Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cheezvshcrvst
The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Three Novellas by Gene Wolfe
5.0
Amazing. Intricate. A wonderful piece of science fiction genius. Three novellas that parallel and intertwine. One of Gene Wolfe's finest works.
**2023 reread thoughts: I continue to read this at face value and miss the subtext. In that sense, the novel still works fantastically. I don’t have anything contradictory to say on how difficult it is to appreciate the intratextual without putting a significant amount of research into everything while remaining focused on the stories. I still maintain, much as I did when I first read this 16 years ago, and the subsequent rereads til now, that the prose is gorgeous and that Wolfe crafted something incomparably wonderful with these three intertwined novellas. Dizzying but not baffling, evocative and revolutionary without rhetoric or incitement, intelligent without pedantry, cynicism, or garishness, The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a masterwork of subtlety and labyrinthine structure that defines Wolfe’s oeuvre as not simply obsessive of but explicitly interested in the violences of identity, colonialism, patriarchy, and perspective. He could have never written New Sun and have gifted the literary world so much with this novel as to define him as a master. It is incredible that this is where he started (commentary on Operation Ares notwithstanding.)
It’s not gatekeeping to say that an honest opinion of this book recommends it highly except to anyone who does not enjoy reading. Fifth Head of Cerberus rewards the reader that does not want to leave the pages within the bounds of the covers. Reader beware, then: you will reread this for the rest of your life or never again.
**2023 reread thoughts: I continue to read this at face value and miss the subtext. In that sense, the novel still works fantastically. I don’t have anything contradictory to say on how difficult it is to appreciate the intratextual without putting a significant amount of research into everything while remaining focused on the stories. I still maintain, much as I did when I first read this 16 years ago, and the subsequent rereads til now, that the prose is gorgeous and that Wolfe crafted something incomparably wonderful with these three intertwined novellas. Dizzying but not baffling, evocative and revolutionary without rhetoric or incitement, intelligent without pedantry, cynicism, or garishness, The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a masterwork of subtlety and labyrinthine structure that defines Wolfe’s oeuvre as not simply obsessive of but explicitly interested in the violences of identity, colonialism, patriarchy, and perspective. He could have never written New Sun and have gifted the literary world so much with this novel as to define him as a master. It is incredible that this is where he started (commentary on Operation Ares notwithstanding.)
It’s not gatekeeping to say that an honest opinion of this book recommends it highly except to anyone who does not enjoy reading. Fifth Head of Cerberus rewards the reader that does not want to leave the pages within the bounds of the covers. Reader beware, then: you will reread this for the rest of your life or never again.