Torin Scharer- Amer. Author Project of Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe and His Importance To American Literature (WA#8)

2008-04-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

The Science fiction writing of Gene Wolfe has a style that is very different from other writers of his time, and uses unique dense powerful language, along with creative writing along with very subtle yet important political messages. Upon first researching Gene Wolfe a few questions popped into mind. If he has won many awards for his science fiction writing, why does he have such small recognition in the American writing scene? My answer to this question cumulated over my reading of three of his works, including two prize winning novels, along with a book of short stories.
An award winning writer Michael Swanwick has said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."[3] Among praise from critics, Gene Wolfe’s writing has a wealth of literary criticism, which examines his books and the details and significance of his complicated plot devices.
Wolfe’s books did not catch on with the general population, as did science fiction writing from his contemporaries such as Orson Scott Card, or Kurt Vonnegut. This is because his writing has such a level of detail and complexity that the average reader would feel unaccustomed to the subtleness of his plot devices. Literary critic
Larry McCaffery described gene Wolfe’s writing stories as “placed within landscapes so rigorously drawn and rich in evocative details that they seem to rival reality itself in their diversity and vitality”.
The gap between a small reader population, and wide literary praise is an apparent paradox that I would like to explore in my essay. His work as a mechanical engineer may have influenced the way that he seems to engineer his writing, much like one would design and calculate every spring and gear in a mechanical system. In my essay I will first substantiate the quality of his work by citing details in his writing that the reader must piece together in order to truly understand the work.
In his novel the Shadow of the Torturer, the main character is an executioner who grows up in a society where everyone lives in Guilds which train each person as an apprentice. The main character goes on a journey, and along the way gene Wolfe gives a beautiful sensory description of the different environments. This however is not what makes him stick out from other science fiction writers of his time. The reason why there is a gap between Gene Wolfe’s obvious significance due to the mass of attention from literary critics, and his lack of quantity of readers is due to the way in which Wolfe crafts his plot details. Gene Wolfe revolutionized science fiction writing in the significance of seemingly insignificant details among dense complicated novels.

Torin Scharer - American Author Project on Gene Wolfe

2008-02-14T16:36:00.000-08:00

The following passage was an example from the first chapter of the sensory detail that Gene Wolfe includes in his writing. My past experience with reading literature from Gene Wolfe had lead me to believe that the most remarkable thing about his writing is the heavy weight of his descriptions, and reliance on small details for important hints in the plot.

"It is my nature, my joy and my curse, to forget nothing. Every rattling chain
and whistling wind, every sight, smell, and taste, remains changeless in my
mind, and though I know it is not so with everyone, I cannot imagine what it can
mean to be otherwise, as if one had slept when in fact an experience is merely
remote. Those few steps we took upon the whited path rise before me now: It was
cold and growing colder; we had no light, and fog had begun to roll in from
Gyoll in earnest. A few birds had come to roost in the pines and cypresses, and
flapped uneasily from tree to tree. I remember the feel of my own hands as I
rubbed my arms, and the lantern bobbing among the steles some distance off, and
how the fog brought out the smell of the river water in my shirt, and the
pungency of the new-turned earth. I had almost died that day, choking in the
netted roots; the night was to mark the beginning of my manhood." (Wolfe p.4)

American Author proposal (WA#6)

2008-02-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

Gene Wolfe is the American author that I am most interested in studying, and analyzing for the upcoming American author project. Science Fiction is a very important genre, and Gene Wolfe has an interesting and unique role to play in the science fiction realm. Many people see science fiction as tasteless entertainment that does not have to do with the real world. This is not true for the literature I am familiar with, and I am confident that the books that I will encounter in this project will be just as intellectually stimulating.
Many of Gene Wolfe’s books are based in the future and are somewhat of a political commentary on modern events. One example of this is the shadow and claw series where thousands of years in the future the earth’s sand is made up of finely chopped and degraded plastic, with a primitive medieval society that has regressed technologically, with the vestiges of civilization remaining. This seems to be challenging the existence of our civilization in the future, and also lamenting the problems with the use of plastics, and non-renewable resources. The political nature is intertwined into the stories of adventure, and keeps the readers attention while bringing up political problems.
Wolfe’s style of writing is very unique, in that the reader is surrounded with so many details, in such a realistic fashion that the plot, is complicated and difficult to understand except in hindsight, or with re-reading. The main character takes a journey that is due to specific events, and does not have an evident logical reason. The vague fluidity of the plot will be a challenging but interesting and influential read that will make me grapple with complexity.
I have recently found out that Gene Wolfe was an industrial engineer for Pringles who designed packaging machines. Upon hearing this, I was not surprised, because many of the descriptions in the book look at objects in such a precise way. Gene Wolfe was born in 1931 and became a writer in the 1970’s. He is still writing books today, and came out with two in the past few years that I have read: The Wizard, and The Knight. Gene Wolfe has won many Nebula awards for best science fiction, among other awards, and is considered by his contemporaries as the best living author. Award-winning science fiction author Michael Swanwick has been quoted: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning.” Gene Wolfe has been known to say, "Real people really are unreliable narrators all the time, even if they try to be reliable narrators." This quote really describes his writing style, which is really unlike any other authors; in it’s complexity, and sense of confusion.
Although Gene Wolfe is not particularly famous to the general population as say J. K. Rowling, he has a large, innovative body of work that is complex, and would challenge me as a reader and a thinker. There is a wide body of literary criticism of Gene Wolfe, and there a whole book of over two hundred pages that interprets theme, plot, and character development and generally critiques his work from a fellow science fiction writer. I plan on reading one of his novels, possibly the claw of the conciliator, a collection of short stories; stories from the old hotel, and The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories. I will also read a book that gives literary criticism of The Book of the New Sun; Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice, and the Reader: Peter Wright. Gene Wolfe will be challenging to analyze and write about, but I will show that Wolfe has a very distinct style, that is influenced by past authors like Tolken, but will influence many science fiction authors to come.