 19, 2020 22:14
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Azram Legion posted:It is easy to forget how utterly ruined both Severian and Thecla are by their life circumstances. For the first half of Severian's life, the only interaction he has with women is taking care of "clients" - and of course seeing someone who may be his mother be decapitated at the yearly feast-day ceremony. Thecla, meanwhile, was raised to be kept as a hostage who was expected to leverage her position as hostage into influence. Totally. I just mean I've always been under the impression that we're supposed to perceive this as a character 'flaw' that illustrates the mental gymnastics he goes through, and it was not written with the current cultural discourse in mind, nor is it intended to be a mouth piece for regressive opinions... which is unfortunately all-too-common in a lot of fantasy and scifi.
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May 19, 2020 23:46
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Joan Gordon said something like Wolfe was definitely a "traditionalist" when it came to gender roles, and that Rosemary was too, his views would be considered quaint and sexist by modern standards but I've never perceived him as a blatant misogynist or creep like some sci fi authors. when Wolfe did write women protagonists they are pretty good, shoutout to Holly and Cassie.
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May 20, 2020 00:10
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hell astro course posted:Totally. I just mean I've always been under the impression that we're supposed to perceive this as a character 'flaw' that illustrates the mental gymnastics he goes through, and it was not written with the current cultural discourse in mind, nor is it intended to be a mouth piece for regressive opinions... which is unfortunately all-too-common in a lot of fantasy and scifi. Yeah, I agree with this completely. I think a large part of it is that Wolfe wrote so much from the point of view of specific characters, rather than omniscient narrators. If Wolfe himself had gone off on long spiels about women and power and how we torture those we love, I would have probably been too turned off to keep reading. When Severicla does it though? That's just good writing that shows us how warped their view of the world is. my bony fealty posted:Joan Gordon said something like Wolfe was definitely a "traditionalist" when it came to gender roles, and that Rosemary was too, his views would be considered quaint and sexist by modern standards but I've never perceived him as a blatant misogynist or creep like some sci fi authors. At the same time, there is no doubt in my mind that this is true. From everything I've read, Wolfe seemed like a "romantic libertarian" - someone who idolized the idea of an independent man (not person, man) taking care of his wife and family, and better left without state interference. He was obviously anti-capitalist in his early writings, but his idea of a replacement - some sort of idealized frontier society with minimal state interference, is the sense I get - always seems naive to me. The sort of ideal society that requires 99% of the world's population to die before there's enough room and resources for everyone to live that way. And, as you say, very clearly built around traditional gender roles. The good thing about Wolfe though, is that he didn't write to reinforce his faith, his views on relationships, or his ideology. He explored them, he used imagery and themes from them, but he didn't let them dictate the narratives, and he didn't write to reach their conclusions. I mean, people call the Solar Cycle a catholic work, but it is also a work where the savior rapes and kills his way across the land, and where the Eucharist is directly translated into polyploidization and hybridization. We all remember that part of the New Testament where Jesus says "Touch this sentient liana to travel through time!" right?
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May 20, 2020 09:34
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my bony fealty posted:IGJ is definitely the best part of Short Sun and yeah when they start travelling to Urth it gets real good. It kinda helps that Silk lives in a relatively 'normal' city and actually had social interaction with normal people. The slice-of-life moments where he's bumbling around cooking tomatoes and helping the sibyls were great.
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May 20, 2020 16:14
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Azram Legion posted:Speaking of Thecla, I've been listening to the ReReading Wolfe podcast, and one of the things they mentioned was how she is basically named The Claw. I remember not being 100% onboard when whichever host that was first posed that theory. But every time her name comes up that guy always repeats at least twice, "Thecla. The Claw. Thecla. The Claw." and it's starting to drive me crazy. Azram Legion posted:I mean, people call the Solar Cycle a catholic work, but it is also a work where the savior rapes and kills his way across the land, and where the Eucharist is directly translated into polyploidization and hybridization. We all remember that part of the New Testament where Jesus says "Touch this sentient liana to travel through time!" right? I've always found the Solar Cycle to be an effective Catholic work, if maybe not a good one. I like almost everything in his oeuvre having to do with robots/nonhumans aspiring to be like humans, and that's a pretty clear parallel to how humans should aspire to be like God. I was gonna flippantly disagree with your second point and make a Moses + Staff = Boner joke but someone proposed the theory that Silk could travel to the Red Sun Whorl because he has a staff made of liana vines because the lianas were the juvenile form of the inhumi and all of a sudden that's starting to make a certain kind of sense.
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May 21, 2020 01:25
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Hammer Bro. posted:I was gonna flippantly disagree with your second point and make a Moses + Staff = Boner joke but someone proposed the theory that Silk could travel to the Red Sun Whorl because he has a staff made of liana vines because the lianas were the juvenile form of the inhumi and all of a sudden that's starting to make a certain kind of sense. I thought we got a perspective on what juvenile inhumi are like from Jahlee, and they were more or less just little reptile-like critters? Or is there a more extensive lifecycle in which what Jahlee showed us can be accommodated? Or was she lying - but I doubt she was lying in full, since iirc she recounted meeting with Horn on Green, which gave her a connection relevant for the story?
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May 22, 2020 03:43
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I'm well past due for a re-read. I've also gotta pin down where the vine theory came from 'cause it seemed like something that was relatively recent and supplemented the explicitly verbalized information. At the very least they're raised to our explicit attention frequently. Also ReReading Wolfe and Marc Aramini have started a bibliography of Wolfe Secondary Sources. I'm usually down for reading about what others have written about Wolfe, but that's a longer list than I was expecting.
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May 22, 2020 17:23
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The Liana thing came from Aramini iirc, it makes a lot of sense when the narrator starts astral projecting independent of any inhumi I for one kinda buy the whole Aramini theory about the one planet being the other planet, it offers thematic closure to the whole series that nothing else does
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May 22, 2020 18:01
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my bony fealty posted:The Liana thing came from Aramini iirc, it makes a lot of sense when the narrator starts astral projecting independent of any inhumi I didn't buy it at first but the thematic resonances and symbolism piled up until I've started thinking it's probably correct. Of course, we don't know this is the fate of Ushas - the Severian Silkhorn encounters is different from the one we read, as indicated by some timeline problems with Triskele and a couple of odd things Severian says (eg 'no one would believe this'). So it's probably a different iteration of the universe (I guess that ties in to why it's called the Solar Cycle).
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May 23, 2020 01:32
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Neurosis posted:I didn't buy it at first but the thematic resonances and symbolism piled up until I've started thinking it's probably correct. Yeah I think that's the only interpretation that makes sense, there's too much discrepancy with Severian's age, Triskele, and Merryn being there and I don't think Wolfe would have made that mistake - very convenient to have an explanation of universal cycles that repeat with differences sometimes minor and sometimes major. There also seems to be some suggestion that the universe of New Sun is one where Christ the savior was never sent by God, whereas in Long Sun there's an explicit reference to Allah which implies it's maybe closer to our own, if not the same. But that then opens how Green could be Urth, if Urth wasn't submerged into Ushas in the Long Sun cycle... who knows! anyhow here's some Wolfe ephemera I got my hands on, the handout from his funeral   I love that particular quote because it's about a third of the way through Citadel so it's like, of course I like stories Severian, I've been reading this one for like a thousand pages you dummy, why would be this far into it if I don't like stories? Which! lends credence to the idea that the purpose of Severian writing the book is some kind of political tract or apologia or even that Severian intends it to be required reading in the Commonwealth despite his stated intention to stash it in Ultan's library, like why else would he expect anyone would read it and not pay attention?
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May 26, 2020 19:59
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my bony fealty posted:Yeah I think that's the only interpretation that makes sense, there's too much discrepancy with Severian's age, Triskele, and Merryn being there and I don't think Wolfe would have made that mistake - very convenient to have an explanation of universal cycles that repeat with differences sometimes minor and sometimes major. There also seems to be some suggestion that the universe of New Sun is one where Christ the savior was never sent by God, whereas in Long Sun there's an explicit reference to Allah which implies it's maybe closer to our own, if not the same. But that then opens how Green could be Urth, if Urth wasn't submerged into Ushas in the Long Sun cycle... who knows! That's beautiful. Thank you for finding it and sharing it with us.
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May 27, 2020 02:18
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I read BOTNS about two years ago and was simultaneously entranced and mystified by it. I finally got my hands on a copy of Urth, but I realized I barely remember anything that happened in the previous four books. Should I reread BOTNS before starting Urth? I've heard that Urth clarifies a lot of stuff that happened in the first books
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Jun 23, 2020 20:54
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Lester Shy posted:Should I reread BOTNS The answer is yes, regardless of context.
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Jun 23, 2020 21:20
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Ornamented Death posted:The answer is yes, regardless of context. Yeah, you want it fresh in your mind going into Urth anyway. A lot gets recontextualized.
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Jun 24, 2020 01:20
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Definitely reread, theres callbacks to all sorts of stuff that you'll want to have fresh. Urth is a very weird book! been listening to the ReReading Wolfe podcast episodes on the first Severian and oooh boy its a big recontextualization that explains a whole lot. just like Wolfe to put whats going on behind the scenes in plain sight at the very end of the book!
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Jun 24, 2020 02:45
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Well, I'm gonna say this. I still feel that Jack Vance, the inventor of dying earth was better at this if not so profound. Secondly, Gene Wolfe is just so wordy, goes on and on. I quite enjoyed new sun for it's dream like feeling, but now I am struggling through Green's Jungles and its not good by intention. Whenever something interesting is about to happen, nope I will talk about something else.
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Jun 27, 2020 04:39
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Yep, Wolfe loved his 'dramatic omissions' (if that's the right phrase, I just made it up). " The ravine ended in a wall of rock. The rustles in the undergrowth behind me had ceased and now the creature that had made them quickly stood up, as a human might (although there was little enough of the human about it) and turned its eyeless gaze towards me." <chapter ends> <new chapter> "The following week, I was strolling down Main Street when I recognised Doctor Wilhelm approaching. He greeted me civily enough and immediately launched into one of his characteristic monologues, although as he continued, I perceived something rather curious..." So often in Wolfe's books, you'll get 'protagonist in peril! whoops! timeskip!'
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Jun 30, 2020 16:27
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Glad work stuff is blowin' up 'cause otherwise I wouldn't've known that today is 2020-06-30. Gonna have to hunt down a book store which has a copy of Interlibrary Loan. E: Should've planned a bit better. The local Barnes and Noble only had one copy, reserved for someone else, and when I asked if Half Price Books had a copy of Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe I got back a very suspicious: "Gene Wolfe has a new book?" Hammer Bro. fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 30, 2020 21:07
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Thinking about "V.R.T." and how much I liked the device of the officer rummaging through Marsch's personal effects. Are there any other books that tread in similar territory?
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Jul 2, 2020 08:23
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I found a small joke in Peace. Remember Dr Van Ness? The pet repair centre in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has the same name.FPyat posted:Thinking about "V.R.T." and how much I liked the device of the officer rummaging through Marsch's personal effects. Are there any other books that tread in similar territory? If you like that, you'll love Pale Fire.
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Jul 5, 2020 04:02
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Pistol_Pete posted:Yep, Wolfe loved his 'dramatic omissions' (if that's the right phrase, I just made it up). I am in the middle of Return to the Whorl and came to post how much I'm sick of it. Dearest Nettle, I finally came to the conclusion that there is an extremely important thing that I failed to tell you which makes me a bad person and now that I am finally 100% double ready to share let me first describe unrelated happenstance what happened to me on Green/Blue/Long sun whorl/a dream I had (maybe  ).Dialogues are also loving infuriating. Mailman: A letter to Horn! Horn: I am Horn if it can be said with any kind of certainty and you are certainly welcome to pass on your message to me, unless you do not wish to do so, thus compelling you against your will would be unethical, thus I will never do it, although I can, but won't. Mailman: *gasps* *whimpers* *pisses himself from shock*
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Jul 15, 2020 11:14
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Short sun is my favorite Gene Wolfe series by a long way. Don't read Gene Wolfe if you can't handle not getting exactly what you want.
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Jul 16, 2020 02:22
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Gene Wolfe works are purposefully polysemous and aesthetically challenging. Complaining about them being like that seems weird to me - almost all the rest of sci fi fantasy is the opposite. It is okay to not like Wolfe for whatever reason. I don't get why people feel the need to press through and complain about their suffering: You don't like having to interpret and develop theories without certainty? Read some of the excellent stuff by other authors that isn't like that!
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Jul 16, 2020 08:21
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I like Wolfe which doesn't mean that every word he wrote is great. The further the series goes, the worse in my view hes prose becomes, like he is paid by the word. Happenings are unnecessarily encrypted like it became a habit rather than adding aesthetical or plain enjoyment value, dialogues unnecessarily wordy and coy. To quote one of the characters "I think we should be open and honest for a change." Very needed reply which happens exactly once in 3 books full of quite burdensome exchange of words, everyone agrees to just speak their mind which leads to only 5 more pages of dialogue on my kindle.
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Jul 17, 2020 11:53
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I just read "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" for the first time and I liked it.
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Jul 19, 2020 03:29
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I'm finding myself having a much easier time reading Citadel of the Autarch than with the two middle books. The people Severian talks with are less cryptic and inscrutable.
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Jul 19, 2020 07:22
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my bony fealty posted:Definitely reread, theres callbacks to all sorts of stuff that you'll want to have fresh. Urth is a very weird book! Re putting things in plain sight at the very end of the book - sometimes he does something cute where a character will say something that's literally true but a reader is likely to take it as the speaker using an idiom or speaking metaphorically. I remember it happening more than once at pretty significant points but for the life of me can't recall any other examples than the bit where he's talking about the shoulder of the mountain which is actually referring to the shoulder of the guy the mountain is carved into the shape of. Also, for people not entirely happy with how wordy the Short Sun is - allow me to give a strong recommendation for The Wizard Knight, which I think is a bit underappreciated or perhaps it's better to say overshadowed. People speak much more plainly in those books - the narrator especially, since he doesn't have as much of a formal education as Severian or Silk. There are still puzzles to figure out and some interesting setting details buried in there (I love the setting generally, which a spin on Norse mythology in a world that's maybe around the beginning of what was for us the high middle ages), but it doesn't read nearly as cryptically.
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Jul 23, 2020 09:22
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Honestly you won't be too far off if you assume that all of Wolfe's characters are speaking 100% literally. The way it usually plays out is:
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Jul 23, 2020 17:45
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Hammer Bro. posted:Honestly you won't be too far off if you assume that all of Wolfe's characters are speaking 100% literally. The way it usually plays out is: Broadly right, I think. Wolfe's stories suggest he didn't care for the Death of the Author style approach to interpretation, and some of his writing is an explicit rejection of that. Most of his works had 'correct' interpretations combining things explicitly in the text, background cultural stuff, occasionally knowledge of the author himself (although this was in the nature of 'helpful to know' rather than 'you must know this to understand what's going on'), and sometimes some very specific historical knowledge. There's a story he wrote which could only be 'solved'' by knowing about some very obscure fact about an area in the 1950s, and his story Trip, Trap which really exemplify this.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:29
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CommonShore posted:I just read "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" for the first time and I liked it. Honestly on reflection and after spending almost two decades now reading his work I think Fifth Head is my favorite.
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Jul 25, 2020 08:01
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andrew smash posted:Honestly on reflection and after spending almost two decades now reading his work I think Fifth Head is my favorite.
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Jul 25, 2020 09:40
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I really liked Interlibrary Loan and have no idea what the hell happened or who it happened to or if any of happened in the first place.
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Jul 29, 2020 20:56
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andrew smash posted:Honestly on reflection and after spending almost two decades now reading his work I think Fifth Head is my favorite. Now when I posted I had just read the eponymous story, but I think I like the last one in the collection (I'm tired can't remember the title - "JWB"?) best of all/
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Aug 1, 2020 05:19
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Can someone remind me what word Wolfe uses to describe a priest who reads prophecy in lighting?
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Aug 2, 2020 05:22
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DickParasite posted:Can someone remind me what word Wolfe uses to describe a priest who reads prophecy in lighting? Fulgurator. It’s a real word going back to Roman times.
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Aug 2, 2020 08:55
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Action Jacktion posted:Fulgurator. It’s a real word going back to Roman times. I knew it was a real word I just couldn't remember it for the life of me. Thanks!
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Aug 2, 2020 11:28
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I just picked up a " Best of Gene Wolfe" short story compilation, which has a short story called " Fifth Head of Cerberus". I've also seen "Fifth Head of Cerberus" referred to as a novel. Is the short story I read a sequel or coda? It was about a clone who lived in a whorehouse on some distant planet and he kills his father I still think "When I Was Ming the Merciless" is his best short story. Or at least my favorite.
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Aug 11, 2020 19:03
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Your Gay Uncle posted:I just picked up a " Best of Gene Wolfe" short story compilation, which has a short story called " Fifth Head of Cerberus". I've also seen "Fifth Head of Cerberus" referred to as a novel. Is the short story I read a sequel or coda? It was about a clone who lived in a whorehouse on some distant planet and he kills his father The Fifth Head of Cerberus the book is a series of three interconnected short stories. The one that gets put in anthologies is the first story of three.
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Aug 11, 2020 19:22
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Your Gay Uncle posted:I just picked up a " Best of Gene Wolfe" short story compilation, which has a short story called " Fifth Head of Cerberus". I've also seen "Fifth Head of Cerberus" referred to as a novel. Is the short story I read a sequel or coda? It was about a clone who lived in a whorehouse on some distant planet and he kills his father The standalone "novel" The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a collection of a three novellas, the first of which is the story you describe. The second and third are separate stories but deal with the same setting, themes, and some minor references to one another. e:f;b
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Aug 11, 2020 19:22
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