Recent Reading

[drcpunk]

I just finished Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest. I'm not sure I love the ending, though it isn't a bad ending per se. I do like the pacing. It's much bouncier than a lot of Wolfe's recent work. For about half to two thirds of the novel, it feels like a cross between Hitchcock, screwball comedy, and the sort of sharpness of movies like All About Eve. And there's a lot of references I caught, so there are probably several I didn't catch.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks-- it sounds like a book for my to read list.

The amazon reviews were almost equally divided between one, two, three, four, and five stars-- I don't know if I've ever seen such a perfect balance before.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

It's a very odd book, and I'm not sure how seriously Wolfe took the plot overall, or which bits he took seriously, or what -- that is, he took it seriously insofar as he was writing it and he's a good writer. But... Hitchcock movies aren't "about" what they are nominally about, and I don't think this is either.

So, you've got this book seeming, at various times, to be political thriller, screwball comedy, Hitchcock thriller, and several other things, and there's no doubt in my mind that Wolfe's in control here. But, that doesn't mean I've got a clear idea of what he's trying do overall.