[ObsoleteResolve]

You know the reviews. The ones where it is so painfully obvious that the book went completely over the head of the reviewer that you just want to smack them. I'm not trying to target bad reviews of books people like, but just reviews that show a fundamental... autism... in the reviewer.

To open this up, I'll offer this one up-- with shining examples bolded.

Gene Wolfes The Wizard reviewed by Katie Dean

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'The Wizard' is the second part of Gene Wolfe's fantasy 'The Wizard Knight'. Anyone who has already read the first part ('The Knight') will find no surprises in its sequel. It begins exactly where the first part ended and continues in much the same manner; a catalogue of nonsensical adventures in a fantasy world. Wolfe's intentions are no clearer in this novel than in its predecessor and anyone looking for answers to the many mysteries that Wolfe has created will be disappointed. The two parts of the story are so much the same in essence that anyone who enjoyed 'The Knight' will almost certainly enjoy its sequel. Anyone who felt disappointment with the first part need not expect to find satisfaction in 'The Wizard'.Sadly 'The Wizard' is beset by the same problems that made themselves apparent in its prequel. Aside from the unwieldy length that would have resulted from publication in a single novel, it is difficult to find a good reason for splitting the story into two separate volumes. The second volume continues so precisely from the first that readers may feel the need to refresh their memories before commencing it. Some authors succumb to the temptation to reiterate what has gone before in great detail and risk boring the reader. Wolfe has certainly avoided this pitfall, but goes too far in the opposite direction and offers no pointers to previous events. However, he has maintained the oblique style that dogged the first part of the story so it is doubtful whether any references to past events would enlighten the reader to any useful extent.

As in the first novel, Wolfe has missed out on the opportunity to develop his characters in any meaningful way. He has set himself the challenge of portraying a boy trapped in an adult form and forced to live among adults. Unfortunately, he does nothing with this idea. We still do not see Sir Able visibly mature despite the incredible adventures he enjoys. The dialogue is still in places reminiscent of that of a child, but it is no longer by itself sufficient to convey Wolfe's tantalising idea.

The sketchy references to the seven layers that form Wolfe's fantasy world are scarcely better defined in this second novel. The first suggested that the reader would be forced to share in Sir Able's journey to understand the world to which he had been transported. This offered high hopes that all would become clear by the end of the second novel. Sadly, this is not the case. Wolfe's world remains as much a mystery by the final page as it did at the beginning. There is a skill to gradually unraveling a mystery in a manner that satisfies rather than frustrates the reader. This skill is not displayed in 'The Wizard Knight'.

Wolfe seemed to promise much in creating a world that contained elements of traditional myth and legend. Yet these references remain incoherent and under-developed. Wolfe adds nothing to the genre: there is no alternate understanding of mythical ideas and no development of traditions. More surprising still, the book fails to explore or develop its central themes, the characteristics of a wizard and those of a knight. It is too much to expect that the mere creation of fantastical places and characters can carry a story through one thousand pages on its own. It requires some kind of coherent world-view on which to build and Wolfe has failed to provide this structure.

In summary, if you are a true fan of fantasy and are looking for an imaginative romp through a strange world containing traditional fantasy characters, then Gene Wolfe should appeal. If on the other hand, you expect to find a little more depth in a novel of such length, 'The Wizard Knight' is one to be avoided.

It's pretty mind blowing-- there are many reasons to dislike a book, but writing several paragraphs about how you failed to understand what you read takes a special sort of person.

[kcf]

that's pretty bad - though I have to admit that I'm sure certain aspects of The Wizard Knight went over my head as well.


Anyway - I have run into this problem for a couple of my own reviews. It's an interesting problem when you realize that there is much more to the novel than you are actually catching. The biggest that come to mind are City of Saints and Madmen by VanderMeer and Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. You'll see that I either flat out admitted that 'I didn't get it' or emphasized other areas.

[ObsoleteResolve]

I think that's very, very different from lines like this (uber highlighted for that very reason): More surprising still, the book fails to explore or develop its central themes, the characteristics of a wizard and those of a knight. Most people can gather a few more elements of the central theme of the duology than that tripe

I know I, for instance, didn't get all that was in The Wizard Knight. I completely misread Shadow & Claw like a retardo (Oh? It's an unreliable narrator? Oh, that... makes much more sense now), I know there was more to Viriconium that I got, as do I know that about VanderMeer. Much less The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

I, however, didn't write a several paragraph long review, not admitting that I didn't get something (I could tell with those above that more was going on under the surface that I myself was getting), but absolutely reveling in that like a pig in mud.

Which is why I nominated it as a review written by an autistic

[kcf]

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't defending that review. It was bad.

[amphibian]

I did a brief search for more stuff by Katie Dean and found nothing indicating any saving grace whatsoever.

Quote

In summary, if you are a true fan of fantasy and are looking for an imaginative romp through a strange world containing traditional fantasy characters, then Gene Wolfe should appeal. If on the other hand, you expect to find a little more depth in a novel of such length, 'The Wizard Knight' is one to be avoided.

These two lines sum up exactly how awful a review this was. In The Knight, Wolfe completely rebooted the trite fantasy knight-chasing-a-dragon story and brought immense depth to everything in the book. I read that book in one unplanned six or seven hour sitting. Then Wolfe went out and wrote an even better book in The Wizard.

I stumbled across a rarely-updated but excellent website (www.inchoatus.com) that does fantastic reviews of SF books. Duncan Farraday and Dan Horn usually take a brief excerpt from good and bad/autistic reviews, then write their own. Here's a look at what they did for Perdido Street Station:

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Most Idiotic Reviews

?Fans of this epic fantasy will reread this classy tale many times over in years to come.?
--Internet Book Watch

If you first read the book and then this quote, you would realize that this fellow did not finish the book and perhaps didn?t even start it. It is not epic fantasy at all?it is certainly speculative fiction but as far from the epic fantasy that Tolkien invented as one can get. It is also not a tale. It is allegory and metaphor so sharp and so original it nearly requires a new category; and it is so brutishly real?every scene trembles with the flaws of its characters and oozes with their various bodily fluids?that to call Perdido Street Station classy is to call the Sahara verdant.

Biting and insightful. My favorite combination.

[spiralx]

Personally I found a lot of their reviews snobbish. But then again I tend to think that if a book "went over someone's head" then that would indicate that the book itself wasn't particularly clear, not that it's time to laugh at that person's supposed intellectual failings.

[amphibian]

spiralx;173579 said:

Personally I found a lot of their reviews snobbish. But then again I tend to think that if a book "went over someone's head" then that would indicate that the book itself wasn't particularly clear, not that it's time to laugh at that person's supposed intellectual failings.

Your point is valid, but it doesn't apply to Wolfe or Mieville. Both authors are able to create books that are incredibly deep and complex, yet work on the simple level of being understandable stories. You don't have to know anything about Greek mythology to read and enjoy the Latro in the Mist series, but it adds to the pleasure. Essentially, with Wolfe and Mieville (as well as a few other authors) the more you yourself bring to them, the more you get out of their books, but you don't have to be some extremely well-read nerd professor to understand the stories.

Faraday and Horn are indeed snobby at times - it's part of their mission statement: "Inchoatus is dedicated very simply to: Identifying what is good about speculative fiction and What is to be avoided." Generally, their elitism works and they hit the right targets, but if you're a big fan of Goodkind or Jordan, you will probably take offense to some of the stuff they say.

[spiralx]

I don't see how that contradicts what I've said. In fact, you've pretty much said she's got a valid point - that you don't need to appreciate it on any level other than as an "understandable story". She just didn't like it.

[Tif the Barber Boy]

spiralx;173777 said:

I don't see how that contradicts what I've said. In fact, you've pretty much said she's got a valid point - that you don't need to appreciate it on any level other than as an "understandable story". She just didn't like it.

Writers like Wolfe work on different levels. There is the surface story which can be enjoyed for itself and then there are layers of depth. Different readers are able to unpeel different layers and deepen their enjoyment/appreciation or understanding of the book.

While your point about the reviewer not liking the surface level of the story is valid, what was truly silly about the review is that the reviewer:
a) failed to recognise that there were layers beneath the surface
asserted that there was no depth to the book and that it was all surface.

In a book review this is a severe failing. After all one would expect someone reviewing a book to at least try and spend some time and thought on looking at it. To my mind this was a truly poor book review and the reviewer has shown herself an unreliable source of information and opinion about books. i don't expect reviewers to like books I like, or share the same understanding of a book that I do. I do expect them to be able to discuss a book intelligently, even if it is to say that a book is too obtuse or abstract, or the narrative is too compromised by self-indulgent literary tricks to be intelligible.

[ObsoleteResolve]

Tif: I just prefer to highlight: More surprising still, the book fails to explore or develop its central themes, the characteristics of a wizard and those of a knight.

It's that she were so off-base that earned that label from me. You don't get it, good. You don't like it, also good: don't roll around in your stupid like a pig in mud. I'd argue that most people would gather a whole slew of other themes from the novels than the characteristics of a wizard and a knight.

It was so manifestly, profoundly, amazingly, autistically off that, yeah. Her judgment is null and void.

Of course, I also like a level of reading comprehension that at least matches that of a tenth grade paper on a novel in a review.