Bonfire of the Genres: Critical Looks Sci-Fi and Fantasy

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Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The Bad Faith of the Illuminator

- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

When one reads the extremely dense Shadow of the Torturer, one is not reminded of literature but of cinema: specifically, Park Chan-wook�s 2003 neo-noir fantasy film and overrated festival circuit darling Oldboy. Intelligent viewers will understand that the movie�s strength lies cunningly taut editing. Any filler or potential dead space eliminated, scenes blend into each other with strange ease, but the pacing is so relaxed that the abruptness of the scene transitions is never too jarring. To use a phrase dangerously close to a clich�, the movie operate on the logic of dreams. To use a phrase nowhere near to a clich�, the movie operates by the logic of intoxication, which is why the protagonist is introduced as a confused drunk.

The movie�s narrative provides a constant stream of strange revelations and of developments whose cause and effect is obscured or oblique. But Park does not interrogate the nature of fantasy, and the effect only accentuates pulp sadism. The audience is mesmerized into a state of passive uneasiness and low awareness, like the movie�s hero, holding their breath in anticipation of violence. Consequently, they experience and learn nothing of interest. Oldboy is just an exercise in slick sadism, as is extremely dense Shadow of the Torturer.

Gene Wolfe�s first in entry in the extremely dense Book of the New Sun quartet/quintet/racket introduces us to another �dying Earth,� a type of pulp fantasy/sci-fi setting where decay and ramshackle tradition rule during an apocalypse so slow that most people have had to get used to it. Severian is an initiate in the torturer�s guild, a satirical device that in Wolfe�s hands always fails to get a laugh. The novel charts his years as an apprentice, journeyman, and as an exile, surrounded by portents, vague factions, and supernatural manipulations. The singular strength of Wolfe�s writing in The Shadow of the Torturer is the hypnotic pacing of his prose, the strange ease with which sentences and scenes meld into each other.

Severian, as narrator, prefers not to inquire or speculate after the bizarre and the unusual, but instead accepts these developments passively even as greater forces seem to make themselves known. This engenders nervous stupefaction and expectation in the reader, who is torn between curiosity and placid acceptance. Thus no excerpt suffices to properly display the extremely dense prose of The Shadow of the Torturer, for it would have to be impossibly long to capture its pace. Thus quotations appear unrepresentative of the extremely dense novel even when they are all too revealing of Wolfe�s skills as a prose stylist.

His prose might be backhandedly praised as �readable�. Being readable is a desirable quality for any work of writing, but if a book is praised for it, there is probably little else to it. Seek no further than the metafictional �translator�s notes� for proof: nobles cannot be nobles but exultants, knights cannot be knights but armigers, the bourgeoisie must be optimates, and so on. Conversely, common words may disguise alien concepts. For Wolfe extremely dense vocabulary is a substitute for craftsmanship. Gallicisms, Latinate, and Greek are peppered throughout to spice up amateurish Anglo-Saxon:

Wolfe always writes incompletely. The scene above is defined by fire-light, but does almost nothing to describe effects or qualities of light. We understand that the bridge is well-lit, but the light of fires and torches is vibrant and inconsistent. Consider how Wolfe is describing what should be a chiaroscuro scene of urban night-life, yet nowhere do we read of the play of light and shadow on the grotesque extremes of ostentation and poverty. The tableau is static. And where Wolfe ventures to describe the qualities of light, he is erroneous: his windows glare like fireworks, but fireworks do not glare. They burst, sparkle, and dissipate. Such abuses of English are common in extremely dense Shadow of the Torturer.

The monotony of Wolfe�s prose is as clear here as it is everywhere else. Consider the first sentence: �When it seemed that it must soon be day, I saw upon the broad, black ribbon of the river a line of sparks that were not the lights of vessels but fixed fires stretching from bank to bank�. We do not read that Severian observed this �at daybreak,� but �when it seemed that it must soon be day�. We do not read that there was �a line of sparks,� but of �a line of sparks that were not the lights of vessels�. The monosyllabic evenness lends the sentence a breathless quality, which affixes the reader from beginning to end. But to follow such an effort with a phrase as utterly drab as �it was a bridge� puts the lie to any claim that Wolfe�s prose is remarkable.

Evenness is the watch-word for the extremely dense Shadow of the Torturer. The prose is stretched and rounded out so as to be read as a single invocation. The more unusual vocabulary might be imagined as ritual Latinisms in an otherwise vernacular Mass. But Wolfe�s prose cannot affect the psychology of faith, for there is no sorrow, joy, supplication, or ecstasy in Wolfe�s droning. This monotony is occasionally quickened, but not broken, when sentences run on to suggest rising emotional pitch:

These outpourings remain as mechanically wearisome, because they merely give an impression of agitation rather than the real thing. Wolfe�s extremely dense prose is as cold and inert as his dying sun.

If one points to such flaws, Wolfe�s fans are wont to argue that its very badness is proof of his genius, for only he could have conceived such a convincing impression of a writer as bad as Severian. This can be dismissed firstly because these are the same fans who will argue that Wolfe�s prose is masterful, and thus they are loving liars. And secondly, while Severian undeniably writes badly, he fails as such a character, for Severian is not a character at all. Truly, fascinatingly bad writers have depth to their awfulness, but Severian has no distinguishable voice or personality, let alone that of a bad writer. He does not represent any discernible human type or experience. He consists simply four tones of narration: modestly assertive, obsequiously self-denying, sharply observant, and philosophically musing. No doubt fans will next argue that bad characterization is proof of Wolfe�s genius, for it shows how the vague powers that guide Severian have molded him into a literary nonentity. One wonders if the fanboy theorists have solved the mystery of why so many women throw themselves at him. And thirdly, according to the novel's metafictional device, the text is a translation: the blame may be squarely be laid on the incompetence of the translator-author.

Severian represents a fantasy that is familiar from later genre hacks: of being mocked and maltreated by the universe while remaining the centre of said universe. It is one of the wonders of genre literature that Cugel the Clever, the monstrously selfish anti-hero from Jack Vance�s dying Earth, comes off as less fundamentally egoistic than someone as vacuous as Severian. Cugel at least seems interested in the world and the people around him, even if it is merely for his own advantage. Severian has nothing to him, and from the first chapter we know that he shall be the ruler of his nation. Subsequent novels further underline his importance. The torturer�s apprentice is the precursor of FitzChivarly Farseer and Kvothe the Kingkiller, self-pitying narrator-heroes without personality, whose misfortunes appear as validation of their central role in the grand scheme of things. Wolfe is a child playing with toys compared to Samuel Beckett, who in his trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable charted new continents of existential incomprehension and suffering.

There only remains Wolfe�s puzzle-plot remains for disposal. Fans have through the years taken up the task of deciphering the extremely dense narrative of The Book of the New Sun in a poor imitation of scholarship. These fans no doubt object to claims that Wolfe bamboozles the reader, as his puzzle-plot is a device to develop and educate readers in the understanding of texts. But this is a misunderstanding of the act of reading and the value of literacy. The Book of the New Sun leads the reader to try to discover the truth beyond Severian�s words, for he does not understand his story, but this is an anti-literary exercise. To try to discover what lies �beneath� the surface of the text is to declare the text itself secondary and irrelevant, what Barthes warned against in �The Death of the Author�. The pleasure of literature is not in what lies beneath its surface, but in the surface itself.

If the true story of The Book of the New Sun are the intrigues peered between Severian�s words, then Severian�s words � the prose - are ultimately an obstacle to be overcome. If the goal for the reader is to reject the text as flawed, one will do just as well by not reading it in the first place. Wolfe does not teach readers to understand texts, but to understand a text. The skills necessary to disentangle the extremely dense plot of The Book of the New Sun do not translate into understanding of other literary works. These skills are applicable merely to deciphering the plot content of one series, which might superficially resemble an intellectual activity, but is really only a laborious one. This is the ultimate failure of the puzzle-plot: it is an exercise in complexity rather than in nuance. The artistic, educational, and intellectual value of Wolfe�s work can be perfectly replicated by watching Dark Souls �lore� videos on YouTube. They�re about as dense.

This is the best thing about Botns I've ever read. Good post, good thread. Curse the mod who probated you.

Everything I've read elswhere about these books - everything, whether it's a casual forum post or a sprawling blog critique - gets immediately lost in the weeds of the tedious riddles contained in the texts involving Severian's identity. Somehow, no one else noticed that the novels are plodding garbage.

Amethyst fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Dec 12, 2018

# ¿ Dec 12, 2018 07:19

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:57

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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A firework in any form is a terrible simile for a torchlit window.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2018 23:47

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Ccs posted:

Unfortunately the one guy who effortposts here is on probation and the few others who are supposedly smart enough to offer critiques don�t do so because they don�t want to read the books they assume or know they�ll dislike. Botl is the only one with the right mix of critical knowledge and actual background with the subject matter through some absurd source of free time to contribute anything substantial to this thread.

Thanks for your contribution!

# ¿ Dec 14, 2018 05:49

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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chernobyl kinsman posted:

He�s right though

Except mel, mel did actually read that gene Wolfe book

He isn't right, you idiot. Casual discussion around the longer reviews are fine.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2018 06:05

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Djeser posted:

I don't have a lot of background in critical analysis since I was always more of a history major, but if no one's talked about it before I'd be willing to do an effortpost on the Southern Reach trilogy, because I have a lot of opinions about its prose and themes. (Or at least, what it wants its themes to be.)

I would read the whole thing

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 00:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Sham bam bamina! posted:

Just found a "steampunk" version of Frankenstein at Half Price. It's Frankenstein, but illustrated with Photoshop collages full of cogs and poo poo.

I saw this. The steampunk illustrations are overlaid with translucent images of cogs. Just cogs.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2018 01:31

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Mel Mudkiper posted:

imagine having the easiest artistic layup of all time to just draw a clockwork heart and loving it up

lol

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 01:33

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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ZearothK posted:

How are the Black Company books? Are they actually good books or "good for fantasy" good? Also, is it better to read them in order or to jump straight into a more interesting volume?

They read like dungeons and dragons sourcebooks but with amoral protagonists.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2018 01:14

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Finicums Wake posted:

what'd you guys think about stanislaw lem? i haven't read a ton of his stuff, but what i have read i found to be good, and not merely in the sense of being 'good, for genre fiction.'

Parts of the cyberiad are so clever I can hardly believe it�s a translation.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 00:20

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I was having trouble falling asleep last night so I randomly grabbed Jack Vances "Rhialto the magnificent" from the shelf.

It's fun to read because it's so unlike modern fantasy. There isn't a focus on spectacle or psychology.

One thing that dates it heavily is the humor. The entire first chapter is about a bunch of wizards turning into women. As a result they find themselves spending hours selecting clothes to wear or cleaning up the kitchen.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:23

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Strom Cuzewon posted:

Do you remember when FYAD got renamed to some weird rant about deconstrutivist humour being lazy? I feel like that sums up Snow Crash. There are bits where it almost wants you to take it seriously, but it's constantly hiding behind some Illuminatus! type irony. So it's hard to figure out what it's a tually trying to say.

It's a post-modern surrealist comedy speculating about modern technology.

Neal Stephenson seems to catch a lot of poo poo and he definitely wore out his schtick after a few books - holy god he needs an editor - but at least he tried to make something different. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon are perfectly respectable, and reasonably novel.

The diamond age is where he jumped the shark. That book is so long and so boring.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:26

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Schwarzwald posted:

Snow Crash was frustrating. The main impetus behind the events of the plot, the central conflict, and everything that matters on the large scale, flies drat near completely over the heads over every viewpoint character. Hiro, YT, et al can be somewhat entertaining in their obliviousness, but it's certainly conveniently how their lets Stephenson skip past having to explain how the events of the story actually change things.

The story is barely important. The entire thing regularly grinds to a halt so Stephenson can write a playful essay comparing linguistic quirks of an ancient babylonian language to a neurological syndrome.

Stephenson and Charles Stross had an interesting thing going for a while there, playing with the style of contemporary forums posting and applying it to the novel.

Now both just pump out horrid shelf benders.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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side_burned posted:

Those longs section of Hiro researching sumerian gods with the librarian are tedious.

*cool

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Vance makes no effort to make his characters heroic and repeatedly describes the world as moribund. The humor is a bit of a paradox: it sticks out awkwardly but is also of a piece with the general run-down, amoral tone.

I like his playful invention of words. Rhialto the womanizer is described as skilled in "calligynics"

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:41

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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A common refrain from fantasy fans is that they like "magic systems".

In two pages Vance has more fun than Jordan, Martin, Bakker, or any of the other authors who spend pages and pages describing the spectacle of intermixing essences or whatever ever have. It's like reading the preface of a cookbook:

It's easy to see why rpg gamers love this stuff so much.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 01:46

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Where a modern fantasy author would spend an entire pointless chapter describing a voyage across the ocean through descriptions of a protagonist standing on deck, sensory descriptions of said protagonist, and interminable recitation of internal anxieties, Vance writes:

quote:

"Three weeks Ulan Dhor sailed the nerveless ocean. The sun rose bright as blood from the horizon and belled across the sky, and the water was calm, save for the ruffle of the breeze and the twin widening marks of Ulan Dhor's wake."

"Nerveless" is a really cool way to describe an ocean.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 02:03

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Just finished a story where the hero wins because he's the only person in a 5000 year old city smart enough to figure out how to drive a car, which litter the streets, perfectly functional and unused.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 03:12

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Nice! Love the classic look <3

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 04:40

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I should watch it one day

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 04:43

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:

So am I debating doing an honest-to-god effortpost on Lord Foul's Bane because I stumbled on it in my Kindle library. Any interest?

Definitely. I really hated that book.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 04:59

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I was maybe 14 when I read it. Just finished 5 David Eddings books and wanted something similar. Not sure why the guy in the book store gave me Rapist in Elf Land.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2019 05:03

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Can every idiot fucker mod in this incredibly stupid forum please stop banning the best posters???? JESUS!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:04

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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hackbunny posted:

I don't even find BotL controversial. He has high standards for books and movies and the discourse around them and he wants us to have higher standards too, and it's bullshit that it should be considered trolling

It's insane. It wouldn't be a problem if the mods didn't enforce bans over people posting angry things at him.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:10

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Like just because an against the grain posting style provokes an army of clueless dweebs to write "uhhh arrogant much?" doesn't mean you solve the problem by siding with the dweebs.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:11

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Please contribute to my "unban bravestoflamps" campaign.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879112

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:19

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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my bony fealty posted:

BotL getting another monther for arguing about the comic movie is funny tho, the level of pissed-offness in that thread rules

The idiots getting mad at him are funny, those idiots getting backed by a mod is not.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:25

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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hackbunny posted:

(no joke, I once read the official catalogue of the Dublin international exhibition of 1865, cover-to-cover, all 400-odd pages of it)

lol that's cool.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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porfiria posted:

The idiots getting mad at the idiots are hilarious, however.

I wouldn't be mad if a mod wasn't banning good posters for bad reasons.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:32

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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porfiria posted:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I am trying. Please contribute to my qcs thread.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 01:48

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Jaxyon posted:

I just read the most recent probe for BotL and it's pretty well deserved

Why?

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 02:40

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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poisonpill posted:

I agree with his points but they�re always delivered in the most obnoxious, self-satisfied possible way. He�s the Bill Maher of the forums

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I read posts like this. How is his style obnoxious in a forum where snippy little posts like this one:

nine-gear crow posted:

No one cares. Did you listen to to the Christmas album?

From a moderator, in response to a detailed critical post from BoTL, is the norm?

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 02:43

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Jaxyon posted:

It is a mystery, perhaps someday you may understand. I suggest you read copious amounts of genre fic until you attain enlightenment.

Gahahahahah! LOL!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 02:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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God drat, I'm glad BOTL is banned so I can enjoy funny posts like that one in peace.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 02:44

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Now I want to read it

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 04:25

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I don't remember much of neuromancer since I read it like 13 years ago but the opening line is good.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Nothing fancy, but it's snappy. Good simile.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 05:57

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I just read the first few pages and it's clearly inspired by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It doesn't reach the heights of those two greats and is a little clumsy integrating terse descriptions with dialogue but you couldn't choose much better inspiration for genre prose.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2019 06:11

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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I think maybe it could be constructed better. How would you express that simile and have it flow nicely? i'm trying but I can't improve it, someone with prose skills please help

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 01:28

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Like I think you're getting at something with "the words aren't in a pleasing order" and "it sounds terrible" but i'd like to hear precisely why. Someone who knows about dactyls and poo poo needs to help me

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 01:29

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Can someone post some excellent descriptive prose to compare it to?

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 01:54

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:57

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
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Lex Neville posted:

once more: that comma should not be there. getting rid of it would do wonders

though really he just should've wrote static

"Television tuned to a dead channel" is cooler and more evocative than "static"

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 02:12

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Bonfire of the Genres: Critical Looks Sci-Fi and Fantasy

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