Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies) [Hardcover]

Peter Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0853238189 | ISBN-13: 978-0853238188

This new study of the fiction of Gene Wolfe, one of the most influential contemporary American science fiction writers, offers a major reinterpretation of Gene Wolfe’s four-volume The Book of the New Sun and its sequel The Urth of the New Sun. After exposing the concealed story at the heart of Wolfe’s magnum opus, Wright adopts a variety of approaches to establish that Wolfe is the designer of an intricate textual labyrinth intended to extend his thematic preoccupations with subjectivity, the unreliability of memory, the manipulation of individuals by social and political systems, and the psychological potency of myth, faith and symbolism into the reading experience.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0853238189
• ISBN-13: 978-0853238188
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,637,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly enlightening guide to why Wolfe's narrative technique is so gripping, May 1, 2006

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies) (Paperback)

Gene Wolfe's four-volume (plus coda) work The Book of the New Sun is widely regarded as one of the greatest works in science fiction, with a setting of great mystery and plot of enormous complexity. Since its publication in the 1980s, it has won many admirers, but few detailed examinations, and most of what's in print, such as the guides of Andre-Driussi and Borski, are amateurish and self-published. In ATTENDING DAEDALUS: Gene Wolfe, Artifice, and the Reader (Liverpool University Press, 2003), Peter Wright presents the first critique of academic quality on Wolfe's masterpiece.

ATTENDING DAEDALUS begins with a general introduction to Wolfe's body of writing, and two of his early stories are explored in depth, "Trip, Trap" and "In the House of Gingerbread". What I found especially enlightening here is that Wright presents the long series of critical reactions to Wolfe's work, even admitting that CASTLEVIEW is a problematic novel, and showing that OPERATION ARES was worth surpressing.

Wright's examination of the Urth cycle is based on two aspects of the work that have gained wide consensus through discussion on the Urth mailing list and other fora. The first is the deceitful religiosity of the book. While the Hierogrammates seem divine, the Claw a holy relic, and the deluge upon the coming of the New Sun sacrificial, humanity is really only being manipulated by the inhabitants of Yesod into furthering their own ends. God is, in the final analysis, nowhere in the picture. The second is the unreliability of Severian as narrator. Wolfe attended introductory courses in psychology in Texas and later in Ohio, and Wright conjectures that here Wolfe would have studied historic cases of perfect memory, providing a model for Severian's behaviour. Just as historic mnemonists, such as "S." studied by Aleksandr Romanovich Luria, were incapable of reflecting on their experiences, instead merely re-remembering events without analysis, so Severian stands between the reader and the true events of the work.

With these in mind, Wright's main thesis is that the Book of the New Sun is the epitome of a very complicated literary technique devised by Wolfe in which the reader is consistently challenged and baffled, and yet consistently given the necessary keys to unlocking the plot. Wolfe also consistently reminds the reader that what he is reading is fiction through a continual stream of metaliterary allusions and jibes. Wright's assertion that all of Wolfe's novels after the Book of the New Sun are meant to provide a series of elucidations for its mysteries is sure to be controversial, but is for me nonetheless quite convincing in many instances.

If you are a dedicated fan of Wolfe, having sought out everything he's ever put written and read the Urth cycle more times than you can remember, I would highly recommend ATTENDING DAEDALUS. With the intricacies of plotting revealed here, I appreciate Wolfe's skill more and more, and see him as one of the most significant English-language writers of our time. Don't heed what naysayers claim, this book is entirely dedicated to Wolfe's oeuvre and is very relevant to those investigating the Urth cycle.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Settle down., January 16, 2010

By 

levinine (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies) (Hardcover)

I don't agree with Wright's thesis, but people complaining that it is written in the academic tone, or comes with a bibliography? What? It is an academic book of litcrit from a university press-- what were they expecting? Wright knows his stuff, & his nuts & bolts are illuminating. Simple as that, even if you find fault with his arguments-- that is how a dialogue is supposed to go.

6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An academic critique - with all the academic faults, July 15, 2006

By 

Terence C Brennan "Tough marker" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies) (Paperback)

Tylor Monroe (below) is a little harsh - but not very. This book is an academic critique of Wolfe's masterpiece, and like a lot of contemporary academic literary criticism, cannot get out of its own way. Lots of theory, lots of jargon, little illumination of the work for the average reader. This is the sort of book which gets on the author's resume, counts toward his publication list for tenure - and is immediately forgotten!

I do not want to say that that all of his ideas are worthless; just that they are very hard to extract from the jargon, and may not be worth the effort.