(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Will No One Rid Me Of This Troublesome Writer?

Tue May 10 04:17:10 PDT 2011

Yeah, this just looks like a red herring to me.  Wolfe is the 'brilliant
student' of far more writers than Vance, many of the others being
'mainstream'.  Even if we were to only consider fantasy pre-cursors, just
the mere fact of mixing something of Vance with healthy doses of the likes
of Hodgson and Lovecraft already creates something wonderfully new and fresh
(something that some will far prefer to Vance it has to be said).

It's no secret that Wolfe almost never invents any new s.f/fantasy scenario
- his originality is all in the exquisite craft and artistry of the prose
itself, the utterly weird sleight-of-hand form of storytelling, and the
dense depth of psychology and narratology (all of which have their
derivations - but Wolfe truly sounds, in the thick of his narrative, like no
one else).

Having said that, I actually agree that the oft-repeated (re-bleated) blurbs
can be rather misleading.  Gene Wolfe will live up to his praise in a way
that probably many (most?) people just won't 'get'.  And I don't necessarily
blame them.  It just depends on your tastes and backgrounds.  I think the
'problem' is that some of us have been willing to follow Wolfe into and
through his literary labyrinth and thereby been shown wonders that have
resonated so deeply and lastingly that we can't heap enough praise on him.
This is understandable but perhaps unhelpful and misleading to the
non-initiate.  Wolfe needs blurbs that will perhaps rather more cautiously
entice readers into his rare brew if they they can be convinced to pay the
fee (because, frankly, reading Wolfe is costly, as most of us will admit).

Then again, all the outrageous praise from Gaiman and others totally roped
me in and I'm not the least unthankful!

DOJP

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Jack Smith <jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Wolfe is derivative?  Yes, but so is Shakespeare.
>
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is just demonstrably false to boot!  Vance's prose, his diction,
>> and his writing style are highly distinct from Wolfe's.  I mean, the
>> only line of intersection is that they each chose a certain thematic
>> motif (a dying world) for a few of their stories.  But Wolfe's writing
>> tends to be more dialogue-heavy and witty, whereas Vance eschews
>> dialogue in favor of lyricism and structured prose.  The "Dying Earth"
>> stories are lighter and more mythic (not to mention fairly
>> straightforward), whereas Wolfe's tend to be labyrinthine and
>> multi-layered.
>>
>> I enjoy both, but to compare Wolfe to Vance is to compare apples to
>> oranges.
>>
>> That said, aren't all writers at least somewhat derivative?  Talk to
>> any of them and they can list a whole line of authors that influenced
>> their development. But there's a clear difference between, "Oh yeah,
>> Borges was totally influential on my work" and "Hey guys, I totally
>> rewrote a Borges story with spaceships and swords."
>>
>> LH
>>
>> On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Just in time for Gene's birthday celebrations:
>> >
>> http://foreverness.createforumhosting.com/what-to-do-about-gene-wolfe-t337.html
>> >
>> >> This is driving me nuts. I'm far beyond my limit of tolerance for
>> cover-jacket blurbs declaring Gene Wolfe to be "... the greatest writer in
>> the English language alive today." and "... there is nobody who can even
>> approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth
>> in meaning." That's Michael Swanwick's embarrassing fawning, which has
>> apparently become required promotional jibber-jabber for every book Wolfe
>> gets published. Other literary critics who don't know anything about science
>> fiction take this at face value, and occasionally regurgitate it with their
>> own variations, completely oblivious to Jack Vance's work. And, readers new
>> to science fiction (or speculative fiction if you prefer) are being grossly
>> misled. They're amazed by the pebble but aren't told about the mountain.
>> Don't get me wrong; I don't dislike Gene Wolfe's writing. I pounce on every
>> new chunk of fiction he comes up with. I'll go so far as to say that his
>> "The Book of the New Sun" i
>> >  s required reading for anyone who believes that some sci-fi is serious
>> literature equal to the best in mainstream fiction. But, Wolfe is
>> derivative. He obviously used Vance as a starting point, whereas Vance
>> developed his literary voice independently. Vance is authentic and original,
>> and Wolfe is the brilliant student. It's true that Wolfe's most recent work
>> seems to be moving in a direction that is more of Wolfe himself and less of
>> Vance's style and technique. Hopefully, Wolfe's future works will be ships
>> with a wind in their sails that flows from Wolfe's lungs alone. But we're
>> still being pounded over the head with the uninformed blather of Swanwick,
>> et al. What to do? Who will sound the trumpet for Vance? Who will illuminate
>> Vance's status as the progenitor?
>> >
>> > --
>> > gwern
>> > http://www.gwern.net
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>
>
>
> --
> Best wishes,
> Jack
>
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