(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: another BotNS review

[Daniel Otto Jack Petersen]

Yes.  I honestly think 'sublime' is a sober and appropriate assessment.
 -DOJP


On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Critiques of New Sun in particular are almost universally asinine. Later
> Wolfe lacks the universal appeal but is still great, but the balance in New
> Sun between theme, atmosphere, execution (of the writing), and
> entertainment is sublime.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 19, 2013, at 9:52 AM, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It is very refreshing to hear some rather unalloyed praise of this series
> (its beginning anyway).  Not because I don't also enjoy the warranted
> critique that many have pursued, but because when I re-read this very book
> (for the third time) last year, I was rather shocked at how well it stood
> up.  I had let all the criticisms really get under my skin and had begun to
> convince myself I'd find the work far short of my awed memory of it.  Not
> so.  I'd go so far nowadays as to call BotNS a true literary treasure.
>  Full stop.
>
> -DOJP
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net> wrote:
>
>> "http://www.rantingdragon.com/gfn-the-shadow-of-the-torturer/ "Great
>> Fantasy Novel Nomination: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe",
>> by Paul Weimer
>>
>> > ...The setting was the first thing that drew me as a reader to _The
>> Shadow of the Torturer_ years ago, and it still draws and enchants me
>> today. Jack Vance may have codified the idea of a Dying Earth, refreshing
>> it from the work of Clark Ashton Smith and William Hope Hodgson. However,
>> it is Wolfe that has taken the idea of the Dying Earth, and put a map to
>> the territory, eschewing the picaresque, small bore scope of much of Vance
>> and instead launching us into an epic tale of an Earth just as close to the
>> end of its days. Plants as dueling weapons. A crumbling ancient city under
>> a literally dying sun.  And yet, the careful and alert reader can see how
>> this bizarre far future world connects to and is an extension of our own.
>>  There are allusions, intimations, and references to our own past, and
>> earlier still, for readers to untangle and discover.
>> >
>> > Finally, and even more strongly than character and setting, is the
>> writing. Reading _The Shadow of the Torturer_ is to be immersed into a
>> world of language and words you likely have never heard of. The fuligin
>> black of Severian’s cloak, the Autarch that rules over the land. These are
>> not neologisms, but rather underused and nearly forgotten English words
>> that Wolfe has found in a dusty corner of an antique store, and has bought,
>> cleaned up and brought to light to the reader. This careful use of baroque
>> words not only reinforces and reifies the far future, alien, fantastic
>> world, but they also provide nuances and shades of meaning to exactly
>> portray what he wants. Wolfe could have called the Autarch a King, or a
>> Dictator, or a Tyrant. Each of those would have been close to what we
>> wanted, but none of them would have been exactly what we wanted. It is that
>> painstaking exactness and perfection in language, in sentence structure, in
>> dialogue that really marks his craft.
>> >
>> > Admittedly, given that The Shadow of the Torturer is the first book of
>> not only a four volume series, but an entire cycle of stories and novels,
>> it might seem unfair and unreasonable to call this one book the Great
>> Fantasy Novel. Nevertheless, a suite of stories and novels must start
>> strongly or never be written. The Shadow of the Torturer is equaled and
>> surpassed in some of the subsequent novels of the series. However, the
>> stature of those later novels, in every case is dependent on it being a
>> follow up, ultimately, of The Shadow of the Torturer. Thus, standing first,
>> The Shadow of the Torturer is the greatest of the series and the cycle.
>> >
>> > With its ambiguous and odd ending, The Shadow of the Torturer also
>> stands alone as a volume that engages and allows the reader to fill in the
>> blank at the end. The reader is perfectly capable and given the tools
>> needed to leave the series and suite after reading this book, if they so
>> wish. What really happens at the gate of the massive wall of Nexus? Where
>> will Severian and his companions go? What is the world outside the walls of
>> the city really like? The Shadow of the Torturer only gives us hints,
>> leaving, in the context of this book, our imagination, our own faculties to
>> fill it in. It allows the reader to continue to imagine it for themselves.
>> And that is what the best literature, especially genre literature does: it
>> provides room for the playground of the imagination.
>>
>> --
>> gwern
>> http://www.gwern.net
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>
>
>
> --
> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>
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-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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