The Bodhisattva

Once again this my weekly contribution to Forgotten Friday.  Basically, A bunch of people I don’t know sharing books that they think have been forgotten. To add a degree of difficulty, I also ignore sweet books that are undermentioned that I already regularly preach about anyway (many of which are mentioned in the intros to my other Forgotten Friday installments). This is not a review, which for some reason makes it much less of a headache, so no embedded zingers thrown out, just a basic gist and pointer. This was put together in a bit of a rush however, as I had something else already done for the choice this week  but at the last minute I heard that YA would be preferable this week, which also is difficult as due to my very limited exposure to YA fiction, what I do like, I already laud quite heavily (which would remove it from consideration) - titles like Margo Lanagan’s Black Juice, Larrabeiti’s Borribles etc. I was considering throwing Jeff Smith’s Bone out there, but that’s hardly under the radar anymore and a movie needs to be made so my sweet copy of Bone#1 (first print baby!) can glow some more! So I kind of cheated my pick isn’t called YA (to my knowledge) but luckily it isn’t called non-YA either - it’s forgotten.

Gene Wolfe has a serious reputation as one of our finest writers, a ‘SF/F guy’ we feel confident in to throw out there as our example of literary mastery - we claim others, but their entry into residence to that plot is often sideways if not just an attendance to a lively masquerade party. We take a attendance just to hear they are there. Wolfe is a great American writer of Fantasy and Science Fiction and has legitimate claim to Michael Swanwick’s statements at the Modern Word:

“Gene Wolfe is, in my judgment, the single greatest writer in the English language alive today. An editor I know thinks he comes in second to Saul Bellow, but I’ve read Ravelstein and I beg to differ.”

His Book of the New Sun puts him in that room, it is a true singular piece in fiction, propelling Severian into a role between sentences worthy of constant and repeated study and is a book that both SF and Fantasy fans fight to claim, but transcends both. It should be noted however that Wolfe could be the finest YA writer we have as well. His Wizard/Knight almost achieves the unique balance of being a piece of literature that is an escape for the young reader, a challenging one fraught with danger and adventure, but to the older reader, the practiced use of the unreliable narrator and end of the series gives the duology that second - or rather other - life. Now this is hardly a forgotten book, but much of Wolfe’s Catalog besides his Old Earth, Latro, and Wizard/Knight work is quite undermentioned and my topic today kinda, maybe, not really, could be a YA title. Many of us familiar with those aforementioned titles know Wolfe as master of point-of-view, of perspective, especially via the male protagonist, but Wolfe tried to get his Terry Moore on with Pandora, by Holly Hollander a part of a what I believe is considered to be a unofficial, loosely connected trilogy of contemporary fantasy along with There are Doors and Castleview. In truth it (Pandora, by Holly Hollander) is my least favorite of the three but it is by far the simplest and thus suits my rushed purposes - when in doubt go with Gene Wolfe.

Pandora, by Holly Hollander is perhaps the most lay work Wolfe has ever written it is a pretty  standard mystery story however, it is a rather interesting foil to the fact that Holly is well aware of the common mystery tropes  (being a mystery reader) and we are left with her and  Alladin Blue (I told you - for the kids!) a criminologist (or something to that affect, I’m sorry that my be my CSIed version - this is not a recent read) try to find out what made a mystery box inscribed “Pandora’ blows up killing several people. The book does seem to be an attempt at trendy at the time - not in terms of literary - but in terms of dialogue that just seems off and this may have to with Wolfe employing a female in a position where he’s known for crafting some of the best male POV’s ever. More than anything Pandora, by Holly Hollander, along with the other aforementioned duo of novels represent this bit of an odd time in Wolfe’s career that is sandwiched by true greatness - and one wonders what Wolfe was trying to do here and the only thing that comes to mind is that it was an early work that simply didn’t see publication until it did. The only other conclusion is a purposeful try at a bit more mainstream formula which he got tired of and shelved until later, regardless,  it can work as an affective YA book that could also lead to exploring his greater works, some of which are masterworks (I have yet to mention the even earlier - at least publishing date - Fifth Head of Cerberus). Throw in that it’s a mystery (and while The Bodhisattva is not constrained by, and indeed pities books that are so easily labeled, I believe the other Forgotten Friday participants are mystery orientated - though I could be wrong) and you have a very versatile book to fit my purposes this week.

I also want to say while I was writing this Chabon’s Summerland came to mind, but I’m not sure how mainstream that is. Obviously Chabon is a well known commodity and a threat to be a year’s best in whatever mode his fiction allows people to claim to be to award. If the goal is to find just sweet books, that’s a solid choice as well as those I mentioned above (Lanagan etc). I apologize for the half-assed nature of this, but I literally read about the YA preference for this week a couple of hours ago. Next week back to regular programming (and now because of this shuffle, I’m a week ahead!).

Hell, I just think I (de)recommended a sub-par book by an author whose sub-par is as good as your favorite’s average. I don’t know what I’m doing except trying to get to next week. Move along younglings, the red eyes are just an allergy.

Previous Forgotten Fridays:

Coelestis by Paul Park
Sarah Canary by  Karen Joy Fowler
Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop