Magical, but not an airplane novel
|
Not everyone will like this book; in the same way as not everyone will like (or, more simply, have time for) Joyce or Proust. I don't mean that Wolfe writes like either of these. But rather, in the particular work (and others) he needs patience, the right mood, and the right expectations before you will get what he is trying to tell you (or, confusingly, not tell you! :).
I generally dislike writers who whose works aim simply to manipulate the imaginations of the reader for no particular purpose - for example "deconstructionalists" and the rest of the postmodernists whose goal appears to be to demonstrate their own cleverness at the expense of producing anything readable or entertaining. In "The Fifth Head", Wolfe takes one idea from that school - namely, that you can tell a story only by hinting at it - and turns it into magic, while at the same time never insulting the readers intelligence.
I confess I've never enjoyed any book that has attempted something like this, before "The Fifth Head of Cerberus". When you have read all three novellas, you realise - slowly - that there is another, internal work that is both parallel to, and in contradiction to, the written words. It's hard to explain, and surely a hundred times harder to write.
To those who didn't enjoy the work on the first reading, I would say to wait a couple of years and try it again. It is one of the most rewarding works in SF or in any genre that I have read, and it deserves the deepest reflection.
|
|
Quickly became one of my favourite books...
|
This is by no means an easy book to fully understand, but it's phenomonally rewarding if you put in the effort.
It's a lyrical meditation on identity and the self; some of the passages in the second of the three novellas which make up the body of this work are particularly beautiful, and to my mind at least it's a joy to read.
It's complicated, though. The three novellas are interlinked but not particularly similar; each has its own style and identity (or is that too loaded a word to use in the context of the ideas contained in the book?). Despite this, you won't understand completely what is going on in any until you've read all three, and even then it's a matter of putting together clues that are not always obvious. they are there though, and careful study reveals them.
When you finally manage to put it all together and step back, you see the book as the complex and magnificent clockwork it is, with gears and cogs from each of the novellas turning harmoniously within their story and without - interacting with the themes and events of the other novellas to allow a fuller comprehension of the frightening implications of the events of the entire book.
you can't trust the narrator in any of the stories, because the narrators can't trust themselves. they don't know who they are.
|
|
|
MUCH better than I expected
|
I kept glossing over this book in the library, despite the fact that I had read the Book of the New Sun previously and loved it, because it had some lousy-sounding synopsis on the back about shape-shifters (is there a bigger turn-off than the idea of a shape-shifter?) and intrigue or something.
When I finally decided to read it, what I got instead was an immensely colourful and unique picture of an outstanding vision. The originality in Gene Wolfe's writing is unrivaled. In no other author, SF or fantasy, have I ever found such a combination of sheer genius in eloquence and ideas, and I have read many great authors.
This book was like a revelation to me, especially the second novella.
Highly recommended!
|
|
Lost in Space
|
|
I purchased this as I'd heard so much about Wolfe's writing and the books qualities. Unfortunately the experience left me totally lost when I read it. Undoubtedly a well written work but as a reading experience it demands far too much from the reader. I've been reading science fiction all my life and for me this book had no merit whatsoever. Not a piece of classic science fiction in my eye and it really put me off reading anything else by the author. I'm undoubtedly in a minority but I found it more confusing than even the most complex piece of work Phillip K. Dick could ever have written - and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading every one of his books!. Disappointed.
|
|
Too clever
|
I bought this novel (first pub. 1973) because it was in David Pringle's "Science Fiction the 100 Best Novels". He summed up
with: "Consisting of three novellas, different in tone but closely linked, it is one of the most cunningly wrought narratives in the whole of modern sf, a masterpiece of misdirection, subtle clues, and apparently casual revelations. "The entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction reads: "Set on a distant two-planet system colonized by settlers of French origin, the book combines ALIENS, ANTHROPOLOGY, CLONES and other elements in a richly imaginative exploration of the nature of identity and individuality." I took a long time to read this book, mainly because my concentration kept drifting off as I read it, especially in the first novella The Fifth Head of Cerberus. This is mainly because of Gene Wolfe's style, which is to introduce as many loose ends as a ragged mop. As in The Book of the New Sun, we have stories within stories and a liberal helping of dreams which are sometimes deliberately inserted to appear to be part of 'reality', only to be revealed as dreams when they are over. I perhaps missed some of the "subtle clues" which is probably why I didn't enjoy it as much as some will. It's all very well having a clever style, but if you don't really care what happens next, then the story has failed to a certain extent - I have never identified with any of GW's characters. I suppose it is a bit like an adventure game - if you fail to solve the early clues and don't acquire various 'keys' then you can't open the 'doors' later. Having said all that, the book is readable - GW has a style of prose which is quite lucid in small chunks but doesn't flow together as a whole. One of the comments on the flip-side is "Has a compelling, dream-like quality" - Sunday Times. I think that probably sums it up quite well - the trouble is that my logical mind requires linear plots without having to go off on right-brain escapades. If you read this book, or have already done so, perhaps you could answer these questions:
What did the last Shadow child do to the world?
Who is Sandwalker finally?
Who is the prisoner in V.R.T.? To sum up, I prefer novels with a beginning, a middle and an end (this had none of those). This has nothing to do with the fact that it is a fix-up, i.e. short stories or novellas originally written separately fixed up into one contiguous novel, which has worked brilliantly in such novels as More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon or The Joy Makers by James Gunn. I think GW's works are more in the realms of fantasy than SF. At times I found myself enjoying it, at others realising that I hadn't taken in the last page. Whether this was due to my lack of concentration or the story you will have to decide. I recognise that GW is a talented writer but perhaps he tries to be too clever and poetic.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada