(urth) Gene Wolfe

Thu Apr 18 10:15:52 PDT 2019

It's always sad when someone you care about or admire dies but I think we can say that Wolfe had a long productive life and his writing legacy will live on for a long time. 

The other morning I was thinking about his last novel and I finally picked up on the double meaning in the title. 

> On Apr 15, 2019, at 7:07 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I knew since yesterday when someone tweeted out his neighbor had died, but the family asked him to delete the tweet. A guy on reddit sent me a message the same hour for Gene's mailing address, so I had to tell him Gene could probably never read his letter. Then I was driving back to Vegas, where I work (two hours from where I live) and my mother called me and asked for Gene's address because she was thinking of him to send him an Easter Card, and I said I think he died today mom. I have always been superstitious of course, but I can't say I'm taking it great. I have to teach Latro in the Mist in a week and a half for my mythology class and I don't know how I will be. Here's a copy of what I wrote on Facebook about it. 
> 
> I have written over 1.2 million words about Gene Wolfe, and yet here at last is one inescapable thing I am at a loss on how to write. Anyone who has ever talked books with me knows how I force Wolfe upon them, and sometimes I reveal the quite personal reasons that such a virtuoso of cryptic prose maintains such an important position in my life.
> When I was a lonely child, his stories were there to keep me company. When I was a young man, his kind responses to a fan’s letters made such a difference in a world that is often completely indifferent. Now that I am a man, it is infinitely clear that without Gene Wolfe, no one would ever remember my name. My professional and personal lives are so intertwined around him that I can’t imagine a world without him; there is nothing I would rather write about, but there is nothing I want to write less than these paragraphs.
> Wolfe passed away on April 14th. I don’t want to go into details of his biography save to repeat what you can find anywhere: Gene Wolfe was drafted and fought in Korea, married Rosemary Wolfe, converted to Catholicism for her, helped invent the machine which makes Pringles, and became the most literary and erudite of science fiction writers somewhere along the way. When Rosemary ailed with Alzheimer’s, Gene took care of her. I have been prepared for this day for some time, but I was ready for it to be tomorrow, or next year, and never today. Now the day is past, and all those words that I thought would save me can’t do anything at all to describe how kind he was, and what a great man he will always be in my mind. There are a lot of personal stories I could relate from his nearly two-decade correspondence with me, but I would rather end it with a truth: he was a true genius with an iconic bushy mustache and an infinitely greater heart.
> Of course, he would know what to say about our existences here when I falter, so I will leave it to him:
> “Whether all that came to good or evil, I don't know. Until we reach the end of time, we don't know whether something's been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted … Perhaps death is only horrible to us because it's a dividing of the terror of life from the wonder of it. We see only the terror, which is left behind.”
> I hope there is only wonder for my friend now when I feel that horror for myself and his family, friends, and fans. Gene Wolfe had the chance to live a full life of acclaim that was never quite loud enough; he was brimming with a kindness that was never insufficient. At the closing of the 2012 Fuller Award Ceremony I caught Gene Wolfe alone before leaving, and, with a crack in my voice and a tearful grimace on my face, kneeling down below his seated figure, I said, “You’ll always be my hero, and I love you, Gene.” Some things can never change, though no one can straighten what God has made crooked.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 4:53 PM Ab de Vos <foxyab at casema.nl> wrote:
>> What a shock, but his life and work are complete now. I wonder how Marc is taking it.
>> 
>> Op 16-4-2019 om 01:33 schreef Jane Delawney:
>>> Very sad news. Condolences to his family.
>>> 
>>> JD
>>> 
>>>> On 15/04/2019 18:56, aaron wrote:
>>>> I just saw this. I can't believe it. I pray for his family.
>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 12:09 PM Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Tor is reporting that Gene Wolfe has passed away. 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> F.P. Kiesche III
>>>>>  
>>>>> Husband, Father, Good Cook. Reader. Keeper of abandoned dogs. Does not fit into a neat box or category. "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at Bernal Alpha. On Twitter as @FredKiesche
>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> Aaron Singleton
>>>> 
>>>> 
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