{"id":238,"date":"2008-12-09T09:45:42","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T13:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=238"},"modified":"2008-12-09T09:45:42","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T13:45:42","slug":"the-book-of-the-new-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=238","title":{"rendered":"The Book of the New Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I’ve been reading Gene Wolfe’s much-admired The Book of the New Sun<\/em> and enjoying it a great deal.\u00c2\u00a0 I have been blessed with a terrible cold, which has afforded me extended reading time necessary for a book such as this.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve heard of it for years, but never got around to it.\u00c2\u00a0 My science fiction reading lapsed when I was reading for my comps.\u00c2\u00a0 I was supposed to know everything about Literature, so they wouldn’t ask me anything about “escapist” science fiction.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to see my mentors go a few rounds with Wolfe for “escape.”<\/p>\n

The book was a tough sell for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though I love medieval romance, I don’t love swords and resuscitated aristocratic societies in sf quite so much.\u00c2\u00a0 Like comedies about hit men, it’s a genre I generally avoid.\u00c2\u00a0 That it has been described as both “Spenserian” and “Catholic allegory” made it even more unattractive.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s clearly one novel chopped into four volumes that just stop more than end, usually an annoyance I wouldn’t quickly forgive.\u00c2\u00a0 But when Neil Gaiman, John Clute, Patrick O’Leary, and Michael Dirda all give the book hyperbolic praise, you gotta listen.\u00c2\u00a0 So far I’ve read the first two volumes, The Shadow of the Torturer<\/em> and The Claw of the Conciliator<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 What a weird and wonderful ride.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t ask me what’s going on.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not sure, but I don’t care.\u00c2\u00a0 I love that.<\/p>\n

Reading what has proven to be an enduring classic of literary science fiction, I have to ask myself whether it would stand a snowball’s chance in hell if it hit an editor or agent’s desk today.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading Gene Wolfe’s much-admired The Book of the New Sun and enjoying it a great deal.\u00c2\u00a0 I have been blessed with a terrible cold, which has afforded me extended reading time necessary for a book such as this.\u00c2\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}