/lit/ - Literature

Just read more of ol' Gene, my friend. He's one of us, he gets where we're coming from.

>>23406296
Proust was rejected too. Joyce fought for years to get Dubliners published for the first time.

Even just recently someone working in the publishing industry said that if Gene Wolfe were trying to get his start today he would likely be rejected by pretty much every agent and publishing house.

It's rough out there when you're doing something great.

OP I know how you feel. I wrote two letters to Gene Wolfe, and neither of them got a reply. Wolfe meant as much to me as McCarthy must have meant to you.

>>22131807
Let's say that GRRM died tomorrow, and that in his will, he asks Gene Wolf, a literary idol of his, to finish the series based on outlines he has left behind. Pretending that Gene Wolf is still alive and is willing to undertake this feat, how does it turn out?

Would you put him on the level of Faulkner?

If you're a fan of Gene Wolfe, you probably think you're some sort of literary genius. Well, let me clue you in: Gene Wolfe is an overrated author who has been hyped up for far too long. Sure, he started writing in the late 1960s, but his books all sound the same: boring, dense, and opaque. Reading a Gene Wolfe book is like walking through a thick fog full of confusion and disappointment.

The fact is, Wolfe's writing is far too complicated and bogged down in its own ponderous, convoluted prose. His stories are often hard to follow and they rarely have satisfying resolutions. It's like he's trying to make everything needlessly complicated.

Plus, Wolfe's characters are usually the same boring, stuffy old Victorian stereotypes who all talk in an overly flowery way. Whether they are journalists, scientists, or time travelers, they all have the same dull old personalities and they never develop beyond that.

So, don't be fooled by the hype. If you want to spend your time reading intelligently written science fiction, pick up a book by someone else. Don't waste your time on Gene Wolfe.

>>21287216
you've probably already read pringles man

Do you think Tolkien would've liked Gene Wolfe?

How come people outside of 4chan don't care about Gene Wolfe?

>Time itself is a thing, so it seems to me, that stands solidly like a fence of iron palings with its endless row of years; and we flow past like Gyoll, on our way to a sea from which we shall return only as rain.

>When he had gone, I tore open the envelope. The sheet within was not large, but it was covered with tiny writing, as though a swarm of hatchling spiders had been pressed into its surface.

>>20260423
Why yes, all my stories are about my self-insert character being drooled over by beautiful women whom he all makes love to at his leisure, how could you tell?

>>20098215
You shouldn't just go around hating things. It makes you a lesser person.

>Incidentally, I'd argue that SF represents literature's real mainstream. What we now normally consider the mainstream—so called realistic fiction—is a small literary genre, fairly recent in origin, which is likely to be relatively short lived. When I look back at the foundations of literature, I see literary figures who, if they were alive today, would probably be members of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Homer? He would certain belong to the SFWA. So would Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare. That tradition is literature's mainstream, and it has been what has grown out of that tradition which has been labeled SF or whatever label you want to use.
Thoughts?

2022...I am forgotten...

ITT: authors who should be more popular

>>19313664

THE REAL KING OF /SFFG/. THE USURPER HAS FINALLY BEEN DETHRONED!

SIMPLE. AS.

>STEM Chads can't wri-

What would need to happen for Gene Wolfe to become popular?