Peace

From my blog at www.lazerbrain.wordpress.com

As usual with Gene Wolfe, cryptic is the word. Unlike his more famous works in The Book of the New Sun, this one is not ostensibly science-fiction in nature, but like The Book of the New Sun (beloved by me . . .) you can't take anything at face value. I took a look at an essay trying to tease out some of the mysteries of this story, and it sent my head spinning.

Ostensibly Peace is a not very well organized, non-linear memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, the last of a wealthy family. If that's as far as you want to look, then even by itself its seems (to my limited critical abilities) to be a decent piece of literature. But . . .

The first page, we find an elm tree crashing to the ground followed by the first comments of the narrator that it was one of Elenor's tree. Much later, we find out (in passing only) that Elenor only plants trees on top of graves to keep the dead in place. So the timing of the tree falling and the sudden appearance of the narrator seems suspicious. There is also, that fact that we find various letters and note cars “nailed” to Dennis's desk, but who nails letters to desks? the more likely scenario is that he can't pick the letters up . . .

That's just one of about a bajillion mysteries in the book, and i only mentioned that one because I think I've got it figured out.

The book seems to get its title from the very last folk tale told about a fairy like race that is going extinct. The patriarch turns his children into geese so that they may never die (eg, even if one or a few geese die, the flock as such still lives), but after the geese have been hunted to death, the very last goose finds and befriends a hermit. The hermit says something to the effect of “your time here is long over, it is the time of man now, and in the future Man's time will be over too.” After this the goose is baptized in to Christianity, and turns back into its native form, and it is implied dies peacefully. After, this story Dennis, gets up and goes to a doctors appointment as usual. The story implying that Dennis's time is long past as well, but the fact that is still going about his business as usual shows that he has not found peace. So after all that, in typical Gene Wolfe form the title of the book actually implies the opposite.

I said all of this to say, that if you like neat closed off endings don't read this book. Half of the anecdotes related in the story don't have a narrated ending, but the conclusion are usually given in an off hand and most unsatisfying way 30 pages later. However, Gene gives you enough figure out how all the stories end, as long as your paying attention. I admit I probably, only actually found the ending to a few of the stories.

Anyway I gave it four stars. A spectacular thinker of a book, but its not something you read just for a good story. If you want to understand it you better bring your A game.

Gene Wolfe's Peace is a very strange book and I'm really not sure what to make of it. I think it's a book that needs to be read more than once because there are meanings within meanings and I'm sure I've missed several layers.

Ostensibly the reminiscences of an old man, Alden Dennis Weer, the book meanders through memory, story, fairy tale and back again. Suffering from the after effects of a stroke, Weer wanders the halls of his massive house. Or maybe he's wandering the corridors of his mind. Clearly unwell, he visits a memory of a doctor for advice. He relives time spent with his aunt Vi, with colleagues and relatives, with lovers and friends. It wonderfully written and quite dense, without feeling hard work.

Death stalks Weer and in places the story is eerie. We're never quite sure if he's committed some atrocious act or if his mind is playing tricks. It all adds to the off-kilter feel of the book.

Wolfe packs the tale with subtle layers of meaning and I'm sure a reread would be rewarding.

It won't be for everyone, a lot of Wolfe's work is an acquired taste. But there's something here....something....