New Yorker article on Gene Wolfe

[Steerpike]

Nice piece in the New Yorker, where you don't see SF/F authors mentioned a lot. If you're not familiar with Wolfe, he's well worth reading:

Sci-Fi’s Difficult Genius - The New Yorker

 

[ThinkerX]

One of these days I shall have to read 'Urth of the New Sun'. Was going to do that when the writing group was still active, but couldn't find a copy. This 'soldier in the mist' also sounds interesting.

 

[Mythopoet]

I'm reading Urth of the New Sun right now. (They finally made all of The Book of the New Sun as well as The Urth of the New Sun available as ebooks.) Honestly, I just don't see them as "masterpieces". There's no doubt the worldbuilding is well done, and.... no, that's about it. I cannot manage to find the plot or the characters compelling at all. The writing is good, but it feels very emotionally distant. I am finishing these books on sheer willpower alone, since they are my husband's all time favorites and he is a mega fan of Wolfe to the point we named our most recent child Severian Wolfe. (I may not really like the character of Severian, but I do love the sound of the name.) No doubt once I finish Urth my husband will urge me to read the Long Sun cycle, promising that it will be more to my tastes.

I started reading Soldier of the Mists. (I'll finish it one of these days, but right now it's still in a box somewhere after our January move.) It felt similar in many ways to The Book of the New Sun. Told in first person, and despite the fact that Latro's memory is the opposite of Severian's they still narrate very dispassionately. Severian's narrative was bogged down in details to the point of boredom; Latro's is vague to the point where I can't even really tell what's going on half the time and so I don't feel engaged at all.

So I guess, I recognize that Wolfe is a good writer and I like his ideas, but I don't enjoy the execution at all. I admire him tremendously as a person and a writer, but I can totally see why his work hasn't earned him a large audience. It simply doesn't have mass appeal, in my opinion. There's a small subset of readers who really get into his work (my husband is one of them), but most readers won't.

 

[Steerpike]

No, he doesn't have mass appeal. I think that's true of a lot of writers who are considered sort of literary geniuses (I don't particularly care for the term, but that's what usually gets thrown around).

The same could also be said of Samuel R. Delany. But, on the other hand, as a friend in another writing forum noted, if anyone is reading 20th century science fiction and fantasy in 200 years, they'll probably be reading Delany's Dhalgren. It's the kind of book that lends itself to a certain immortality. But Dhalgren​ is never going to have a huge mainstream following.

 

[Mythopoet]

The same could also be said of Samuel R. Delany. But, on the other hand, as a friend in another writing forum noted, if anyone is reading 20th century science fiction and fantasy in 200 years, they'll probably be reading Delany's Dhalgren. It's the kind of book that lends itself to a certain immortality. But Dhalgren​ is never going to have a huge mainstream following.

Well, I just had to look up Delany on wikipedia. I've never heard of him or Dhalgren.

Generally, books live on for 2 reasons. 1. They become favorites of literature professors who force their students to read them. 2. They get passed on via word of mouth from generation to generation.

Science Fiction and Fantasy, no matter how "literary" it is, is unlikely to be preserved by lit professors. Even Gene Wolfe, praised for his "literary genius", is probably way too SFF to get much long term support from many in the "literary establishment". It's only chance, really, is to be passed on via word of mouth. Generally, this happens for 2 reasons. 1. A book has enough mass appeal that enough people continue to recommend it for decades or centuries to come. 2. The book appeals to a niche group that makes up for its small size by being extremely passionate. I'd say Gene Wolfe has a good chance of falling into that second category. His fan are really dedicated fans. They recommend him to anyone and everyone they possibly can. They pour over his works with more analysis than he likely put into them.

So Gene Wolfe is never going to be mainstream, but I'd say he's got a very good chance of being immortal.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Gene Wolfe bugs me, because he writes like authors you're not supposed to overthink, but there's clearly something to overthink. With something like Waiting for Godot, there isn't supposed to be a clear explanation for what's going on, but with The Fifth Head of Cerberus, there are all sorts of hints to some kind of truth behind the bizarre events described. I feel like I'm reading one of those mystery novels for children, only without the sealed section that explains everything.

 

[Steerpike]

Well, I just had to look up Delany on wikipedia. I've never heard of him or Dhalgren.

He's well known if you read a lot of classic SF. I think he won four or five Hugos and a couple of Nebula awards. Not as well known as Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, of course, but particularly at the height of his career anyone reading SF would likely know of him.

Delaney deals a lot with race, gender identity, and class issues (perhaps not surprising as a gay black man writing in the 60s and 70s). Dhalgren is his best-seller, and found an audience even outside of SF, which was unusual at the time. Also well-known is Triton, which was a response to Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

Dhalgren is his least commercial work in form (which makes it a bit ironic that it is his best seller), and is probably the work that has drawn attention outside of the genre from the likes of Umberto Eco. Within genre, people were divided on it. It received a lot of praise, but Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick famously disliked it.

Delaney doesn't hold your hand in Dhalgren, and doesn't apologize for it. It's a metafiction, in ways, and if you don't read it carefully you'll lose the thread. Here is the opening:

"to wound the autumnal city.

So howled out for the world to give him a name.

The in-dark answered with wind.

All you know I know: careening astronauts and bank clerks glancing at the clock before lunch; actresses cowling at light-ringed mirrors and freight elevator operators grinding a thumbful of grease on a steel handle; student riots; know that dark women in bodegas shook their heads last week because in six months prices have risen outlandishly; how coffee tastes after you've held it in your mouth, cold, a whole minute.

A whole minute he squatted, pebbles clutched with his left foot (the bare one), listening to his breath sound tumble down the ledges.

Beyond a leafy arras, reflected moonlight flittered.

He rubbed his palms against denim. Where he was, was still. Somewhere else, wind whined.

The leaves winked.

What had been wind was a motion in brush below. His hand went to the rock behind.

She stood up, two dozen feet down and away, wearing only shadows the moon dropped from the viney maple; moved, and the shadows moved on her.​"


I find it to be a very interesting opening. Note that the first line seems particularly odd, until you reach the end of the novel and realize that it sort of loops onto itself, with the opening sentence fragment being the second half of the novel's last sentence.

 

[Steerpike]

Oh, I think the words a friend of mine used in a brief review/comment on Dhalgren really states it best :

"Delany is at his stylistic peak in this book. No apologies for the unprepared, the uninitiated, or the just plain thick. If you're any of those three, tough shit. You must read him slowly to get your sea legs. Don't, and you'll trip. Maybe fall. Maybe vomit over the side. Again, he gives no f--ks that his phrasing is unusual, his syntax sometimes not idiolectic, his delivery not straight forward. It's not a book for the masses."

And though not for the masses, it's his most talked about book, particularly outside of the genre. Which is what I was talking about, above. I think guys like Delaney and Wolfe will still be talked about in years to come, whereas a lot of more commercially-successful writers may not be. But these guys won't have mainstream followings. Dhalgren is 40 years old this year and I still see it pop up in SF conversations.