(urth) George R. R. Martin on Gene Wolfe

[Marc Aramini]

One more thing I wanted to briefly reiterate, which I have said in part in
my videos, but I DO think some of the criticism aimed at Wolfe is
ideological in nature. When I think of an author objectifying women, I
think of Henry Miller calling all of them c#$ts and interested in them
purely for fleeting sexuality,of the same interest as a quarter on the
floor (slightly more interesting because he will pick up the quarter AFTER
he is done with the girl) ... but because of his bohemian, against "the
man", anti-restraint image, the discussion of his work rarely involves the
rampant denigration Wolfe's female characters get. For whatever reason, the
sophisticated readers who gravitate towards liberal arts programs tend to
be of a different political bent than someone who is more or less a
traditionalist, albeit an extremely eccentric genius of one.

There is an ideological bias in terms of public reception, most certainly -
though as far as a Hugo goes, as you said, Wolfe's difficulty is reason
enough, I think.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://grrm.livejournal.com/424135.html
>
> Martin had a few kind words to say about Wolfe and the New Yorker piece.
> He also brought up the Hugos and the Puppies again. There's some irony in
> that, isn't there? The Puppies, both breeds, argue that conservative,
> religious authors don't have a chance with the Hugos because they've been
> "taken over" by a left-leaning, atheist conspiracy.
>
> They never bring up Wolfe, from what I've seen, and you would think he's
> the perfect example. He's obviously Catholic and conservative, to a degree.
> See arguments about this in the past of the List and recently on Reddit.
> He's never won a Hugo despite numerous other accolades. You would think
> he'd be their most damning evidence. So what gives?
>
> I could make a snide comment here about how the Puppies probably couldn't
> understand Wolfe anyway, but despite the snark I think there's some truth
> in the idea. A corollary to the Puppy argument is that more traditional SF,
> adventure stories essentially, are not winning awards anymore. On one hand,
> Wolfe does write stories with adventure: knights, wizards, secret agents,
> etc. He's also been writing for a long time. He doesn't write simple
> stories, though, and while he pays frequent homage to the classics of the
> genre does not write in their style.
>
> And what about those accolades? Wolfe has won numerous other awards; he's
> a Grand Master; other writers laud him frequently. In an interview from
> some time back, China Miéville noted Wolfe's talent while acknowledging a
> difference in political opinion.
>
> The reason Wolfe has never won a Hugo has nothing to do with his ideology
> and everything to do with the fact that he's a difficult writer. The fans
> vote for the Hugos, and they vote for what they're reading, most of which
> is more traditional and less literary than Wolfe's output.
>
> Wolfe is an embarrassing example for the Puppies because he doesn't fit
> into their narrative. I don't think he would play ball with them either
> because as Martin notes, he's "a class act."
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20150428/dc16ef5f/attachment-0003.htm>