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| Words words words |
| The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin |
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4% |
[ 2 ] |
| The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe |
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4% |
[ 2 ] |
| Lolita by Nabokov |
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45% |
[ 20 ] |
| Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky |
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45% |
[ 20 ] |
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| Total Votes : 44 |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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 Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 7:44 pm |
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That is an excellent suggestion rabite.
I'm not only saying this because I'm lazy and have a copy right there.
...
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:04 am |
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Wizard Knight is sort of, umm.. curious. It's like Wolfe light or something.
I think certain Wolfe could be quite productive for discussion because it rewards close reading and analysis!
Shadow of the Torturer might be sort of odd, though, what with it being only 1/4 of a story and ending on a cliffhanger.
I'll weakly nominate The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories", because collections of stories are sure to lead to poor and scattershot discussion. (?)
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:05 am |
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| dark steve wrote: |
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But I just finished that like a month ago. :(
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 4:32 pm |
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| Martial Loh wrote: |
| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
Wizard Knight is sort of, umm.. curious. It's like Wolfe light or something.
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Not to derail this thread into a Wolfe analysis, but how is the best(your favourite) of his work different to Wizard Knight? |
Well for one the narrator is a bit boring?
It's hard to say, and I'm about to leave for an interview so I don't have time to think particularly hard. I didn't mind the Wizard Knight, collectively, in large part because it took such an incredibly lame and cliche concept and somehow made it passable (to me). I respect that, you know? The only parts that stuck out to me as particularly awkward were arthur's occasional references to things in the modern world.
That said I had to check the book again to make certain of the ending. It didn't really stay with me.
One of the things I really like about Wolfe is that he often has a very strong sense of where his narration and their information is coming from. The best example of this is probably The Book of the New Sun, where Severian repeatedly claims to have a perfect memory, but occasionaly contradicts himself. (uh.. SPOILERS sort of?) Eventually you come to learn that he's sort of.. more than one person, at least on of which might have its own agenda (and whose voice he occasionaly lapses into). He quite obviously lies on more than one occasion. Severian is a great, deeply flawed anti-hero. In comparison the narrator of Wizard Knight seems sort of like a frame that Wolfe hung some ideas about knighthood on. He's flawed because he's childish, but he's coming from a place of honest ideals and moreover he's honest himself.
Also in Wizard Knight you have a narrator with a reason to explain things quite a bit, when he bothes. In The Book of the New Sun there's a strong sense of "this guy is writing for the world he lives in" so.. less hand-holding.
Wizard Knight is like "Gene Wolfe writes a YA novel", I guess.
There Are Doors is, if I recall correctly, third-person, but still from the point of view of a man of rather limited mental faculties. It does a great job of presenting someone's completely irrational thought process in a way that's internally consistent. This is another good example of the things I'm trying to touch at in a very rushed, scattershot way. I'm sure I'm failing miserably.
(It's also one of the few books about romantic love from a distinctly male point of view I've ever read.)
I'll come back to this post later and think about how much better it could have been!
/derail
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 7:46 am |
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C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
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