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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
I gave it four stars. But it is still cooking my brain and I've been reading analyses of the book online. I know I'm going to read it again, so it gets five stars now.
"I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself; or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution."
-Number Five
My first Gene Wolfe. All 3 are great stories, "A Story" by Marsch being the weakest, but serving as a key in connecting them all together.
I was debating whether I should give this 4 or 5. After truly thinking about the novellas, the connections and then reading the afterword in my copy of the book (written by Pamela Sargent), I have to agree: this is a major work of fiction.
Wonderful.
-Number Five
My first Gene Wolfe. All 3 are great stories, "A Story" by Marsch being the weakest, but serving as a key in connecting them all together.
I was debating whether I should give this 4 or 5. After truly thinking about the novellas, the connections and then reading the afterword in my copy of the book (written by Pamela Sargent), I have to agree: this is a major work of fiction.
Wonderful.
Well, I'll be honest and say I have zero idea what this set of three short stories is about. I get that there are tons of subtexts going on here, about colonialism, identity and self-identity, slavery, the line between childhood and adulthood, etc. But what seems to be sorely lacking is any actual primary text. Where is the story? I quickly became frustrated, because while the writing is fine (if a little cold and disinterested), there is truly no plot. And while I like an abstract conundrum as much as the next reader (?!), it is simply not enough to present me with a "story" in the form of a puzzle. This is precisely the kind of writing I don't like because there is the implication that if I as the reader don't "get it" then the fault must be my own lack of understanding or inability to grasp subtlety. Baloney! If you want me to fathom the deep meaning in your writing, then be clear in your writing.
I have heard the term "picturesque" attributed to Gene Wolfe's writing multiple times recently - first from the "Shelved by Genre" podcast with respect to "Shadow of the Torturer", and most recently by the lovely Ursula K. Le Guin regarding "The Fifth Head of Cerberus." I now believe that no other term can best describe Wolfe's writing, and that is a big part of why I will continually visit his work.
"The Fifth Head of Cerberus" includes three novellas that are connected in...ways. I enjoyed all three, and the ways in which they're connected. Wolfe wrote them all beautifully and crafted this weird, awful world to explore mature themes. It doesn't all land, and there are some confusing bits, but that comes with the picturesque.
"The Fifth Head of Cerberus" includes three novellas that are connected in...ways. I enjoyed all three, and the ways in which they're connected. Wolfe wrote them all beautifully and crafted this weird, awful world to explore mature themes. It doesn't all land, and there are some confusing bits, but that comes with the picturesque.
This is a book that takes 'show don't tell' to extremes. This is an inventive, well written book, but it was a difficult read. There are some arresting images and ideas, but the fragmentary, dream-like style required a lot of hard work. I'm glad I read it, but I can't say I enjoyed it.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Fifth Head of Cerberus is three novellas Frankenstein-ed together, it lacks the cohesiveness that Wolfe's Book of the New Sun has. It feels like a prototype of what Gene Wolfe would go on to write.
Unless you're a super fan of Wolfe's work, I don't think these novellas are worth reading. Even if you are a fan of his work, some parts of these novellas will be torture to read. Definitely not my cup of tea.
Unless you're a super fan of Wolfe's work, I don't think these novellas are worth reading. Even if you are a fan of his work, some parts of these novellas will be torture to read. Definitely not my cup of tea.
This book has taken me completely by surprise.
An extremely deep, challenging and layered work of fiction with references to classic literature and puzzles that reward the reader. The world building is realistic, dense and keeps you wanting to explore it more.
In a way this is exactly what I've come to expect from a science-fiction novel, but I feel that after reading "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" it's the first time that a novel reached that level of expectation.
I have to admit that listening to the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast has helped immensely to understand all the themes and references woven throughout the three connected novellas.
It's the first work I've read by Wolfe and I can't wait to dig into more of his work.
An extremely deep, challenging and layered work of fiction with references to classic literature and puzzles that reward the reader. The world building is realistic, dense and keeps you wanting to explore it more.
In a way this is exactly what I've come to expect from a science-fiction novel, but I feel that after reading "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" it's the first time that a novel reached that level of expectation.
I have to admit that listening to the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast has helped immensely to understand all the themes and references woven throughout the three connected novellas.
It's the first work I've read by Wolfe and I can't wait to dig into more of his work.
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, Gene Wolfe's first book-length work of note, is a collection of three seemingly unrelated novellas that are, at the close of the third, shown to be cunningly interlinked. The first novella, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", was published in one of Damon Knight's Orbit anthologies in 1974, while the latter two were written and published together to expand the themes and plot of the first. The setting of it all is Sainte Anne and Saint Croix, two sister planets revolving around a common center of gravity in a far-away solar system, colonized first by Frenchmen and later occupied (in a brutal fashion, it is hinted) by later waves of English-speaking colonists. Before men arrived, legend goes, Sainte Anne was inhabited by an indigenous race of shapeshifters, which humans wiped out. Or did the aboriginals wipe out the colonists, imitating them so faithfully that they forgot their own origins? The novellas touch upon many themes of post-colonial theory.
In the first novella, a young man grows up in a strangely sheltered environment on Saint Croix, discovering at last the secrets of his scientist father's work. Here, the aboriginal inhabitants of the sister planet are only briefly mentioned, but the plot has much more local concerns. The second novella "'A Story' by John V. Marsch" is inevitably confusing to first-time readers, and initially seems unrelated to the first. It is the story of an adolescent's initiation to manhood in a primitive society, a dreamquest that brings him across a bizarre landscape and introducing him to various tribes espousing peculiar religious beliefs. In the third novella, "V.R.T." a bureaucrat on Saint Croix goes over the diaries of an imprisoned anthropologist. Again, it seems a complete change of direction with little to link it to the first two, but by the end a story arc spanning the three novellas is revealed. THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS is an excellent example of Wolfe's love for mysteries, some revealed so casually the reader might easily miss it, and others so deeply buried that it may take several tries for the author to find the key. This all gives the book excellent re-read value. And here one can see the genesis of the techniques that Wolfe used in later works, such as his masterpiece The Book of the New Sun.
The narrative here is so ingeniously constructed that I would recommend THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS to any lover of literature, even those that are usually wary of anything called science-fiction. Wolfe's novel PEACE, published a year later, continues this strong writing and is also highly recommend, and its plot might be attractive to a more general audience.
In the first novella, a young man grows up in a strangely sheltered environment on Saint Croix, discovering at last the secrets of his scientist father's work. Here, the aboriginal inhabitants of the sister planet are only briefly mentioned, but the plot has much more local concerns. The second novella "'A Story' by John V. Marsch" is inevitably confusing to first-time readers, and initially seems unrelated to the first. It is the story of an adolescent's initiation to manhood in a primitive society, a dreamquest that brings him across a bizarre landscape and introducing him to various tribes espousing peculiar religious beliefs. In the third novella, "V.R.T." a bureaucrat on Saint Croix goes over the diaries of an imprisoned anthropologist. Again, it seems a complete change of direction with little to link it to the first two, but by the end a story arc spanning the three novellas is revealed. THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS is an excellent example of Wolfe's love for mysteries, some revealed so casually the reader might easily miss it, and others so deeply buried that it may take several tries for the author to find the key. This all gives the book excellent re-read value. And here one can see the genesis of the techniques that Wolfe used in later works, such as his masterpiece The Book of the New Sun.
The narrative here is so ingeniously constructed that I would recommend THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS to any lover of literature, even those that are usually wary of anything called science-fiction. Wolfe's novel PEACE, published a year later, continues this strong writing and is also highly recommend, and its plot might be attractive to a more general audience.