Bryce Wilson
asked
Francis Spufford:
You have a throwaway comment in (I believe in True Stories) about preferring Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman to A Canticle For Leibowitz, and I have to admit I've been extremely curious about why ever since. Any stray thoughts you might have on Gene Wolfe would be of interest too. ?
Francis Spufford
I suppose it's that, to me, Saint Leibowitz is a book that lets itself get closer to what Walter Miller felt about Catholicism. It's a less well made book than A Canticle, obviously – baggy, unsure of itself, and left unfinished at his death, so that the published version is partly the (brilliant) work of Terry Bisson. But A Canticle's higher polish is (I think) to do with it being a more conventional 1950s/60s SF novel, laying out its future dark age, recovery, and cyclic return to nuclear war with a kind of grim, satirical neatness. It's got a thesis about how monasteries preserve knowledge in dark times, and it has fun with historical parallels, but the Leibowitz manuscripts the monks lovingly illuminate really are random scraps of shopping list. I think it was a story that wanted to be wilder, and that the sequel he wrestled with is what happened when he let it be wilder.
Gene Wolfe, I am not the person to ask about. I am making my way successfully, and with some actual pleasure, through the Book of the Long Sun novels, at a friend's recommendation, but this is the first time I've managed to enjoy him. Neither The Fifth Head of Cerberus, nor the Book of the New Sun, which are supposed to be his sure-fire works of sf'nal genius, could I get anywhere with. They're too cruel for me, and I'm also too impatient with their encryptedness. I'd much rather read something with a simple surface that suggests multiple complex meanings, than something with a complex surface beneath which hides a single simple meaning. It may be relevant that I'm useless at both crosswords and Scrabble.
Gene Wolfe, I am not the person to ask about. I am making my way successfully, and with some actual pleasure, through the Book of the Long Sun novels, at a friend's recommendation, but this is the first time I've managed to enjoy him. Neither The Fifth Head of Cerberus, nor the Book of the New Sun, which are supposed to be his sure-fire works of sf'nal genius, could I get anywhere with. They're too cruel for me, and I'm also too impatient with their encryptedness. I'd much rather read something with a simple surface that suggests multiple complex meanings, than something with a complex surface beneath which hides a single simple meaning. It may be relevant that I'm useless at both crosswords and Scrabble.
More Answered Questions
Bryce Wilson
asked
Francis Spufford:
Would you ever consider reworking The Stone Table into a less -erm, recognizable form?
Michael Burt
asked
Francis Spufford:
Hello. I am having a Narnia day today and have reached the part in LWW where the stone table is mentioned for the first time. Since I learned about your book, The Stone Table, I've wanted to read it so much. Please may I ask if you have sought permission to publish and have been refused, or will you wait until Narnia becomes public property?
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