URTH |
From: "Alice Turner" <pei047@attglobal.net> Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n150 Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 10:44:57 Wm Ansley noted that: > "Jeremy W. Crampton" <jcrampto@gmu.edu> wrote: > > Publishers Weekly > > (December 20, 1999; 0-312-87227-5) > > [...] > >Opening with "Bluesberry Jam," Wolfe (The Book of the > >Long Sun series, etc.) creates an intriguing speculative > >future in which an entire culture arises from people who have > >been stuck in a traffic jam for decades. This conceit is > >ultimately negated, however, by the most tired of clichs in > >the closing story, "Ain't You 'Most Done," which is set in the > >same world. Does anyone else remember the Jean-Luc Godard movie "Weekend," about a massive traffic jam that stopped cars leaving Paris? It was visually arresting and quite funny. Much more sophisticated in tone than the Wolfe story (which I found annoyingly sentimental and corny--I dislike nearly all his "modern" material," though I'll make a provisory exception for "The Ziggurat"), but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the original impetus. > I have to agree with the last review that Jeremy W. Crampton was kind > enough to provide for us. My feeling on reaching the end of "Ain't You > 'Most Done" was, "Oh, no! Not again!". > > Wolfe has so many characters in this kind of predicament that I think the > primary thing you should keep in mind when reading him is not "Find the > wolf" (which doesn't strike me as being particularly helpful, even in the > case of "The Ziggurat") but "When did the main character die and does he > know it yet?". Ted Klein, the original editor of the Twilight Zone magazine, long dead now (the mag, not Ted), once published a hilarious list of the hoariest cliches found in the slush pile. "Hey, I'm really dead!" was near the top of the list. -alga *More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/