(urth) Long Review Essay on Wizard Knight
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
thalassocrat at nym.hush.com
Wed Sep 19 03:12:25 PDT 2007
On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:45:03 +1000 Stephen Frug
<sfrug at post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Greetings Urthlings. I've read this message list before, but
>never
>posted to it. (Unless this message is itself a duplicate... the
>first time seems to have gotten lost...) But I just wrote a long
>review of Wizard Knight which I posted to my blog
Nice piece, thanks!
To enjoy Wolfe I generally have to hold my nose & swallow his
political & religious assumptions whole, and then grit my teeth to
deal with the crappy genre trappings - but having done that, it's
usually worth it :)
I guess for me the most interesting point you raise is the one
where you say: OK, fine, Wolfe's heroes may be pretty good
characterisations of what counts as heroic for the kinds of
societies they find themselves in. But how can a modern kid be
excused for aspiring and acting as Able does?
Within the story, the answer is obvious. On one level, he's been
programmed that way by Dsiri et al. They want him to win renown
within the society of Celidon, where the martial virtues are
absolutely predominant, so he can meet the king on equal-ish terms
and deliver the message.
To induce him into this, he's been enchanted so that Dsiri is
absolutely and entirely the most important thing for him, and to
believe unquestioningly that gaining status in Celidon as a warrior
is the only way to win her. He will stomp on anything which gets in
his way, without regret. They've harnassed his adolescent hormones
to turn him into a Clockwork Orange Lout Knight Wannabe.
So is Wolfe really holding out the knightly ideal as being a Good
Thing? His hero character has been co-opted into following, without
his consent, it by a creature of mud and twigs who is less than a
dream ...
More information about the Urth
mailing list