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A review by kylepinion
The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas by Gene Wolfe
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
An extremely difficult book to describe, but I'm going to try anyway. This is classically the first book most people recommend when they find out you want to start reading Gene Wolfe, and I totally get it. It feels like a bit of an overture for some of the narrative tools and tricks he utilizes in his big masterpiece The Book of the New Sun.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a trio of linked novellas, which in broad description don't sound linked whatsoever (the story of a young boy finding out a terrible secret about his scientist father, a fictional story about an young Aboriginal man going on a spiritual journey, and a detective pouring through evidence of a crime), but of course they're intrinsically telling the larger story of a pair of twinned planets that were colonized originally by French-speaking settlers.
For fear of ruining its twists and turns for anyone who might want to read it, I'll avoid going into detail. But I'll just say, the first story gripped me from the beginning and is surely the standout of the three (and it makes sense that Wolfe put this particular one in his Best Of collection). It paints a glorious picture of the decadent French city in which they live and the brothel that makes up their home. It also holds a twist that gets weirder and all the more tragic as it goes.
The second story was more of a struggle, in that it's told in a very oral storyteller type fashion in the sense that its ostensibly a work of fiction from the neighboring world but also written by a minor character from the first story. Not hard to read necessarily, but a bit more opaque and difficult to grasp what exactly is happening.
But it all pays off by the time you read the third story, which uncovers more details about that minor character and is told in a semi-epistolary style as the detective pours through handwritten letters. It contains a multitude of "a-ha!" moments that the attentive reader will uncover. It closes out this trio of stories beautifully and at provides better strength and rationale for the second tale, in which I thought sort of drug things down a bit (and cost it a star in my rating).
Yet, I still can't say I firmly grasped what the connection was between the title novella and the two other works that followed...that is...until I read some analysis that made perfect sense, particularly symbolically, and I couldn't believe I didn't see it before. Pardon me, but I'm off to read more about this fascinating little book.
Wait, one other thought...it feels a bit like this is the work David Mitchell was somewhat aping with Cloud Atlas, but this is a much more successful attempt at crafting a thought-provoking piece of art through the use of various narrative techniques. Possibly a reach, but I can't quite shake the thought.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a trio of linked novellas, which in broad description don't sound linked whatsoever (the story of a young boy finding out a terrible secret about his scientist father, a fictional story about an young Aboriginal man going on a spiritual journey, and a detective pouring through evidence of a crime), but of course they're intrinsically telling the larger story of a pair of twinned planets that were colonized originally by French-speaking settlers.
For fear of ruining its twists and turns for anyone who might want to read it, I'll avoid going into detail. But I'll just say, the first story gripped me from the beginning and is surely the standout of the three (and it makes sense that Wolfe put this particular one in his Best Of collection). It paints a glorious picture of the decadent French city in which they live and the brothel that makes up their home. It also holds a twist that gets weirder and all the more tragic as it goes.
The second story was more of a struggle, in that it's told in a very oral storyteller type fashion in the sense that its ostensibly a work of fiction from the neighboring world but also written by a minor character from the first story. Not hard to read necessarily, but a bit more opaque and difficult to grasp what exactly is happening.
But it all pays off by the time you read the third story, which uncovers more details about that minor character and is told in a semi-epistolary style as the detective pours through handwritten letters. It contains a multitude of "a-ha!" moments that the attentive reader will uncover. It closes out this trio of stories beautifully and at provides better strength and rationale for the second tale, in which I thought sort of drug things down a bit (and cost it a star in my rating).
Yet, I still can't say I firmly grasped what the connection was between the title novella and the two other works that followed...that is...until I read some analysis that made perfect sense, particularly symbolically, and I couldn't believe I didn't see it before. Pardon me, but I'm off to read more about this fascinating little book.
Wait, one other thought...it feels a bit like this is the work David Mitchell was somewhat aping with Cloud Atlas, but this is a much more successful attempt at crafting a thought-provoking piece of art through the use of various narrative techniques. Possibly a reach, but I can't quite shake the thought.