From: Dave Conrad <nightman@io.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n076
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 10:02:28 

On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, Timothy Reilly wrote:

> Ron Hale-Evans writes:
> > Could be; I have only read the first two Long Sun books, and that some
> time
> > ago. (One reason is they seem to me to lack the richness of tone that I
> > find in both TBotNS and Marcus Aurelius.)
> 
> Actually, I had the same experience, (though I stopped rather earlier), and
> for the same reason: the more straightforward narrative style of the Long
> Sun books, (and many others - including short stories - that Wolfe has
> written), is I find much less aesthetic than the clear-eyed, calm and
> philosophical (and perhaps mildly Proustian) first person voice of the BOTNS
> and 5HC.

	I thought that the Long sun books were good in a different way
than the New Sun, sort of like Donaldson's Covenant and Gap Chronicles.
With both formere series, I really read much slower than I usually do, but
tended to savor the pages as I read them (and tried to resist the urge to
smack the snot out of Covenant).  The second series were almost
page-turners, by comparison.  It was easier to get caught up in the flow
of the story.  I think part of it, in the case of Long Sun at least, was
being more familiar with Wolfe's use of language.  Knowing more about
things than the characters in LS made things go faster, too, because I
wanted to read faster so I could keep putting things together.  

Dave C.

iN*T*x


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