Talk:Gene Wolfe/Archive 1

Archive 1

Needs a spoiler warning, badly

The fact that New Sun is set in a distant future is itself a fact that is only revealed over the course of the first book.

The fact that Long Sun is set in a starship is deliberately concealed for half of the series. (Discerning readers can spot some "teaser" facts, but the observation that everybody is inside a cylindrical ship intended for colonization is not discussed openly until the third book.)

Discovering these points is large part of the enjoyment of reading Wolfe's best works. Don't give them way with no warning.

• If you read the dust jacket of Nightside the Long Sun, it says right there the Whorl is a generation starship sent out from Urth. Wolfe obviously didn't think that would spoil the series. As for the setting of the Book of the New Sun, it's obvious within the first three chapters that it is the future of our world. I object to the spoiler warning. Also, please create an account and sign your entries. Talking to an anonymous IP address, especially one who doesn't sign his entries, is impersonal and occasionally confusing. Crculver 03:12, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wolfe is not necessarily in control of what the marketing department put on his dust jackets of his books. I second the motion to add spoiler warnings. Though, to be sure, the books are quite enjoyable even if these basic cosmological surprises are spoiled for you (as they were for me by comments I had read in reviews, etc. before reading them). --Jim Henry 16:15, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the motion towards a spoiler warning- it doesn't detract from the entry, & personally, the dawning realization that the Matachin Tower was a derelict spaceship & that this wasn't a work of fantasy but rather SF was half the fun.m:. 16:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"Most Overrated And Underrated Science Fiction Writers"

Anyone the originator of the underrated/overrated quote? Can anyone confirm or deny? -mordicai. 12:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I cannot yet confirm it, because the anon apparently is wrong: it is a magazine article, and not a book (despite the existence of some sort of collection); see http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0026/0039.shtml. -- Gwern (contribs) 14:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Argh! That urth.net thing ALMOST gets me to the root; the latter bit especially: "Imagine a Star Wars--style space opera penned by G.K. Chesterton in the throes of a religious conversion." That is used as a blurb on one of the editions I have of SOMETHING, I'm certain, but it isn't the Orb New Sun, New Urth, Long Sun, or Latro collections (I just eyeballed them here at the bookstore where I work). I'll have to check my own collection when I get home tonight, otherwise it is going to drive me nuts. -mordicai. 18:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank goodness for interlibrary loans, eh? --Gwern (contribs) 23:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Heck, this bookstore gig gets me my books for free, so I've just been buying them as I read them. Thanks for reminding me about this thread though-- predictably, I forgot completely once I did get home. The blurb IS on the fly-leaf of the Orb Short Sun series, though it just attributes it to American Heritage. I think a explanatory intro should be enough for the statement, yes? -mordicai. 16:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Look at me running behind schedule; If I'd read the windows in the correct order after clicking them open, I'd've seen that you were already successful in your endevour. Kudos to you. -mordicai. 16:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The many blessings and curses of a tabbed browser, eh? --Gwern (contribs) 16:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Fictional books

Could somebody who knows Wolfe well take a look at the list of fictional books that appear in his works? Somebody added a bunch of nonsense items -- I think I removed them all but if one of you experts could take a look that would be great. --Bookgrrl 02:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up a bit, I think is is correct now. Tomgreeny 17:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

External link

I found "Paul Duggan's extensive website" anything but extensive. One good interview, a handful of brief articles, and the rest external links (a lot of them broken) and links to amazon.com pages to buy Gene Wolfe books. --Clavicorn 20:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Not Impartial

This page should be reviewed for for it's impartiality.

I just re-read it and can't find any POV or partiality problems. Can you point out specifics? --Jim Henry 13:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The praises all appear to be sourced. --maru (talk) contribs 14:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

As above:

"Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced ... "

Like Gene Wolf or not, just reading a few pages from one of his books make it quite un-controversial that he's among the best authors ever. 21 March 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.237.74.66 (talk) 16:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

Hidden Stories and Easter Eggs

Added a section describing how Wolfe will bury clues very early in the text by using an example of the out-of-season morning glories in Free Live Free. There's plenty of other stuff that could be added, such as the thematic model: Free Live Free borrows from the Wizard of Oz. Wolfe also uses studies or sketches in short stories that he will flesh out into full books later; Wolfe wrote a short story called Changeling which is a precursor in some ways to Peace. How much of this is "giving it away?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.127.187 (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Article picture

Is this the best free picture of Gene Wolfe that we have at hand? It makes him look rather daft and silly. Surely there are some better ones with a higher resolution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.161.206 (talk) 00:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

search for hilm on google, its just how he looks. I suppose we could put up the picture comparing him to Schildstarr... LamontCranston (talk) 01:15, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable Narrator

"Wolfe frequently -- perhaps always -- creates an unreliable narrator to tell his stories." revised to "Wolfe frequently creates an unreliable narrator to tell his stories." His book Free Live Free is told from the third person, without an unreliable narrator. --Dd42 21:52, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

That is true, but the omnsicient narrator doesn't tell you everything necessary anyway. So in 'Free' it is not so much 'unreliable' as 'recalcitrant'. Remember how the whole time travel thing had to be pieced together by the reader? It omitted many details in its rendition. So I personally would have changed it from 'frequently' to 'usually'. --maru 22:07, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I finished 'Free' a few days ago, and, in the American paperback edition at least, it's made explicitly clear that it's time travel. So, I'll leave it as it is, unless anyone has an objection. --Dd42 19:23, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

On a similar note, let us consider this quote from the article: 'or is not particularly intelligent (There Are Doors)'. TAD is also written in the third person and, although the protagonist is certainly psychologically unsound, I can't think of any events in the book that would illustrate a lack of intelligence (at least not so that it would effect the narration). flip 05:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Green doesn't seem particularly unintelligent to me, but this is actually Wolfe's opinion, from a section of Shadows of the New Sun. Admittedly Wolfe has different standards than the rest of us, but There Are Doors is probably the only book where I felt comfortably ahead of the protagonist by a couple of steps, and maybe that's all he means. 6 January 2008.

"Severian, from The Book of the New Sun, is not always truthful." I'd like an example of where he lies in his narration. There is a difference between having the character lie to others in the story and having an unreliable narrator. Nitpyck (talk) 19:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

...a speaker or voice whose vision or version of the details of a story are consciously or unconsciously deceiving; such a narrator’s version is usually subtly undermined by details in the story or the reader’s general knowledge of facts outside the story. http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/litweb05/glossary/glossary_u.htm I think many of his books fail to fit this definition. When he writes about a time traveling pirate nothing we are told is undermined by details in the story or the reader’s general knowledge of facts outside the story. And this is generally true of speculative fiction. Just cause the Hobbits have a magic ring doesn't make the narrator unreliable. Nitpyck (talk) 05:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=100&q=Severian+%22lie%22+site%3Awww.urth.net

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0028/0427.shtml

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0022/0057.shtml

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0016/0041.shtml

--Gwern (contribs) 14:53 14 September 2009 (GMT)

Also:

"It was in this instant of confusion that I realized for the first time that I am in some degree insane. It could be argued that it was the most harrowing of my life. I had lied often to Master Gurloes and Master Palaemon, to Master Malrubius while he still lived, to Drotte because he was captain, to Roche because he was older and stronger than I, and to Eata and the other smaller apprentices because I hoped to make them respect me. Now I could no longer be sure my own mind was not lying to me; all my falsehoods were recoiling on me, and I who remembered everything could not be certain those memories were more than my own dreams. I recalled the moonlit face of Vodalus; but then, I had wanted to see it. I recalled his voice as he spoke to me, but I had desired to hear it, and the woman's voice too.
One freezing night, I crept back to the mausoleum and took out the chrisos again. The worn, serene, androgynous face on its obverse was not the face of Vodalus."

Admission of incessant lying to other people (such as the reader); check. Implication of flawed, mutable memory; check. --Gwern (contribs) 12:59 22 September 2009 (GMT)

These (The discussion of non-academics on a message board) are not what I understand as acceptable sources. If narrator undermines the story he/she is considered unreliable. Where in the 4 novels does what Severin narrates undercut the story? What is changed if Vodalus's face is on the counterfeit coins or not? Is the story different than what Severin says it is? Look, for me the "unreliable narrator" tag is way overused (to the point where it is no longer useful). Its use should be backed by citation from a reliable source. Nitpyck (talk) 01:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Obviousness of Catholic influence

I've removed the phrase "(though not straightforwardly obvious)" in discussion of Catholic influence. From discussions I have seen of Wolfe's work, his use of the Catholic sacraments is one of the first things readers notice about his "solar" work. Use of Christian allegory is so strong a part of his writing that at least one recent critic (Wright) has tried to discount it as a device intend to mislead the reader from the real story. Crculver 14:40, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

It wasn't terribly obvious to me the first time I read them (except in Return to the Whorl, which has a scene than which a more obvious eucharistic allusion is hardly imaginable). I was not Catholic yet when I first read the New Sun and Long Sun. How obvious it is probably depends on how intimately familiar you are with Catholic theology, sacramental life, history, etc., how mature you are when you read the books for the first time, etc. --Jim Henry 16:15, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Although mentioned in the lede shouldn't examples be given in the style paragraph? I don't see much Catholic influence in his 2 Norse mythology novels. The priests in the Long Sun make animal (and perhaps human) sacrifices and use the entrails to predict the future. The head of the church is an alien vampire. This is not Catholic as far as I understand Catholic ceremony. To see the New Sun as a son of god story seems perverse to me. But there may be a good case for the other view - it should be explained rather than just stated. Nitpyck (talk) 19:58, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

There is his most recent work Pirate Freedom. For long Song I believe Wolfe described the priest as a 'good man in a bad religion'. LamontCranston (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC).

Again, how does writing about a pirate/priest who has a wife show "the strong influence of his Catholic faith"? I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying it should be explained in the style section. Nitpyck (talk) 20:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Template

I have created a template, Template:Gene Wolfe for his major works and notable fictional creations. i will add this template to his various articles, but its time to rest. If only Severian had it so easy, to be an Apprentice Editor:)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

List of short stories

By my reading, this list will eventually be ALL of his short stories. I think that having TOC at each collection should suffice for the collected works. If there are a reasonable number of uncollected stories, listing them here makes sense. i added one which has its own article.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 18:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Science

Gene Wolfe’s understanding of science can be shown by the following quotation:

“…

In the movies, Emery reflected, people simply stepped into time machines and vanished, to reappear later or earlier at the same spot on Earth's surface, as if Copernicus had never lived. In reality, Earth was moving in the solar system, the solar system in the galaxy, and the galaxy itself in the universe. One would have to travel through space as well as time to jump time in reality.

Somewhere beneath the surface of the lake, the device that permitted such jumps was still functioning, after a fashion. …”

from “The Ziggurat” © 1995 by Gene Wolfe.

The Earth moves about 1 light year distance in about 1200 to 1500 years time. Works that ignore this should be classed as fantasy.

agb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.233.167.63 (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Style

The article section on Style begins with the statement that "Wolfe's writing does not generally follow genre conventions."

The assertion is unreferenced, and I do not believe it is true. On the contrary, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction notes that "Wolfe's importance lies in a spongelike ability to assimilate generic models and devices, and in the quality of the transformations he effects upon that material. ... he wears the fictional worlds of sf like a coat of many colours."[1]

The section goes on to describe noteworthy literary techniques and devices, but they have nothing to do with genre conventions. The most unconventional thing about his work is that it generally addresses more cultivated readers than the YA audience targeted by most genre works. He does not break genre conventions, he uses them with exceptional sophistication. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to whoever boldly removed this scurrilous assertion that Wolfe's style somehow violates literary standards. The section is much better now. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:43, 13 June 2016 (UTC)