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/lit/ - Literature

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6584136 No.6584136 [Reply] [Original]

Well that was mediocre

>> No.6584144

ya well its a fantasy novel what did u expect

>> No.6584148

Did you finish the next two books too, pleb, or are you judging it halfway through?

>> No.6584159
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6584159

>>6584144
>le genre fiction meme

>> No.6584853

here we go again

>> No.6586096

>>6584144
Something more than a shitty RPG campaign

>> No.6586106
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6586106

>>6584144
>Book of the New Sun
>fantasy

>> No.6586113

the plot SUX

>> No.6586114

>>6584136
Memeposting aside, there's not much to get from just the first book.
(still nothing near what that wolfeposter is trying to make of it, though)

>> No.6586265

>>6586114
>that wolfeposter
there's more than one

>> No.6586608

>>6584148
Does it get better?

>> No.6586665

>>6586608

I want to know to. I read the first book expecting something great and thought it was shit.

>> No.6586696

>>6586608
>>6586665
It "gets better" and puts the first book in a different light if you remember it well enough or re-read it. But keep your expectations in check. Why were you expecting something great? If it's because of what you've read on /lit/ - and no, it really is one hysterical guy and you know the one - you can give it up already, this isn't Proust.

>> No.6586741

>>6586696
>it really is one hysterical guy and you know the one
which one? have you actually been in any of the gene wolfe threads? there are several people that appear in all of them, not just a single person.

>> No.6586779

It's okay, Anon, some great works just rub people the wrong way. I really didn't like Ulysses, for example.

>> No.6586788

now I know how sevarian feeled when bandando called him a fgt in front of the higher beings

get rekt son

praise the wolfster, my children

>> No.6586999

>>6586608
If you're not enjoying it at all after the first two, I don't think it's terrible to cut your losses now. All the stuff with the Ascians in the last couple books is great, though, my favorite part of BotNS.

>> No.6587066

>>6586999
trips confirm, ascians are great, can't ignore an omen like that
loyal to the group of seventeen's story is one of the best parts of the entire series, though
also that deus ex machina

>> No.6588135

>>6586696
>this isn't Proust
its better
>pepewolfe.jpg

>> No.6588156

>>6588135
It is different. Proust was an influence, but they are vastly different. But Wolfe is actually better

>> No.6589483

Stop that. You know saying bad things about this book and associated series, causes a lot of emotional pain, even if you are just trolling.

We can all live happily together on 4chan, making sexist/racist/homophobic/etc jokes, but on no account say anything below 'mediocre at best' about Gene

It's like the Wahhabism of Fantasy or something

>> No.6590342

>>6589483
But it is a mediocre fantasy series with all the imagination of a second rate D&D campaign

>> No.6590400

>>6590342
pleb detected

>> No.6590420

It is fun, but people on lit talk like if it was some groundbreaking novel or something, not really. Still worth the time in my opinion.

>> No.6590434

>>6590420
another pleb approaches

>> No.6590450

>>6590434
wow, I'm sorry, it seems that I was wrong OP, gene wolfe is a genius and the shadow series is the latest cannon.

>> No.6590466

tell us why i havent read it

>> No.6590854

>>6590466
see
>>6590342

>> No.6590927

>>6588156
Please elaborate on how Proust influenced Gene Wolfe

>> No.6590971

>>6586608
>>6586665

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer this morning and thought it was great. A couple of parts were quite gripping and he seems to go on a few random as hell tangents (you put the mirrors together and light accelelerates and you get holograms of fish... And this is how our space travel works young lady) I'm interested in how things come together later.

The jungle scene was kind of dumb and the flower dueling was ridiculous and unrealistic but I love Severiens character and I'm eager to see how he ties all that random crap together. I can easily see how a number of people wouldn't enjoy this though, both as parts are rather complicated with few descriptions of things and because the characters may just be too unlikeable to some.

9.5/10 this is probably my favourite scifi since I read Dune.

>> No.6590996

>>6590450
>the shadow series
>the cannon
turbopleb detected

>> No.6591037

>>6590927
Here's a few things taken from the Urth mailing list:
I was just finishing up Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and was caught
off guard by how many of my favorite Wolfe quotes come from book six (The
Fugitive, in my translation). "Love is the only divinity", "All things that
we consider imperishable tend to their own destruction", "Certain philosophers
aver that the real world is a construction of the mind", "Time turns our lies
into truth", eating a Chatelaine to invoke involuntary memory instead of a
Madeleine cookie, etc.

There are some similar elements in The Fifth Head of Cerberus as well but they're nothing more than allusions and callbacks, really, just like Father Inire's mirrors are an obvious reference to Borges (as is blind Master Ultan and his endless library). Wolfe himself has mentioned several times that Proust is one of his favorite authors, as well.

>>6590971
Why was the jungle scene dumb? If realism is going to be a problem, I don't imagine you'll like the rest of the books. And those random (though not really) tangents will only get more common.

>> No.6591062

>>6591037
>eating a Chatelaine to invoke involuntary memory instead of a Madeleine cookie
haha

the above quotes are all common platitudes, though, and most much older than Proust

>> No.6591103

>>6591062
I wouldn't say they all are, but yes some are.

Again, I think Proust's influence on the work is overstated. Wolfe has read Remembrance of Things Past at least twice and really likes him but I'm not really all that sure it seeps into his work as much as people like to say it does. It's just something people say to back up New Sun, as if it doesn't stand well enough on its own, which I certainly think it does.

>> No.6591111

>>6586779
>Comparing Wolf to Joyce
>Genre Fags

>> No.6591137

>>6591111
i think such a rise from you was the intention, pal

>> No.6591137,1 [INTERNAL] 

The passive nature of memory and its transformative, subjective powers are of course a major theme in New Sun taken from Proust, and while he is at it, Wolfe even plays with perspicuous language, hinting that in the future one word has only one definition while constructing a text in which anbiguity thrives. Sev's passive recollection and the idea that the dead can be recalled and thus preserved lurk under his salvation - worthy to remember mankind but little else. A christian propaganda that involves a monstrous outcome and gives effective anti-theist arguments to its partial protagonist, Thecla, new sun shows Wolfe's range and depth.

>> No.6591401
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6591401

>> No.6591437

The birds are calling for you, please don't follow

>> No.6591437,1 [INTERNAL] 

The denigration of Wolfe and the exaltation of Pynchon is disturbing - a maximalist without a center contraposed against a unified artist in the tradition of high modernism. Pynchon: octopi, cropophagy, diptheria, erectile jokes, juvenile songs, all to show that war is meaningless .. no joke. The center doesnt hold. Joyce at least plays the game of elision and allusion well, and deserves the respect of linguistic departments and semioticians, but Pynchon and his brand of postmodern descent into meaningless is really nothing profound. All of them are superior to inferior, trite thinkers like Franzen, updike, and Roth, whose insight into humanity is purely masturbatory and neurotic. Wolfe is infinitelt more profound and clever than these "artists" rehashing naturalism in banal, neverending mediocrity.

>> No.6591437,2 [INTERNAL] 

The comparison of Wolfe to Joyce is apt, though Joyce inevitably works in low mimesis and Wolfe hints at the mythic. The irony of Joyce is that save perhaps Dedalus his characters could never (and would never try to) understand the works they were featured within. Bloom's pathetic jaunt to avoid thinking of his wife's actions are but pale echoes of Odysseus' manly responses:slaughter those who attempt to enter his house. INSTEAD, the modern solution: let's avoid it and pretend it isnt a real problem. At least Severian will cut off a head or two and maybe resurrect a dog or friend ... I suppose the unwashed masses can no longer relate to mythic works and instead linger forever in the pathetic fields of low mimesis, with their only escape at times the ironic freedom of something like Ignatius in confederacy of dunces: fat and flatulent but free from some of society's expectations.

>> No.6592364

>>6591103
It's a stylistic influence. How deep he goes into a perspective to create taste is clearly proustian. They have the relationship similar to that of Balzac and Dostoevsky, both were trying to perform a similar feat.

>> No.6592443

>>6591037
>>6590927
The first line of Fifth Head is an explicit reference to the first line of Remembrance.

You could probably take all the obsession with memory in all of Wolfe's stuff as a reference to or inspired by Proust's similar obsession.

>> No.6593220

This series has fucking everything. Dying earth, incest time travel paradoxes, clones, androids trying to be human, outer space shit, aliens, dimension hopping, angels, mole people, extinct animals getting Jurassic Park'd. But, all of these things are introduced so naturally that it never feels absurd or out of place.