The Disciple As Hero
Dec. 2nd, 2006 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvessel10 Nov 2006
On Blue’s Waters - Gene Wolfe - Tor, 2000
* * * *
The religious element of Gene Wolfe’s writing is particularly apparent in the three linked “Sun” series that form his magnum opus. The plot-arc of Severian, the hero of the Book of the New Sun, is clearly modelled on a Catholic interpretation of the life of Jesus, though somewhat complicated (to put it mildly) by the fact that he starts out as a torturer. The Book of the Long Sun’s Patera Silk is also a Christ-figure (and for me a much more engaging character than the po-faced Severian), but his story is in fact closer to that of Moses particularly at its ending. In this, the first part of the Book of the Short Sun, the focus has shifted to Silk’s follower Horn, suggesting a comparison with the life of St Peter. Though as always with Wolfe, there are complications.
The action takes place some twenty years after the events of the Book of the Long Sun. Horn and his wife Nettle have travelled to the water planet Blue from the Whorl (the multi-generation spaceship that was the setting for the previous series) and have settled on a small island near the town of New Viron where they have built a paper mill and are bringing up their three children Sinew, Hoof and Hide. The plot is set in motion by the leaders of New Viron who come to Horn and ask him to find Patera Silk. The governance of New Viron is failing, it seems, because its leaders cannot decide among themselves who should be its leader. The one thing they can agree on is that it should be Silk. Horn swears to undertake the quest despite knowing that the chances of finding Silk (last seen on the Whorl defending old Viron from an invasion by its neighbouring state Trivigante) are absurdly remote, and that even if he does find him, Silk will almost certainly refuse to accede to the townsfolks’ request. On the face of it, Horn’s motivation seems rather weak, although there are hints of problems with his wife and eldest son which might explain why he wants to get away from them. Wolfe craftily lets the reader infer that Horn’s chief reason for embarking on the quest is simply that he wants to see Silk again.
As always with Wolfe, the apparently simple story is complicated by the manner of its telling. The text is effectively Horn’s memoirs told well after the events, but it is also a diary of his current activities. This allows Wolfe to pre-figure events, throwing out intriguing hints of what is to come. We learn almost from the start that Horn visits Green (a neighbouring hostile planet inhabited by shape-changing inhumi) and the Whorl, but doesn’t find Silk. He also fails to return to Nettle - he has become the Rajan of Gaon, another city on Blue, and is living in maharajah-like splendour in a palace with a harem of wives. We do not, of course, discover how this came about, nor why he appears to be in a different body from the one he originally had, nor why he hates his son Sinew so much. So even though Wolfe has told us the basic outlines of the story, we still want to read on.
This simple but brilliant use of pre-figuring does to a certain extent disguise the lack of events in this book. Compared with the strange, baroque vistas of Urth in the New Sun sequence, Blue is, like the Whorl, a bland and conventional SF environment that is rather too heavily based on the city states and mythology of ancient Greece (emphasised by the fact that Seawrack, the woman who becomes Horn’s companion, is a siren straight out of the Odyssey), and this means that Horn's adventures are not particularly exciting. There is the odd token sea monster and an intriguing encounter with the original inhabitants of the planet, but that is about it.
Despite the enormous number of characters in the dramatis personae (many from the Book of the Long Sun), only Horn’s companions really stick in the mind. The most intriguing is the inhumu Krait, who rescues Horn when he falls down a well and whom Horn reluctantly agrees to take to the Whorl. As in most of Wolfe’s recent books, there is an intelligent animal companion. This is a hus called Babbie, a sort of eight-legged pig (at least, that is my mental image of him - in characteristic Wolfian fashion, Horn never describes him properly because he assumes that his readers already know what a hus looks like) who understands language but cannot speak.
The other main companion is Seawrack, but she hardly counts. Unfortunately Wolfe’s female characterisation is as neanderthal as ever and she shows no obvious sign of an independent mental life. She loses an arm just before meeting Horn, but neither this trauma nor the fact that Horn assaults her while maddened by her singing have any noticeable effect on her character. Needless to say, she does nothing to move or advance the plot and spends all her time being lovey-dovey towards Horn. I would like to think that there is a good plot reason for this passivity, but as Horn has abandoned her by the end of the book it is hard to see what it could be.
Horn himself is no better. His memoir is intended for Nettle to read and in it he repeatedly professes his deep love for her, but he also quite calmly mentions his liaisons with both Seawrack (even when she isn’t singing) and the various members of his harem in Gaon. So either Horn is deliberately lying to us about how much he loves Nettle, or Wolfe considers that sexual infidelity is the “natural” masculine state, just as passivity is the “natural” feminine one. Given that passive women and promiscuous men are characteristic of his other books, I rather fear the latter.
It is odd that such an intelligent and perceptive writer as Wolfe should have this huge and persistent Chauvinist blindspot. One can only conclude that he regards women as so different from men that he cannot begin to write about their inner lives and has to treat them like his alien and animal characters. I can’t help wondering if his Catholicism has something to do with it - the only logical (as opposed to biblical) reason for, say, not allowing women to be priests is if one assumes that the fundamental natures of the sexes are different.
Despite the flaws, I enjoyed this book and want to read the next one. The care that Wolfe takes with his plotting is second to none - I can’t think of any other writer who is so scrupulous in his attention to the details of what a character owns and what he knows - and, as I’ve remarked before, the way he makes readers use their imagination and his sideways approach to story-telling make for some striking images and revelations. And Horn himself is an interesting character - much more conscience-stricken and self-doubting than Silk, and, as we have seen, morally weak, he beautifully exemplifies the problems of a flawed and fallible disciple trying to carry on the work of a great master. By the end of the book, Horn has left Gaon, indicating that his story is not over yet. It will be interesting to see if he, like St Peter, makes good.
On Blue’s Waters - Gene Wolfe - Tor, 2000
* * * *
The religious element of Gene Wolfe’s writing is particularly apparent in the three linked “Sun” series that form his magnum opus. The plot-arc of Severian, the hero of the Book of the New Sun, is clearly modelled on a Catholic interpretation of the life of Jesus, though somewhat complicated (to put it mildly) by the fact that he starts out as a torturer. The Book of the Long Sun’s Patera Silk is also a Christ-figure (and for me a much more engaging character than the po-faced Severian), but his story is in fact closer to that of Moses particularly at its ending. In this, the first part of the Book of the Short Sun, the focus has shifted to Silk’s follower Horn, suggesting a comparison with the life of St Peter. Though as always with Wolfe, there are complications.
The action takes place some twenty years after the events of the Book of the Long Sun. Horn and his wife Nettle have travelled to the water planet Blue from the Whorl (the multi-generation spaceship that was the setting for the previous series) and have settled on a small island near the town of New Viron where they have built a paper mill and are bringing up their three children Sinew, Hoof and Hide. The plot is set in motion by the leaders of New Viron who come to Horn and ask him to find Patera Silk. The governance of New Viron is failing, it seems, because its leaders cannot decide among themselves who should be its leader. The one thing they can agree on is that it should be Silk. Horn swears to undertake the quest despite knowing that the chances of finding Silk (last seen on the Whorl defending old Viron from an invasion by its neighbouring state Trivigante) are absurdly remote, and that even if he does find him, Silk will almost certainly refuse to accede to the townsfolks’ request. On the face of it, Horn’s motivation seems rather weak, although there are hints of problems with his wife and eldest son which might explain why he wants to get away from them. Wolfe craftily lets the reader infer that Horn’s chief reason for embarking on the quest is simply that he wants to see Silk again.
As always with Wolfe, the apparently simple story is complicated by the manner of its telling. The text is effectively Horn’s memoirs told well after the events, but it is also a diary of his current activities. This allows Wolfe to pre-figure events, throwing out intriguing hints of what is to come. We learn almost from the start that Horn visits Green (a neighbouring hostile planet inhabited by shape-changing inhumi) and the Whorl, but doesn’t find Silk. He also fails to return to Nettle - he has become the Rajan of Gaon, another city on Blue, and is living in maharajah-like splendour in a palace with a harem of wives. We do not, of course, discover how this came about, nor why he appears to be in a different body from the one he originally had, nor why he hates his son Sinew so much. So even though Wolfe has told us the basic outlines of the story, we still want to read on.
This simple but brilliant use of pre-figuring does to a certain extent disguise the lack of events in this book. Compared with the strange, baroque vistas of Urth in the New Sun sequence, Blue is, like the Whorl, a bland and conventional SF environment that is rather too heavily based on the city states and mythology of ancient Greece (emphasised by the fact that Seawrack, the woman who becomes Horn’s companion, is a siren straight out of the Odyssey), and this means that Horn's adventures are not particularly exciting. There is the odd token sea monster and an intriguing encounter with the original inhabitants of the planet, but that is about it.
Despite the enormous number of characters in the dramatis personae (many from the Book of the Long Sun), only Horn’s companions really stick in the mind. The most intriguing is the inhumu Krait, who rescues Horn when he falls down a well and whom Horn reluctantly agrees to take to the Whorl. As in most of Wolfe’s recent books, there is an intelligent animal companion. This is a hus called Babbie, a sort of eight-legged pig (at least, that is my mental image of him - in characteristic Wolfian fashion, Horn never describes him properly because he assumes that his readers already know what a hus looks like) who understands language but cannot speak.
The other main companion is Seawrack, but she hardly counts. Unfortunately Wolfe’s female characterisation is as neanderthal as ever and she shows no obvious sign of an independent mental life. She loses an arm just before meeting Horn, but neither this trauma nor the fact that Horn assaults her while maddened by her singing have any noticeable effect on her character. Needless to say, she does nothing to move or advance the plot and spends all her time being lovey-dovey towards Horn. I would like to think that there is a good plot reason for this passivity, but as Horn has abandoned her by the end of the book it is hard to see what it could be.
Horn himself is no better. His memoir is intended for Nettle to read and in it he repeatedly professes his deep love for her, but he also quite calmly mentions his liaisons with both Seawrack (even when she isn’t singing) and the various members of his harem in Gaon. So either Horn is deliberately lying to us about how much he loves Nettle, or Wolfe considers that sexual infidelity is the “natural” masculine state, just as passivity is the “natural” feminine one. Given that passive women and promiscuous men are characteristic of his other books, I rather fear the latter.
It is odd that such an intelligent and perceptive writer as Wolfe should have this huge and persistent Chauvinist blindspot. One can only conclude that he regards women as so different from men that he cannot begin to write about their inner lives and has to treat them like his alien and animal characters. I can’t help wondering if his Catholicism has something to do with it - the only logical (as opposed to biblical) reason for, say, not allowing women to be priests is if one assumes that the fundamental natures of the sexes are different.
Despite the flaws, I enjoyed this book and want to read the next one. The care that Wolfe takes with his plotting is second to none - I can’t think of any other writer who is so scrupulous in his attention to the details of what a character owns and what he knows - and, as I’ve remarked before, the way he makes readers use their imagination and his sideways approach to story-telling make for some striking images and revelations. And Horn himself is an interesting character - much more conscience-stricken and self-doubting than Silk, and, as we have seen, morally weak, he beautifully exemplifies the problems of a flawed and fallible disciple trying to carry on the work of a great master. By the end of the book, Horn has left Gaon, indicating that his story is not over yet. It will be interesting to see if he, like St Peter, makes good.