I have recently been re-reading Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight, and wanted to write some longish blog entries about some of its key themes. But before doing that I thought it might be worth dwelling on the way inspiration works.
I've read many excellent books in my life, listened to some great music, and watched some great films. I've also watched some wonderful sporting performances. Some of these things have inspired me. But most haven't. And I'm curious about what it is that separates the former from the latter.
Let's put some flesh on those bones. When I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time, around the age of 10 or 11, I immediately got it into my head that I also wanted to write novels. Some quality in those books must have struck me, in a way that no book I had read before, as being in some way worthy of emulation - not I think in the sense of aping their content, but in the sense of wanting to attain a similar creative achievement. Reading Tolkien's work made me feel good about the world and glad to be in it, and it convinced me that if I could only produce a book that would make other people feel that way, then it would be pretty much the greatest thing that I could possibly do with my time on Earth. (I was obviously hardly alone in this - three generations of fantasy writers seem to have had an almost identical series of thoughts after reading LOTR.)
I also, however, used to play cricket to a decent-ish amateur level, beginning at roughly the same age as I was taking the plunge into Middle Earth (I gave the game up shortly before going to university). And in my life I have watched an awful lot of cricket, live and on TV. I have had plenty of cricketing heroes -Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Graham Thorpe, Shane Warne, etc. - and witnessed some truly great moments that I will cherish forever. (I'm not sure I've quite recovered from 'that' Ben Stokes innings in 2019.) But never once can I say that I have watched a game of cricket that made me want to emulate what I have seen in the same way that I wanted to emulate Tolkien. It has made me feel happy (more often, as an England fan, sad, and reflective upon the vagaries of fortune). But it has never really made me want to rush out and get into the nets in order to get better.
Why is this? What confluence of factors is it that causes one cultural experience to inspire you while another does not? It can't simply be the medium; I've read lots of great books that have made me happy to be alive simply because it gave me the opportunity to have experienced them (Jack Vance's Ecce and Old Earth, TH White's The Goshawk, Newton Thornburg's Cutter and Bone, Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, Michael Ende's The Neverending Story, James Ellroy's My Dark Places, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons - I could go on). But the number that have given me that LOTR feeling - that sensation that I simply must try to produce something an iota as good, or die trying - is few indeed.
And it can't simply be down to the availability of resources, either. I am a music lover with wide and eclectic tastes - I adore Zoltan Kocsis; I adore Glenn Gould; I adore Ella Fitzgerald; I adore Al Di Meola; I adore Billy Corgan; I adore Bill Withers; I adore Marvin Gaye. I could at any time have been inspired by their music to put in the effort to get good at singing, or playing the guitar, or playing the piano, just as reading Tolkien made me want to just pick up a pen and paper and start writing. But I never have really done those things as a result of listening to a record - even one which has thrilled me to the very core of my being with its wondrous beauty.
All I can say is that the way in which books, films, music, etc. influence our minds and our souls is something that we will probably never really come close to understanding. And all I can add to that is that, along with Tolkien, it is Gene Wolfe whose work has the highest hit ratio when it comes to inspiring me. I don't always read Gene Wolfe. But when I do, I want to write novels. The Wizard Knight really brought back that LOTR feeling to my heart, second time around more intensely than ever - and even more so than did reading The Sword of the Lictor or Soldier of the Mist. There is a great deal to be said about the book. But, before doing so, I though this needed to be said first.
A long time ago I started reading "The Shadow of the Torturer" and didn't finish it (I was a kid, now I'm 30). I want to read Gene Wolfe again, which book do you recommend I start with?
ReplyDeleteHonestly? Shadow of the Torturer. If you didn't like it back then that's one thing, but if you don't like it now you don't like Wolfe.
DeleteI also would probably recommend The Shadow of the Torturer. I certainly needed to take a long run-up for that one - I tried reading it twice when I was younger and only really 'got it' when trying again last year.
DeleteWith that said I think The Wizard Knight and Soldier of the Mist are excellent and probably a bit more accessible. The first Wolfe I properly understood and loved was Soldier of the Mist, and that opened the door to properly appreciating the rest of his stuff.
I experience something similar whenever I read Dan Simmons. I am now halfway through Carrion Comfort, althougj the feeling is much more intense whenever I revisit Hyperion. It may be because it was one of the first SF books I ever read and it got seared in my brain like no other author/novel ever has, but his works talk to me in the way you describe. Whenever I read Wolfe, however, I feel both in awe and infinitely humbled, which is a whole 'nother experience altogether (or perhaps it isn't?).
ReplyDeleteInteresting - I've never quite gelled with Dan Simmons' writing. I quite liked Carrion Comfort (although it is so melodramatic and ridiculous particularly towards the end). But I've tried reading Hyperion and some of his other books and just hit a wall. Neal Stephenson is like that for me as well.
DeleteInteresting fact: Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois; Gene Wolfe died there.
DeleteWhen I left Australia as an Oz version of the Peace Corp, to work in Vientiane, Laos, for a year as a 22yo English teacher to the Ministry of Agriculture (c.1995-6), I took the four volumes of the Book of the New Sun with me, devoured them all and was awed, but much preferred Soldier of the Mist, which I bought on Khao San road a few months later. Must do a re-read of them soon, plus the rest of the Solider series, which I have never read.
ReplyDeleteSoldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete are fabulous. Sadly the third one, while interesting, is just a bit too out there. I consider myself a very dedicated highbrow fiction reader and Gene Wolfe fan but even I found it impossible to really follow.
DeleteWell, consider yourself successful with your 10 year old dream because I certainly had that feeling when I first read Yoon-Suin.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I am of the opinion that every work we read influences and inspires us in some ways. We learn how not to do things from bad books and we learn things subconsciously from the middle of the road books and books that don't seem to leave much of a impression on us. Every book we read potentially inspires us.
That's very kind of you!
DeleteI agree with your observation and actually I think I've quite often been inspired by bad books and the thought I could do better. (Not that I actually can, because I've never actually been able to sit down and finish an attempt at a novel. So who am I to criticise anyone?)
I personally think that what resonates with people to provide that inspired feeling is, while very individual, still quite understandable if we just take the trouble to look into it. And personally, I never felt inspired when I read Tolkien (even as a child), but Gene Wolfe is another beast indeed. ;))
ReplyDeleteMike
As a huge fan of The Once and Future King, I’m interested to hear more about The Goshawk. Sounds like I should seek this out.
ReplyDeleteIt's short. Give it a read!
DeleteI just convinced my wife to read the New Sun tetralogy last year, after having re-read it myself in 2021. I told it her that in a way it was an anti-LotR (not in that it was anything against Tolkien, I think they're very complementary works), but that the Claw of the Conciliator is like if the Ring were a thing of good instead of evil. But there's so much to chew on in that series, that that's only one way to look at it. It has inspired quite a number of things in my own writing and games.
ReplyDeleteYes, and Wolfe was a huge Tolkien fan. He wrote a great essay about him. I'm going to do a post on that.
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