Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011303, Mon, 4 Apr 2005 08:55:05 -0700

Subject
Sci-Fi Gene Wolfe & VN
Date
Body
--- "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:

> Dear Listmembers:
>
> As long as we're discussing genre-transcending sf, may I recommend the
> works
> of Gene Wolfe? He's a writer of stunning complexity and has even been
> boldly
> hailed by the Washington Post as "the Nabokov of speculative fiction."*
...

See also my post to this list of Dec. 2002, recommending Wolfe
and comparing him to Nabokov
<http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0212&L=nabokv-l&P=R9842>.
I agree with everything rjb wrote, except that I haven't read
_Peace_.

> One of Wolfe's grand themes? Memory and how it shapes us.
> Severian-the-torturer, who narrates NEWS SUN, has a memory like Borges'
> Funes and claims to forget nothing, while Latro, a brain-damaged soldier
> in
> ancient Greece, must inscribe the events of his life daily because he
> has no
> long term memory due to his injury--although as compensation he can see
> and
> converse with the deities of Olympus. (LATRO IN THE MIST contains both
> Soldier volumes.)
...

Rumor has it that Wolfe is now working on the third volume,
_Soldier of Sidon_!

And if Tom Rymour's dislike of fantasy extends to Wolfe, or Crowley,
or the best of Le Guin, or Swanwick, or... well, de gustibus, that's
all.

Jerry Friedman





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