/lit/ - Literature

>>7778453

Yes, read it you fool, you get used to the narrative after a couple chapters but it is still very cryptic in parts.

No book has ever made me so acutely aware of the passage of time.

I'm told Proust has this effect, too, which makes sense because I think Wolfe is a Proust fan.

Yes, it is worth two or more reads.

what am i in for??
>>7778462
>>7778460
>>7778459

>>7778453

I guess it was well written but to me the actual story itself seemed so boring

>>7778453
this cover is more memeable than wordsworth

>>7778463
A masterful adventure whose heights are much indebted to the likes of Borges and Proust, but are concurrently exalted by Wolfe's own penchant for invention.

>>7778463
Something you have never experienced before.

You're on /lit/. This makes me think that, when you were younger, you read a lot of fantasy and science fiction. JRR Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein. Maybe you read Frank Herbert's Dune books and were blown away.

Now that you're older, I bet you're starting to get into 'serious' literature. Maybe Infinite Jest was your first taste, maybe not. Maybe you've fallen for /lit/'s memes and are starting to get into Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce, Earnest Hemingway. 'Great' literature, or what can be called great.

Wolfe is the bright, glowing synthesis of the two. Wolfe is science fiction and fantasy, but he's also serious literature. He takes the things you read about in childhood and uses them to speak to you in the language of an adult. Robots, magic, spells, rockets, aliens, masks, dinosaurs--it's all there, but when it talks it tells you about memory, about the passage of time, about fatherhood, about how we live the lives of those who have come before us.

There is nothing like The Book Of The New Sun. Cherish it.

>>7778499
This actually defines me a little too well....

>>7778508
(not OP though)

>>7778499
>Earnest

Nah.

I know you are here aramani. Go the fuck to sleep and stop Wolfeposting.

>>7778453
I'm halfway through and I'm finding it pretty dank.

I'd say read The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace first though. You'll get a feel for Wolfe's writing and learn how to think about his stories. Also they're amazing novels.

>>7778578
Aramani, if you are here, could you answer a question, I'm curious.

Do you browse any boards other than /lit/?

It's god fucking awful, do yourself a favor and stay away. There's a shill or two that'll spam how great it is, don't trust them.

>>7778578
I only said it was worth two or more reads.

>>7778584
Nope. The sound of my name brought me to this one. I am a recent arrival.

>>7778594
Good to see you've ditched the name. Any name or trip, no matter how insignificant or appropriate, makes me want to shitpost.

I figured you'd post on /fit/ or something, it's probably better not to. This whole site is awful. Enjoy checking in for the rest of your life.

>>7778601
I dont understand the anonymous board thing, as I thrive on self aggrandizement... someone caught me pointing and winking at a mirror in the bathroom and I didnt even know I was doing it. Just the way I have always been.

>>7778621
You ever seen a Reddit or youtube comment section? Or any kind of online forum that isn't anonymous? The only way to avoid that kind of faggotry is to make everyone equal and ephemeral all the time.

>>7778621
i'm glad i could show you the truth.

>>7778624
That won't change things. Even anonymous posters can be identified as a distinct entity, and the majority of people on /lit/ are narcissists anyhow.

>>7778624
I think the worse problem is the upvote system. Both fucking disgusting practices though.

>Wolfe thread
>~7 posts relevant to discussion
>~15 posts bitching about Aramini or Reddit

Never change /lit/.

>>7778704
as if gene wolfe hasn't been discussed enough.

>>7778730
Then why consider it a Wolfe thread? The lack of discussion is practically reddit-tier

What is the most moving portion of the series for you all?

Mine is when Severian first emerges into that great courtyard where he meets Valeria. Something about it is so strange and spellbinding.

>>7778588
It's in the top 25 most popular books here so there's certainly more than 1-2 shills.
>>7779192
My interpretation is mainly religious so the part with the holy ground, thorn and the eternal principle. It caught my by surprise and I cried a bit.
>>7778453
It's really great, it's just important to know what you are getting yourself into. It's got a massive amount of subtext, you could say most of it is in it.
As anon mentioned before, it's a cross between the most pulpy elements and the most literary ones since it plays a lot with tropes so you have a on surface simple Conan like narrative that's actually a mix of Chesterton, Borges and Proust.
Some people don't like the detached way the narrator talks and it's from what I've seen the most common surface complaint not counting not getting it by the end.

>>7779214
That's not what the word "trope" means.

>>7779219
Ok

>>7779219
Usage of the term trope is broad; he isn't wrong. STFU and read a book.

>>7778453
Nah, way overblown.

Its the same shit as Martin and Abercrombie and Erickson shit out every few years.

>>7779284
Except it is nothing like them because it is steeped in real world references to literature, catholicism, and philosophy ... otherwise just like it .... except the prose is better and the subtext profound ...

>>7779284
Why compare it if you've never read it? These novels have nothing in common.

I've heard a lot of praise towards Wolfe but never got to read him and then I found both for $14 in my local bookstore.

Don't you fucking lie to me /lit/

>>7779629
You fell for it.

>>7779629
You got some good copies. Enjoy

>>7779629
You got the best edition for cheap, good grab.

>>7779192
>What is the most moving portion of the series for you all?

Loyal To The Group Of Seventeen's story hit me hard. I thought "living in Ascia must be literal hell on earth"

>>7779192
>>7779851
>Loyal To The Group Of Seventeen's story
this

I have both The Knight and The Wizard by Wolfe and Shadow & Claw and Sword & Citadel by Wolfe lying on my to-read shelf. Should I start with The Wizard Knight before I read The Book of the New Sun?

>>7780048
If you want, they are quite different, New Sun is "harder" while Wizard Knight is a fantastic adventure story. There really isn't an order to reading Wolfe if you have experience with other authors that require attention and thinking.

Also Marc just got your book, hope it's good.

>>7779629
I've never seen Wolfe in a library or a bookstore before.

>>7780067
There's always at least one copy of Shadow & Claw at Barnes and Nobles

>>7780067
Niether have I, but that's because he has no translation in my language

>>7780063
I thought I first might need to get used to his style, which is why I thought The Wizard Knight might be a better starting point. Thanks for confirming that TWK is easier to get into, I'll try that first!

>>7780107
The only consistency is how much the narrator influences the text. So it's important in general to figure him out to figure out the text.

>>7778453

I'm going to judge this book by its cover.

It looks fucking terrible; like a middle-aged dad's first novel, replete with delusions of grandeur and who managed to get it cheaply punished.

>>7780114
>these are the people that try to convince you of their discerning taste

>>7780121

>Implying they're wrong

>>7780114
The cover is horible, I'm not sure why it was a pass there being many better ones.

>>7780063
Thanks. I am still waiting impatiently for the publisher to update to version 2 on amazon and fix a few odious typos/infelicities. If you can track down my email from urth list and shoot me an email I will send you the fixed version. Maybe sending a pic of it in your ebook que would be cool because some folks don't seem to like me too much around these parts ...

>>7780175
Protip ... its the kind of email a guy named marc aramini would have, knowing no one else on earth has his name.

>>7780175
I got it from Castila.

>>7780127
Is Dying Earth stand alone or something? Only the first book or all?

>>7780197
Does it say version 002 inside the copyright stuff page at the start? If not just send me that email. Gmail, yahoo, i will get either. They are small changes but after a while they start to grate and i can't look at version 1 without thinking, fuck, it is principle not principal. A few longer sentences were vastly streamlined for clarity as well. About 200 changes between version 1 and 2.

>>7780210
They confusingly renamed those on rerelease a few years ago. The dying earrth omnibus has them all. Tales of the dying earth i think used to be the first one, then eyes of the overworld or something, but then they started mucking with the titles ...

>>7780175
Also when you publish part two will it be sold separately?

>>7780230
Yes it is going to be enormous ... i am trending to well over 400,000 words on that one ... might have to cut. That will cover everything he wrote up to 2015 from 1987.

>>7780222
It is tales of the dying earth in us with all of them
1.dying earth/mazirian magician
2. Eyes of the overworld/ cugel the clever?
3 got renamed cugel: splatterlight spergbox or some bullshit i really recommend looking up the titles on wikipedia everytime i try to remember the two variations it gets confusing as they all got renamed.

>>7780234
You should consider just an analasys of Sun series as a separate publication, I mean it's digital so not like they need to print it.

>>7780175

>infelicities

Pretentious motherfucker.

>>7780244
It took you this long to notice?!!!!

>>7780240
They do plan on printing these ones soon. I envisioned enormous reference works for the short stories, something I wish i had when i was reading them to synthesize sources. If wolfe mentions an allusion, even in a three page story, I read the whole fucking book to see if there was any relevant thematic detail to pull out. I wasnt going to include the novels at first but I realized people werent applying the central novella of fifth head to the main text as it was organically intended to be, then I wanted a concordance listing every difference between the 2 versions of free live free, and vox wanted the new sun essay, so i figured might as well write on everything Wolfe ever wrote. I might do a sun series book after this, but i need a break and want to write my own stuff I have written 225 essays for this project and have 21 left, but I have to deliver it by july 1st, so i feel time's winged chariot at my back. I envisioned this as an examination of his more obscure writing ... it just kept growing.

>>7780292
Well yeah, Wolfe isn't exactly a super popular author and his novels are long... You force yourself into a corner by focusing a small audience within a small audience. Short stories are great, but I'd say people really care about 10 of them.
And from what I've read and seen of you and others who wrote on Wolfe you seem to be the closest to how it should be interpreted and that's what most would be interested in reading.
Also fuck if I had known they were going to be print I'd have probably ordered a coppy that way.

>>7780307
Who knows when that will be? Still might not happen. Vox has been awesome investing in a project that will make him no money. Hardcover was estimated to be Christmas last year ... still in the cue. The format is a nightmare for this book, and we need to make an index. I say 70 percent chance it actually sees a hardcover, in my opinion.

>>7778459
I actually believe the reading difficulty drops off wildly after the first few chapters.

>>7780315
If you plan on a phisical coppy you really should do one for the Sun series because that one will actually find an audience to sell to and considering you already have it written in 2nd part of your novel and can enlarge what you have in your first I assume it won+t have as much of a formating nightmare and will make money.

>>7780315

You may be the first person I've ever seen describe Vox Day as awesome.

On GRRM's blog he is practically Satan himself.

Is he just trolling everyone in the sff community and is in reality a good person?

>>7780327
If I can maintain a high quality, I will consider it. Save perhaps Lexicon Urthus, the books devoted to new sun so far are seriously flawed. If I misinterpret a minor story, no big deal - people think, that reading doesnt seem likely but he did the research. I won't put out something on New/long/short sun unless it is legitimately great. This was far more about integrity in scholarship than money, always. I feel that many Wolfe scholars are operating in bad faith and riding their quirky hobgoblins all over a text, debasing genius with mediocrity.

>>7780337
I could never have finished this project without my editor (not Vox, but I won't mention his name here just in case). All i can say is ideologically I have no investments in the sjw/puppy divide. All i care about is how Vox treated me and my project ... everyone else ignored it, including unaffiliated scholars, critics, and reviewers. I will always be loyal to those who have helped me, regardless of what the world thinks. I can't judge those things external to my direct experience.

Hey Marc, I've seen your Cerberus/New Sun videos. Good stuff.

I have a question for you : why didn't you explain Severian's timeline, ie clear up the mess of theories regarding his going back in time to tamper with his own actions, him being The Conciliator and Apu-Punchau and so on? I feel that was one of the main points I didn't get in the book and would have liked some thoughts on the matter from someone that clearly understands Wolfe much better than me.

>>7780340
>many Wolfe scholars
Aren't there like 4 of you?
Also if you misinterpret, and thus far it was common sensical without Marxist or determinist interpreting, you won't be the first and you certainly won't be the worst.

>>7780349
Part of it is severian's insistence that there are multiple severians ... something we have no textual evidence of save some strange descriptions of Sev in The Map short story, as a cruel tyrant. I have an urth of the new sun write up I am working on, but the timeline is pretty linear for sev: test, back to the time of typhon to be the conciliator, forward to after his reign, back to the ancient indians to be apu punchau, forward to post deluge urth as ushas ... more confusing are his manifestations as an eidolon. The first push from sidero does not seem to kill him, but the second fall inside sidero later DOES, as does the ritual murder of apu punchau. Is his resurrection after the avern strike different? It seems to be, as he maintains the same body.

>>7780353
At least 5

>>7778499
>Chides people for "falling for memes" in a smug, self-righteous way
>Whacks off to meme wolf

>>7780362
Is there a Wolfe class in any of the colleges you know of?

>>7780358

Ok now it's a little more clear. Thanks.

What do you think Abaia and Erebus are? They can't be Satan because that's Typhon, and they never actually appear in the story so I'm left in the dark as to their purpose. You said in your videos that Wolfe follows Chekov's Gun, and yet those two don't seem to do very much.

Do you think it's possibile they are Lovecraftian entities, ie monsters from "outside" the Pancreator's universe?

>>7780369
No but when i was talking to some departments i know one guy taught fifth head at notre dame in a class. Another teacher had his class go through island of doctor death collection. Definitely not canonical yet as far as colleges. Leguin is more accepted. When i taught, i used "the changeling" and "suzanne delage" and students loved them ... because i was competent to explain what Wolfe was doing in those stories, but i always emphasized main stream stories and then had one or two dystopian/utopian sf class days. I would love to have a whole course on Wolfe. Havent taught for almost 2 and a half years, though.

>>7780374
There are alien life forms in Wolfe ... the ascendancy of baldanders to a sea power, however, hints at at least a possible urthly relationship. Nothing is outside the pancreators universe, not even typhon. They have an agenda and are separate from the hierogrammates, but let me get back to you. Lovecraftian horror might be an apt description. I think abaia shows up in the final scenes of citadel heading down the river like the naviscaput in the story of the student and his son.

>>7780396
As the big ship ordering the undines, as the fisherman explains when sev returns to nessus.

>>7779634
>>7779757
Thanks, I will.
Btw does anyone knows if The Urth of the New Sun is worth it? I saw it too on the same edition but I wasn't sure if I should pick it up or if it really expands the established in the tetralogy.
>>7780075
>>7780067
It's not translated in my language either but there's a great local book/record store run by an old guy from Oakland

>>7779613
Ive read it, its nothing special. Lets not pretend its some work that requires a great insight to penetrate.

>>7779294
The works I have mentioned have clumsy allusions too. Deadhouse Gates is basically Xenophon meets the Martyrdom of Hussein.

>>7779192
The part in Urth when Severian swims down to drowned Nessus and takes his skull from Gyoll's bed and brings it to his mausoleum.

I know Wolfe didn't really want to write Urth of the New Sun, but I think it's heartachingly beautiful and should be part of New Sun proper, not considered a 'coda' or whatever.

>>7779757
Are those editions any different from the newer ones? Pic related

>>7780703
>Ive read it, its nothing special. Lets not pretend its some work that requires a great insight to penetrate.
Considering how much discussion about theme and plot it brings up this claim is quite retarded.

>>7780975
It's the same text, just published earlier. >>7780959
I found the ending of Urth to be very moving, but the middle was a bit dragged out.

>>7780396
This might be a silly question, but the idea popped into my head a couple days ago and has been gnawing at me while I finish Long Sun.

Are Erebus and Abaia possibly children of Typhon? Reblling children, like Scylla? I confess the reason why I have this suspicion is because of the references to mythological sea monsters. And I suppose that would make Baldanders related to Typhon in some way, both being anatognists and monstrous in their own ways. Furthermore, I was wondering if the rumbling sound under the mines of Saltus might not be either Abaia or Erebus, but another of Typhon's children, a proto-Baldanders that had grown to enormous size.

>>7781091
Abaia lives in water. Erebus lives in Ascia (the north). The Saltus monster can't be either of them.

>>7781091
The saltus thing rattling its enormous is probably not a monster ... like the apes, it serves the autarch. ... and severian later learns what it is and says nothing of it, just as he says nothing of the defenses at the wall of Nessus. Because the autarch does not want to reveal the extent of his defenses.

>>7781097
Yeah, I'm not saying that it's either of them, but I'm wondering if it's related to the two or something else entirely.

>>7781164
Really? I got the impression that the Ape-Men were guarding the monster below the mines. To me, the reason why they attacked Severian was because they saw him as an intruder attempting to free the monster, but when they saw the Claw, they recognized him as their future ruler. They fled when the rumblings started to resume their guard.

>>7781214
Afterwards when sev asks Jonas about it jonas brings up the wall and the discussion goes to ... how could the autarch fight giant enemies with human soldiers? Then at the end we see the autarch has a huge mechanical walking tower on his side. The chains clanking in the dark might not be chains of binding. How can human sized fighters fight giants? The apes attack anyone who would take the autarch's treasure or secrets.

>>7781214
its the thing that killed gandalf the grey

>>7781731
Alright, thanks for clearing that up. I always thought the Mines were one of the biggest mysteries

>>7778453
>book of the new sun = book of the new son

It all makes sense now.

I just started Urth of the New Sun. Is it just me or is the writing nowhere near as good as in the first 4 volumes

>>7783143
Gene didn't want to write it for a reason

>>7783943

What reason is that

>>7783963

His publisher basically forced him into it because too many plebs couldn't discern what was really happening in the core tetrology. So his publisher heavily nudged (read: made him) write a follow-up novel basically laying out (almost) everything that happened in BotNS so plebs didn't feel stupid and got a golden sticker.

It's the main reason I've never read Urth of the New Sun. I've read BotNS 4 times now, Long Sun twice, Peace three times, and 5HoC 4 times as well as most of his stuff in his short story collections. I'm planning on reading Urth here soon though.

>>7783980

Maybe when you finally do read it you'll realise it doesn't actually "lay out" anything but rather continues the story.

You'd think reading that much Wolfe would at least teach one to not talk out of his ass about books one hasn't actually read. And yet.

>>7783980
Well we still have a lot of disagreements about the thematic and honestly I think Urth just complicates things even more because it obscures the spiritual nature of it with the narrative that could be felt more clearly in the original.

>>7783986

Yes I'm well aware of all of that. But this is common knowledge and came from Wolfe's mouth himself. So I don't know why you're raging at me. Like I said, I plan to read it very soon, I haven't read it yet because I wanted to have a firm grasp on the core tetrology before I dove into Urth to see how much I got and how much I missed. I view it almost like a present waiting to be opened. I'm not trashing the book (I'm sure it's great...it's Wolfe after all). I was just explaining why Gene didn't think it was necessary and was essentially forced into it.

You'd think that reading that much 4chan would at least teach one to not talk out of his ass about anons he doesn't know. And yet.

>>7783998
As a continuation, it's a 7/10. Prose isn't as polished or baroque, but it's as well written as anything by Graves.

On its own, it's maybe a 6/10. It works as a novel, but there's little context for all the allusions and juxtapositions to previous novels.

>>7780067
They don't have any of his books at any book stores near me but I found pretty much the /lit/ starter kit all in a row in the "to be shelved" rack at a used book store in middle of nowhere, Texas and picked it, along with several other books, up.