(urth) TSH: I liked it!
Kieran Mullen
kieran at nhn.ou.edu
Wed Mar 24 12:02:00 PDT 2010
I finished "The Sorcerer's House" last week and I really enjoyed
it. First, it has an engaging story that is more transparent than,
oh "Peace" or "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" (it's not transparent of
course, just *more* transparent). I enjoyed it as a story, even
without all the puzzles. Second, the story was one where Wolfe's
spare style of "show, don't tell" really shines. The novel is based
on a set of letters, and the recorded dialog is pretty brief and there
are no long prose descriptions, as one might expect in handwritten
letters. It's a book I will enjoy re-reading, trying to suss out who
is really who and when.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
The picture of Ted that Doris has looks like the man who stopped
Iuean from beating up Baxter (p.134). That man is later identified
as the Black, the father of Iuean and Emlyn. However, Doris does not
seem to know about faerie. (On occasion I suspected her of knowing
more than she ever let on.) I think that Ted and Black are also
twins, one magical and the other not (as Black himself states is often
the case). "He" is also seen talking to Lupine and vanishing. I
don't know if this is Ted or Black. What is the wet thing left behind
on Doris's bed with the initials TAG?
I need to re-read the book, for many reasons. One is, how are we
to think of Baxter? Is Baxter really "an evil guest?" He needles
his brother cruelly, write seductive letters to his brother's wife,
and undoubtedly kills him. He is a convicted fraud. How good is he
really? I admit I sometimes like my protagonists to be a bit more
clear cut - either heroes or anti-heroes. I am not sure what we are
supposed to think of Baxter. He does confess his criminal behavior
to a number of women. However, a real fraud doesn't hide such
things. He tells you about them in such detail that it makes him even
more believable. OTOH, I don't fault Baxter as much if he keeps
offering a genuine olive branch to George and the latter insists on a
duel to the death.
The only clanging false note for me was the rape/assault of Cathy
Ruth. Not only did it seem gratuitous, it would have set off a whole
slew of consequences that involve the police, hospitals,
investigations, etc. These consequences are never played out.
The quest for wisdom/George where Winkle leads Baxter into faerie
and a divine voice speaks to Baxter also seems a bit out of place.
I think I don't understand it well enough, yet.
I am also intrigued by the "unfinished numen." Emlyn points out
that Baxter is in big trouble due to the incorrectly terminated
"spell." How is that resolved? Is it simply that he gets more
money and more fish? Or does it go deeper than that?
I was trying to figure out how to explain to someone how
different Wolfean fantasy is compared to any other writer. I tried
to imagine how Winkle would be handled, say, by Terry Brooks. I could
see the facefox pull the whole focus of the book as "cewl." I don't
know how to put it into words the difference, how Wolfe lets faerie be
"other" without it just becoming a set of DnD character stats.
Anyway, I liked this much more that "An Evil Guest." In AEG the
laconic storytelling was frustrating to me and unnatural to the
storyline. AEG also jumped about in genres and I *still* don't
understand what really happened. The ambiguities in TSH makes
more sense as the authors of the various letters have much to hide,
and many of them are resolved (to my satisfaction) in the story itself.
Kieran Mullen
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