SakeTami
Rereading Wolfe
Rereading Wolfe

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The Land Across Expedition - Chapter 1

The Protagonist enters Transterra. He's arrested at "the border." He's taken to Puraustays where he is imprisoned in the house of Kleon and Martya. 

Comments

Not only was Wolfe a fan of Weird Fiction, I categorize his entire career as it's own wing of Weird Fiction. Also, He wrote the introduction the Best of Clark Ashton Smithe collection. https://www.prime-books.com/shop/e-books/the-return-of-the-sorcerer-the-best-of-clark-ashton-smith-by-clark-ashton-smith-2/

So far what I'm liking the most is the echoes of other authors the first chapter evokes for me. Right off, I feel a thematic connection to Kafka. I remember feeling a similar sense of unrealness when reading his short stories. Likewise, a bit of Lovecraft's dreamlands, though honestly anything that may take place in a dream world. So a vague connection if there at all. Was Wolfe a weird fiction fan? I also get a bit of Chesterson's Man Who Was Thursday's atmosphere, but I'm always wary of searching for allegories. I feel like Wolfe likes to write as though things were allegorical, but I'm not convinced they ARE allegorical. Plus there's a dash of Lewis Carroll, specifically in that the protagonist doesn't seem to have much agency thus far, like Alice. That's something I'll be keeping an eye on as we go forward. I like how Wolfe plays with agency in his stories. One of the things I'm wondering about is the dream aspect given that Wolfe has a long history of casually departing from expected reality in his stories. So if the Land Across exists only in dream, I assume it must exist there for a specific reason instead of a convenient contrivance.


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