(urth) Gene Wolfe and Patrick O'Brian
Batrinque at aol.com
Batrinque at aol.com
Sun Apr 8 05:52:04 PDT 2007
In a message dated 4/8/2007 3:46:25 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
vermoulian at yahoo.com writes:
I notice Bruce Trinque, noted Patrick O'Brian scholar
and afficianado, has joined the Urth list.
An aficionado, yes. A scholar, no.
Welcome,
Thank'ee, thank'ee. Now, over on the Patrick O'Brian list we keep around
some grog to welcome new members. I don't suppose ...
Bruce! It'd be interesting to hear how you compare POB
and GW...
I find the reading of them to be vastly different experiences. POB's prose
sweeps me along, while that of GW demands my close, close attention,
frequently stopping and going back to se what I had missed -- and ninety percent of
the time I find that Wolfe is simply employing a narrative technique of
plopping in new names and references to old incidents without laying in preparatory
groundwork. I think that O'Brian adheres fairly closely to traditional
narrative techniques, while of course Wolfe delights in experimenting with new
ways to challenge his readers (not that O'Brian does not occasionally lay a
trap for the unwary).
I frequently listen to O'Brian novels as audiobooks while commuting; I
cannot conceive of doing that with Wolfe (finding it necessary to go back and
re-read).
I have recently re-read the Short Sun trilogy, then took a break with a few
history volumes, the read (for the first time) "The Knight", then another
break, then "The Wizard", and now another break before I tackled "Soldier of
Sidon" (I have read the first two Latro books some time ago and plan on browsing
through them -- but not re-reading -- before I embark on the new one). I
find these breaks between Wolfe novels to be necessary to avoid overload, while
I can read one POB novel after another.
Bruce Trinque
Amston, CT
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
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