小说与文学2019theguardian.com
科幻巨匠吉恩·沃尔夫逝世，享年87岁
Gene Wolfe, 'magnificent' giant of science fiction, dies aged 87
导读
这篇是 Gene Wolfe 逝世报道下的 HN 讨论，读者回顾他的科幻/奇幻作品，并争论其叙事成就与后期衰退。对写作者而言，讨论集中在不可靠叙述、文本质感、梦境氛围，以及让读者读完后想重读的结构设计，也提醒复杂叙事需要给读者可进入的入口和足够线索。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把不可靠叙述当结构装置而非唯一卖点：真相揭示后，前文线索应足以让读者拼出全貌。
- 02
用质地、细微差别和梦境般的氛围增强沉浸感，而不是只靠设定奇观。
- 03
结尾要制造重读冲动：真相揭晓时让读者发现前文获得了新意义。
- 04
给复杂作品设计可进入的入口，让新读者先通过较直白的作品判断是否合口味。
HN 评论精选
新读者宜从《第五头》入门；复杂作品可借史料注释交叉参照。
我极力推荐《Latro in the Mist》，它合订了两部小说，写一名希腊时代的罗马士兵每天失忆。对我来说这是沃尔夫最“好进入”的小说，因为可以把人名与修昔底德等史料对照；我也推荐 Landmark 系列的详细注释。《第五头》当然是最好的入门，我每隔几年重读；若你从没读过沃尔夫，就从《第五头》开始，它能让你较早判断沃尔夫是否合你口味。
ludsan查看英文原文
I cannot recommend enough Latro in the Mist, a combination of two of his novels about a Roman soldier in Greek times given the curse of losing his memory every day. To me this was his most 'approachable' novel by virtue of the fact that I could cross-reference the names with historical resources like Thucydides -- I also highly recommend the Landmark series for their detailed annotations. Fifth Head of Cereberus is, of course, the best way to start with him, and I re-read it every few years. If you have never read Wolfe before, I would start with Fifth Head. It will give you an early sense for whether Wolfe is your cup of tea.
早期作品情节复杂、文笔丰厚；后期流于“不可靠叙述”套路，线索与可解性不足。
沃尔夫写下了不少杰作，《第五头》《Peace》和1970年代一些短篇都应在20世纪严肃文学中占一席之地。《新日之书》曾让十几岁的我震惊，我每隔几年重读；不过塞维里安见人就上床的习惯在今天看不太成立，我也见过女性读者称它是可笑的男性幻想。沃尔夫的能力无疑随时间下降，致敬文章总聚焦几十年前的作品。早期作品除了情节复杂，文笔也极丰厚，堪比普鲁斯特、纳博科夫或福克纳；进入1980年代后，他的文笔变得平实、日常，后来小说越来越榨取“不可靠叙述”的噱头，却没有别的东西支撑。甚至读者是否被给予足够线索去弄清真实情节和主题也不清楚；我聊过的多位超级粉丝担心《A Land Across》最终冗长而不可解，出版商只是盲信读者读过早期沃尔夫，所以这本想必也有东西。
Mediterraneo10查看英文原文
Wolfe wrote some incredible masterpieces. The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Peace, and some of his 1970s short stories deserve a place in 20th-century serious literature in general. The Book of the New Sun stunned me as a teenage reader, and I fondly reread the book every few years (that said, Severian’s habit of shagging everyone he meets doesn’t hold up well in this day and age, and I have seen female readers call The Book of the New Sun a risible male fantasy). However, there is no doubt that Wolfe’s powers declined over time, and homages to him inevitably focus on the works from decades ago. Besides their intricate plots, those early works had incredible prose, just as rich as Proust, Nabokov, or Faulkner. Once the 1980s came in, suddenly Wolfe’s prose became plainer, more workaday. Then, his novels increasingly started to milk the “unreliable narrator” gimmick but without much else to them. Furthermore, it is not even clear that readers are appropriately given all clues to figure out the real action and themes. I have spoken to multiple Wolfe superfans who worry that A Land Across, for example, ultimately turned out to be turgid and impenetrable, and that Wolfe’s publisher accepted it just on blind faith that readers got earlier Wolfe novels, so surely there was something to this one too. (I know the principle of de mortus nil nisi bonum and I don’t want to be too harsh about the man, but this is probably the only opportunity for a long time that the Hacker News community will get to discuss his work.)
沃尔夫以质感、细微差别和梦境感超越类型套路；《The Wizard Knight》更适合入门并解构成长叙事。
这是巨大损失。我年轻时误入 Science Fiction Bookclub，不知道它意在诱导孩子超量买书；他们寄来的一本正是沃尔夫的《Urth of the New Sun》，它让我困惑又着迷，大学重读时才发现它属于一个更长的故事。之后我几乎读了他所有作品。与许多科幻/奇幻不同，沃尔夫使用极强的质感与细微差别；读他的作品感觉像做梦，尽管表面并不迷幻。年纪渐长，我认出自己曾喜欢的许多东西只是换了机制的少年力量幻想，而沃尔夫是少见的在做不同事情的类型作家。想试读的话，最易进入的是《The Wizard Knight》；它仍很好，有那种薄纱般的梦境风格和不可靠叙述，但比《Torturer》系列直白。反讽的是这也最接近“少年力量幻想”，却以很美甚至充满爱意的方式解构成长小说。
javajosh查看英文原文
This is a great loss. When I was quite young I made the mistake of joining the Science Fiction Bookclub, unaware that it's intent and purpose was to mislead kids into over-buying books they didn't want. At the time, one of the books they sent me was Gene Wolfe's "Urth of the New Sun", and it bewildered me and fascinated me so much that I reread it in college, and realized it was part of a much longer tale. I went on to read virtually everything he ever wrote. Unlike so much science fiction (and fantasy, on occasion), Wolfe's uses tremendous texture and nuance; reading his work feels incredibly dream-like to me, even though there's nothing overtly trippy. As I get older, and recognize so much of what I once enjoyed as the same juvenile power fantasy told over with slightly different mechanics, Wolfe is (was) one of those rare genre authors who was doing something very different. For anyone who wants to try a Wolfe book, the most accessible one is "The Wizard Knight", IMHO. It's still quite good, and has that gauzy, dreamy style and unreliable narrator Wolfe is known for, but is rather more straight-forward than, say, the Torturer series (which is actually part of the series in which Urth of the New Sun played a role). Ironically (to me) this is also the closest he got to "juvenile power fantasy" but ends up deconstructing the bildungsroman in a really beautiful, even loving way. Highly, highly recommended. Also, I remember reading somewhere that he was a working engineer while he wrote some of his first novels; I presume he was writing full-time later. I think that's cool, too.
好结尾让读者回头重读，真相需要多轮阅读才拼合。
《Peace》是真正杰作。读到最后，你会开始想这本书到底讲了什么；突然你想通了，就想带着这个认识重读。你可能要反复几次才会最终满足。
piokoch查看英文原文
"Peace" is a true masterpiece. When you reach the end, you start thinking what was this book about. Suddenly you will figure it out and you want to read it again, armed with this knowledge. And you might need a few iterations before you will be finally satisfied.
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