This is a good idea! So much of Wolfe discourse is about solving puzzles and excavating allusions; relatively little discourse addressing style, form, voice, genre, moral philosophy, etc. Looking forward to this
As if I didn’t have enough problems - insomnia obviously being one - I now have to contend yet again with guilt over my enormous reading backlog, particularly where Important Writers are concerned. I’m scarcely equipped to address the themes you raise but, feeling reckless, I’ll mention one point about Wolfe’s stories that has struck me, namely that, consciously or otherwise, he seems to mimic other writers to a considerable degree. On more than one occasion I’ve read a story in a collection and thought ‘Chesterton’, or ‘Borges channeling Chesterton’ or something of the kind. The last such occasion, some years ago in, I think, ‘Storeys from the Old Hotel’, it was Kipling all the way, until it really wasn’t, if you see what I mean. It could, of course, all be in my head. P.S. What go you think of the Cormoran Strike books? I’ve just finished the latest. Great until the last 80 - 100 pages, where the denouement seemed rushed, possibly due to authorial panic at the limits of bookbinding technology, and Strike’s arrival at the solution implausibly sudden and unearned.
Certainly no need to add any guilt to the pile! A Chestertonian Borges is a good way of describing Wolfe. I'll steal that. I've not read Galbraith but would like to. I hear good things, and I like mystery fiction.
I’ve only read one Chesterton story, I think, in a Father Brown collection, but I’m aware of his signicance to Borges and the latter’s influence on Wolfe. I think the expression my sleep-deprived mind wouldn’t allow me to find was ‘chameleon-like’. On reading a Wolfe collection a long time ago I had a sense of the different literary antecedents in each story - a sense that is also inescapable when reading Borges - and wondered how significant this is. I’m sure it is conscious as he is too acute for it to be otherwise. As for Galbraith, I’ve read all the books - it’s best to do so in order of publication I think, though each is self-contained - and greatly enjoyed all, aside from the caveat over the resolution of some of the cases, particularly in the latest book. The plotting is dense and well-crafted but in terms of pure resolution of the mystery it would require someone with extraordinary memory retention - and a great deal of time on their hands - to work them out, I think. I doubt there is anything particularly unusual in this, to be fair, but it does accentuate the sense of contrivance that exists in all mystery fiction. The real strength of the books - and the reason for reading them in order - is the characterisation, and particularly the relationship between Strike and Robin. This is what gives the stories their depth, which remains once the intricacies of each case are forgotten.
Sold - one copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling! . BTW each chapter in all the books has an epigraph that is thematically linked to the title. In the latest one everything is a reading from the I Ching but others are typically poems or , in one case, song lyrics. Whether these are useful clues is another matter but, again, it at least implies a thread of intricate relations running throughout the story. All best discovered for yourself.
This is a good idea! So much of Wolfe discourse is about solving puzzles and excavating allusions; relatively little discourse addressing style, form, voice, genre, moral philosophy, etc. Looking forward to this
Thanks! Yes, moving away from specific mysteries to general analysis seems worthwhile
As if I didn’t have enough problems - insomnia obviously being one - I now have to contend yet again with guilt over my enormous reading backlog, particularly where Important Writers are concerned.
I’m scarcely equipped to address the themes you raise but, feeling reckless, I’ll mention one point about Wolfe’s stories that has struck me, namely that, consciously or otherwise, he seems to mimic other writers to a considerable degree. On more than one occasion I’ve read a story in a collection and thought ‘Chesterton’, or ‘Borges channeling Chesterton’ or something of the kind. The last such occasion, some years ago in, I think, ‘Storeys from the Old Hotel’, it was Kipling all the way, until it really wasn’t, if you see what I mean. It could, of course, all be in my head.
P.S. What go you think of the Cormoran Strike books? I’ve just finished the latest. Great until the last 80 - 100 pages, where the denouement seemed rushed, possibly due to authorial panic at the limits of bookbinding technology, and Strike’s arrival at the solution implausibly sudden and unearned.
Certainly no need to add any guilt to the pile!
A Chestertonian Borges is a good way of describing Wolfe. I'll steal that.
I've not read Galbraith but would like to. I hear good things, and I like mystery fiction.
I’ve only read one Chesterton story, I think, in a Father Brown collection, but I’m aware of his signicance to Borges and the latter’s influence on Wolfe. I think the expression my sleep-deprived mind wouldn’t allow me to find was ‘chameleon-like’. On reading a Wolfe collection a long time ago I had a sense of the different literary antecedents in each story - a sense that is also inescapable when reading Borges - and wondered how significant this is. I’m sure it is conscious as he is too acute for it to be otherwise.
As for Galbraith, I’ve read all the books - it’s best to do so in order of publication I think, though each is self-contained - and greatly enjoyed all, aside from the caveat over the resolution of some of the cases, particularly in the latest book. The plotting is dense and well-crafted but in terms of pure resolution of the mystery it would require someone with extraordinary memory retention - and a great deal of time on their hands - to work them out, I think. I doubt there is anything particularly unusual in this, to be fair, but it does accentuate the sense of contrivance that exists in all mystery fiction.
The real strength of the books - and the reason for reading them in order - is the characterisation, and particularly the relationship between Strike and Robin. This is what gives the stories their depth, which remains once the intricacies of each case are forgotten.
@@liberalhyena9760 I shall put the first Galbraith in my basket!
Sold - one copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling! . BTW each chapter in all the books has an epigraph that is thematically linked to the title. In the latest one everything is a reading from the I Ching but others are typically poems or , in one case, song lyrics. Whether these are useful clues is another matter but, again, it at least implies a thread of intricate relations running throughout the story. All best discovered for yourself.
This sounds fascinating. I think it would be far more interesting if I’d actually read some Wolfe though. 😅 planning to remedy that this year.
-T
You need to join the cult!