by Gene Wolfe
The Washington Post for March 22 (by Thomas M. Disch): “The Claw of the Conciliator is the second volume of a tetralogy-in-progress, The Book of the New Sun, which already seems assured of classic status within the subgenre of science fantasy … . This is not to say that the web is flawless. I doubt that any tetralogy has ever been written in which the second volume didn’t come off as second-best. There are chapters in The Claw of the Conciliator that venture perilously close to pulp magazine hugger-mugger …” (This gives me a welcome opportunity to thank my editor at Doubleday, Pat Lo Brutto, who sent me Tom’s review.)
The first science fiction story I ever read, the story that hooked me, was by Theodore Sturgeon. My feelings, as I read the following review by Sturgeon in the May Twilight Zone, cannot be described. “Gene Wolfe earns increasing respect as a master orchestrator of the language. His shimmering images, the scents and sounds of his narrative, the cadence and the sensuous, almost tactile quality of his words, all are virtually unmatched. The Claw of the Conciliator (Simon & Schuster, $12.95) is the second volume of what he calls The Book of the New Sun, and I must say that it held me magicked from beginning to end.”
Baird Searles in IASFM for June 8: “As I’ve noted before, I generally avoid talking about sequels or spinoffs. And while I believe that ‘rules are made to be broken’ is maybe the most pernicious maxim known to man, I’ll invoke it here with the added excuse that we might just have to hand a classic in progress …”
The April Locus came, and it was a biggy. Shadow was 5th (!) on the hardcover list, and the People and Publishing column reported: “Gene Wolfe has completed the third novel in his current series, Sword of the Lictor, to be published by Simon & Schuster. He is working now on a fourth volume, Castle of the Otter.” Wrong, of course, but what a great title.
Melissa Mia Haii—short-story writer, reviewer, and gentle journalist—sent me a page from the April 26 Ft. Worth Star-Telegram: “ … Yet with this precision, there is in Wolfe’s work an onrushing joy of invention, an almost arrogant piling up of images and ideas and exotic names; grinning monsters called Smilodons, and giants who grow until they must enter the sea; an apotheosis of every fairy palace plus Kafka’s castle called the House Absolute; the color Fuligin, blacker than black, mark of the Guild of Torturers; Vodalus the outlaw king, and the lost lady Thecla, whose memories enter her lover when, with a bitter drug, he ingests her flesh.”—Edna Stumpf.
Here’s another review by Budrys, this one in Fantasy and Science Fiction for June. If I had an ounce of decency, I’d skip it; fortunately for you, I do not: “Claw continues the adventures of Severian, the itinerant inquisitor and headsman whom we met as a young apprentice in Shadow of the Torturer, in a world so far evolved beyond our time that everything looks like an Aubrey Beardsley illustration.
… Further I will not tell you much; I strongly recommend that you will be missing a major—a seminal—event in the development of SF if you don’t allow yourself the pleasure of reading this book and its predecessor, and that as long as you do so in the privacy of your mind, the enjoyment will not count against you socially.”
The May 1981 Locus came. A correction stated that The Castle of the Otter should have been The Castle of the Autarch. It still wasn’t right, but they were getting closer. Number 11 on the hardcover bestseller list was my Doubleday collection Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days. Number 3 was Shadow. Number 1 was The Claw of the Conciliator. Charlie Brown commented: “Gene Wolfe has set a new record by having three books on the list. Shadow of the Torturer has defied the usual sales patterns. It started off slowly, dropped off the list, and then came back. Now that volume two in the series is in first place, it’s selling even better.”
And that makes such a nice ending to this essay that I will end it.
Beyond the Castle of the Otter
So what’s happening now? More good stuff, really. Raymond returned The Claw of the Conciliator, for which I mean to punish him by giving him The Sword of the Lictor when it comes out. Claw was knocked out of the top spot by God Emperor of Dune, but nothing stays in the top spot forever, and since it had to happen, I’m glad it was something as classy as the last Dune book. The London Times and the Manchester Guardian had nice things to say about Shadow when it was published in Britain. (It has also been published in France; I haven’t seen any reviews, but the translator, William Desmond, and I have swapped so many letters we’ve become friends. The last letter I had from him indicated that he’d turned Claw into Editions Denoel and was waiting for Sword.)
Speaking of Sword, Harlan Ellison just sent me a copy of his letter to David Hartwell commenting on it. (He had read it in galleys, of course. It won’t be out until January 1982—about when you are reading this, I hope—or maybe February. You know how publishers are.) Harlan liked it very much, which is nice because I feel the same way about Harlan.
Right now it is mid-October. On the first day of this month, I sent the manuscript of The Citadel of the Autarch to David Hartwell. October 3 was Parents’ Day at Southern Illinois U. Rosemary and I drove down to see Roy and have a look at the campus and his living quarters. He’s sharing a basement apartment with two other students, and because I had given him Shadow and Claw, all three of them had read them. I liked that, and I think David Hartwell and John Douglas would have liked it too.
Let’s see … Here’s a thank-you note from Beth Blish Genly. (That last name seems vaguely familiar, somehow.) Beth is the daughter of Virginia Kidd, and she got married not long ago, and I sent her a little lacquer box—she says she’s going to store recipes in it. I stayed overnight at Virginia’s last month and got to chat a little with Jim Allen. Jim works for Virginia, handling the overseas sales. Sandra’s daughter will masque as Severian.
And here’s a letter from a fan in Germany, and one from Cousin Joe Ayers in Endicott, New York. Cousin Joe’s the son of one of my mother’s brothers, and he just read The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories and wanted to tell me about the World Puppetry Festival in Washington. He’s a leading semipro puppeteer.
To close things out, how about this from Yandro: “The Claw of the Conciliator, by Gene Wolfe (Timescape, $12.95). Second volume in The Book of the New Sun. This one you’ll want in hardcover if you’re any sort of fan at all. It’s an adventure story and an exercise in psychology, and while I’m not at all sure what some of Gene’s symbolism means I’m quite sure that it will provide plenty of fan discussions. The far future—Gene’s version of The Dying Earth and the only volume of the type that I’ve read that surpasses the original. Severian, the protagonist, is an itinerant torturer, who as he makes his way from village to village becomes involved with all manner of strange people, revolutions, and an enigmatic Emperor. There are hints as to Severian’s future status, but since Gene is an expert at pulling the rug out from under his readers I don’t count too much on them. Highly recommended; read this one if you don’t get anything else.”
Why am I closing with this review instead of something like the London Times, when Yandro is only a fanzine? Well, for one thing, Yandro is about the oldest fanzine around, and the first one I ever read. (Anne McCaffrey put me on to it; thank you, Anne.) For another, Buck Coulson, who wrote the review, is a notoriously savage reviewer; getting a review like that from him is like getting a get-well card from Jack the Ripper. I’m proud of it.
Now Rosemary is calling me up to breakfast. When I come down here again, it will not be to continue this book.
III.
CASTLE of DAYS
Lone Wolfe
[1983]
A SELF-CONDUCTED INTERVIEW
WITH GENE WOLFE
Q: You are looking at me very skeptically. Don’t you feel that as a journalist with ten years experience, I am qualified to conduct this interview?
A: To be brutally frank, no. To interview me as you should, you ought not only to have read all my work (I am aware that you have) but also read widely in the field. You have not done that. Not since 1
960, and perhaps earlier.
Q: I’ve read a great deal— A: Of Lafferty, Le Guin, Knight, Wilhelm, and Budrys— Q : And a few others.
A: I’m aware of that. Have you read any of RAH’s last three?
Q:—
A: I thought not. How about Wizard?
Q: I’ve read Little, Big. Superb!
A: I see what you mean—it’s an education in modern fantasy all by itself. Okay, shoot.
Q: You have the reputation of being one of the nicest guys in the field. We both know you’re a hyena on its hind legs. How have you fooled everyone?
A: By keeping my mouth shut when I read garbage.
Q: Have you found that difficult?
A: No. I’m constantly running into people who’ve read bad books clean to the end. I admire them more than I can say, but I can’t do that—when I get shit in my eyes I close them fast and cry.
Q: You also throw the book at the wall and scare the dog.
A: Yeah. And then when somebody asks me how I liked the book, I say I haven’t read it, because it’s really not fair for me to judge without finishing the book. Maybe the last nine-tenths is marvelous. But I doubt it.
Q: Leaving aside the people you’ve already named, who doesn’t make you toss the book at the wall?
A: Lord Dunsany, Chesterton— Q: I know, Dickens. Let’s keep the dead out of this.
A: Ellison, Leiber, King, Singer, lots of good people.
Q: If you had to name the most outstanding fantasy writer in America today, who would it be?
A: I told you, you’re not qualified to ask that question.
Q: Okay, let’s talk about something I know something about—your own writing. Is it hard?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: For the same reason it used to be hard to write my mother—I have to be on my guard against banality.
Q: Constantly?
A: Yes. I won’t say at every word—that would be an exaggeration—but in every sentence.
Q: Rereading what we’ve got so far, I wouldn’t have thought it.
A: If you did, I’d have to rewrite it. I have to keep from looking like I’m doing that. Budrys’s name means Sentry. He and I know what he’s guarding against.
Q: You’re a bug on names, aren’t you?
A: Yes, but please don’t tell me about the distinction between names and things. People are influenced by their names to the extent that they know what they mean, and no further. It’s a psychological mechanism.
Q: You mean like Dr. Wigglesworth studying bugs. Wolf doesn’t mean Sentry.
A: That’s true, but wolves have to be enormously alert, otherwise they starve or get shot. A wolf doesn’t go the same way more than once, and if it’s a way someone else has already used—a road or a trail—he doesn’t go that way at all. He parallels it, perhaps. Besides, Gene means born; the implication is that Gene is fresh and new.
Q: You’re not, you know.
A: You mean the mask I shave. That isn’t me.
Q: The Gene Wolfe people talk to?
A: That’s not me either, or at least very seldom.
1.
Writers
Q: What is it then?
A: A part I’ve learned to play pretty well after so many years of practice. I had to learn how to get along with the other kids without getting beat up—I was held down in an ants’ nest once—and then how to get along at college. Then how to hold a job and support my wife and kids.
Q: Have you lost the real you?
A: No. I’m still here.
Q: Isn’t everyone like us?
A: I don’t think so. Some are, of course. With me, it may just be the result of being left-handed. Lefties use their brains differently. There’s probably more mental difference between a right-handed American and a left-handed one than between a right-handed American and right-handed Chinese. I’m an alien, I suppose; but there are a lot of us.
Q: Fresh, new, and self-obsessed. What does Le Guin mean?
A: I doubt that a name acquired by marriage has the same effect, but Ursula is little she-bear. There’s no more careful animal than a she-bear with cubs, and no fiercer one.
Q: You’ve read your Kipling. But I see what you mean about King, Knight, and Singer. How about Leiber?
A: It’s very close to lieber, which is the German for a lover. Nobody’s more careful than a lover, or strives so patiently to give pleasure to the beloved.
Q: Ellison means an omission. Do you think that’s the reason for his terse, energetic writing?
A: I have no idea. Ask Harlan.
Q: He wrote a grand essay in Fantasy Newsletter in which he said that most people could never be writers because they didn’t hear the music. That was his phrase. Do you agree?
A: Yes.
Q: But you’ve tried to teach people to write at various times—just this past spring in Boca Raton, for example.
A: I was trying to teach them to hear the music. But most people who try to write will never learn to hear it, so Harlan was correct. Q: Can it be taught?
A: I taught myself.
Q: But you’re such a jerk!
A: I know, but I wanted to so badly.
Q: Then it’s mostly a matter of motivation?
A: Not as that is generally understood, stuff like: Honest, teacher, I want a good grade so bad I’m even willing to work every night, if that’s what it takes. That’s just openers. You have to—to listen. Q: Isn’t that what Harlan said? It sounds easy.
A: It isn’t. My son Roy is an artist, and he tells me that all there is to art is learning to paint or draw what you see and not what you “know.” He’s been studying for years, and he’s still trying to do that. You have to throw away your shell, your protective organ— Q: You never had much to begin with.
A: I know, I know. And build new organs, ears.
Q: You mean it’s true then—you have to sell your soul.
A: I suppose.
Q: To the Devil?
A: Who says he’s the only one buying? No, I don’t think so.
Q: We haven’t talked much about whither fantasy.
A: Good!
Q: What about Severian? Is he you? What will happen to him?
A: Of course he isn’t me. As for what will happen to him, read The Urth of the New Sun.
Q: It hasn’t been published.
A: It hasn’t even been written.
Q: You said you were going to write a tetralogy, and now you’re supposed to be writing a fifth book. That’s sneaky.
A: No it’s not. I did write the tetralogy. It’s there, and people can read it, just as I wrote it. Why shouldn’t I do another book?
Q: Why shouldn’t we criticize you for it? Have you been helped in your career?
A: Sure. By a hundred or so people, I suppose. But particularly by my mother, Mary Olivia Ayers Wolfe; my first real editor, Damon Knight; and my wife, Rosemary Frances Dietsch Wolfe. Without those three, I doubt that I would have made it.
Q: How touching. Do you sleep in the nude?
A: Interviewers are always supposed to ask that, aren’t they? No. I sleep in the bed.
Q: You’ve written almost two hundred short stories. Which are your favorites?
A: “The Detective of Dreams,” “Westwind,” “The God and His Man,” and a few others.
Q: Why those?
A: Because for me they strike no false notes. The New Yorker usually says my stories are too sentimental, but I think it’s honest sentiment, at least in those pieces.
Q: Why do you keep writing short stories? Nobody cares about them.
A: To convince myself I can still do it, that I haven’t lost it.
Q: And you haven’t?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: I take it you don’t sell all of them. What are your best unsold stories?
A: “Redbeard,” “A Solar Labyrinth,” and “Parkroads.”
Q: Suppose you find out someday that you have lost it? What will you do then?
&nbs
p; A: Go looking for it again. I found it once, why shouldn’t I find it again?
Q: Start over?
A: Start over.
Peace of My Mind
[1985]
My novel Peace has just been published in Britain by Chatto & Windus, and thus is likely now (I imagine) to be available in quantity in Australia for the first time. Colin Greenland has reviewed it kindly in the London Times Literary Supplement, but what we are doing here at Aussiecon Two strikes me as proving that I am right and he is wrong. Let me quote a bit of his review: “Drawing on the energies of the past, he wanders through the house, whose rooms seem to change about him. Weer remembers designing it, and ‘interspersing among the functional rooms of my home certain “museum rooms” ’, ‘duplicating or nearly duplicating certain wellremembered rooms whose furnishings had fallen to me by inheritance’. The sheer Poe-like oddness of this contrivance is the metafictional trick.”
Mr. Greenland supposes—in his review, at least—that to come across odd corners of one’s past in odd corners of one’s house (which is what Alden Dennis Weer does in Peace) is, as H. P. Lovecraft might have said, eldritch. Poe himself, whom Mr. Greenland invokes, would probably have said elfin; for in Poe’s time the elves had not yet lost their atmosphere of a race puissant and strange, moribund and familiar, and become, as they are largely now, fat little men in caricature who bake cookies for an international conglomerate—a fate from which Professor Tolkien has rescued them only in part and, so one fears, temporarily.