(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
Craig Brewer
cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 11 08:32:04 PDT 2010
>> I want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to
>>every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is
>>answerable, and >answerable in the text we're pondering.
>>
>> Do you think he would agree? Do you agree?
Coming late to this discussion, but I have to say that I disagree to both. As
much as his hard core fans (i.e., us) adore the puzzle side of his writings, I
get the sense that Wolfe feels himself primarily to be a story teller rather
than a maker of difficult narrative puzzles. (That image of himself as a
fireside yarn-spinner at the beginning of Endangered Species has always stuck in
my mind.) Even when there are puzzles, it seems that he wants them to serve the
purpose of the larger narrative than to be there for their own sake. Too often,
our own obsessions, mine included, seem to remove us from the story, making us
focus on speculations more than the stories as he's told them. Other times, the
focus on the hidden details makes us start to evaluate his stories as if the
theology or philosophy or world-building is more important than the story
itself. I wonder if Wolfe ever feels disappointed by our focus on what's implied
rather than what he's written explicitly.
There have been plenty of examples where the puzzles *are* the story, of course.
Fifth Head and Peace come to mind, obviously. But I don't necessarily think that
they are the definitive way of reading Wolfe.
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