(urth) The Book of the New Sun vs. A Song of Ice and Fire
David Stockhoff
dstockhoff at verizon.net
Wed Aug 1 05:36:14 PDT 2012
On 8/1/2012 5:56 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> And where Martin’s books are driven by action and intrigue, Wolfe’s
> are driven by unraveling a complex narrative arc with incredibly
> tricksy literary elements.
That's a fine observation in 25 words or fewer, although my initial
impulse was to object to it as an oversimplification.
BNS has plenty of action and intrigue, but it is in a way a set piece.
If there is a "game" in BNS it is between characters barely, if at all,
on the stage. Severian appears to make decisions but even on the surface
is overtly constrained in his choices in the same way any fairy tale
hero is. This is one of the broad authorial winks Wolfe throws our way,
and on catching it the reader begins to sense the many literary strata
that hold Severian as fast as any fossil. From there, the reader
eventually proceeds to full-blown detective mode.
But there is a another way Wolfe handles action differently. Not only
does Severian always surprise us, but he downplays his actions as though
they come naturally to him---which of course they do, by definition.
Raised in the Citadel as he was, action and intrigue are /literally
/nothing to him. Where other narrators might directly remind us or boast
of this background, Severian reminds us indirectly (e.g., how others
perceive him) and by sudden, expert displays of violence. His utterly
blase, matter-of-fact view of such things almost makes him Methuselan.
As for Martin's books---does anyone more familiar with them than I think
there is anything /but /a surface level to them?
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