INTRODUCTION

by Yves Meynard


Of all the books Gene Wolfe wrote, this one is the most special to me. See, my name is on the dedication page of the work’s first half, The Knight, and even after fifteen years, I’m still stunned by that. Not just because I’m flattered, but also because something much bigger reaches through this mention, and changes me, makes me part of something greater than myself—much like Able, the protagonist of this book, finds himself changed.

We live surrounded by art of all forms, and that art often hides the artists behind it. It seems to me that this is especially true of literature; books are in a way more real than their authors, objects of a different order of being. So as a child, reading already being my favorite thing in the world, writers felt to me like spirits, or godlings: infinitely removed, possessed of strange powers of creation that led, somehow, to the existence of books.

So what happens when you grow up and a god asks to have lunch with you?

* * *

My earliest meeting with Gene Wolfe was in 1981, when at 17, I read The Shadow of the Torturer. I had encountered him before, briefly, through a story in an anthology, but his name had not then registered, though I recalled the story well enough. The first volume of Severian’s story was an extraordinary experience and from then on I sought Wolfe’s work with delight and wonder. But still the man himself was a remote entity. I saw him in the flesh a few times at conventions, from afar.

The first time we spoke, however briefly, was in 1994, at the World Science Fiction Convention in Winnipeg. Tor had just published an anthology of Canadian SF, Northern Stars, which included a story of mine. At an event where Wolfe was signing, my friend John told me that he’d spotted books on sale that had suffered a serious error in binding: they had the dust jacket and cover of Northern Stars, but they contained the pages of Wolfe’s latest, Caldé of the Long Sun. I made a beeline for the Tor sales table and bought the defective book at a fifty-percent discount because of the flaw, when I would gladly have paid twice the normal amount. Here was the perfect conversation opener, an excuse to go up to Gene Wolfe, whom I had not yet dared approach. Book in hand, I went to Wolfe’s table, showed him the object, and explained. He signed it For Yves, whose place I have taken.

In 1999, Tor published my first novel in English, The Book of Knights. Wolfe’s editor, David Hartwell, who had coedited Northern Stars, was still interested in Canadian authors. I had sent him my manuscript and he had accepted it. At the Readercon convention in 2000, David matter-of-factly informed me that Gene Wolfe had read my book and wanted to meet me; the last thing I was expecting to hear. Fighting for wit in the face of astonishment, I stammered something like, “Which body part do you want me to give up in exchange?”

David took us to lunch: Gene, his wife, Rosemary, and myself. I remember we had burgers. Gene chose a bison burger, with a sincere and unaffected joy which impressed itself on my memory. My god was human, and possessed of a sweetness that I would also notice the few other times our paths crossed. He ordered dragon’s eggs as well, hot peppers stuffed with cream cheese. I think I remember trying one at his urging. (And in fact I can claim anything I want about that time. There is no one to contradict me, since of the four people at that meal, only I am left alive. My eyes are moist as I write this: remember that our gods, no less than our friends, are so, so mortal.)

We talked during the meal, and here I was somewhat frustrated. As much as I was fascinated by his work and wanted to ask Gene incisive questions about his process, I could not. Both because I was still intimidated and because Gene Wolfe was not someone who’d open up much about his writing.

Still, I was profoundly happy that Gene had read and liked my book, and I could not really ask for more. Which is why the dedication of The Knight was still unexpected, and transformative. Not just Gene Wolfe, but his book itself, that emanation of the writer which takes on a life of its own, acknowledged my book. That dedication is something that proved to me that I belonged.

Time passed after that. I would come across Gene now and again at a convention, and might come round to say hello. In later years, once or twice I saw him alone, stooped now, frail, and did not dare bother him. I had gone back to worshipping from afar. We had never become close, though some of my writer friends were a lot closer to him than myself, and in a way that was enough. I kept my copies of The Knight and The Wizard which he had inscribed, “For Yves, from his friend the author.” And whenever I came across The Knight in a store or, once or twice, at a library sale, I would crack it open to the dedication page and smile.

When I heard Gene had died early this year, I went to my shelves, took down a collection of his, opened it, and just read at random. In his stories he still lives, in these strange and marvelous tales, which both amaze and terrify. The god Wolfe endures, though my friend the author is gone.

* * *

Gene Wolfe is a dangerous writer. His stories have sharp edges and will cut if carelessly handled—often, in fact, that is the intent behind them. As a reader, he expects you to do your work. He will not belabor a point, he will not explain an element at length where one casual mention on page 230 will suffice. Not only this, but his narrators are rarely reliable. They never have a full perspective on things, their memory may be damaged, and sometimes they will lie. That is not a popular approach for books, and if you are used to the transparent narratives so much of fantasy and science fiction favors, you may find yourself crying, “This isn’t fair!” Well, no, it isn’t. But then, neither is life, and I think this is an important point for Wolfe. Life comes at you all the time: just open your eyes and ears, and it pours in. But what is its true shape, what does it mean? That is a harder question to answer. A Wolfe story is often full of revelations: seeing them as such, and catching their deeper truth, is the hard part.

The Wizard Knight feels almost like a constant revelation. A boy from America enters a new world, in fact a new cosmos, seven-layered, more than vast enough to encompass the universe he knew. Able’s horizons keep expanding as he discovers more and more about the world he finds himself in—and yet there is still so much that remains to be understood. Here is one of Wolfe’s more straightforward and accessible works and still it holds mysteries and unanswered questions. Able does tell the truth in it, I think, yet he does not tell all that happens. Parts of his memory have been erased. And some things he has been forbidden to say.

You already knew from the title that this was going to be a fantasy book. Now when I say “fantasy” you imagine dragons, unicorns and elves, magic and battles, and you’re correct; but none of it is going to be the way you expect. The Wizard Knight takes from the Norse myths, Christian mythology, and the tales of King Arthur, then shapes something very unusual from these elements. We’ve all read fantasy books where the heroes stroll through an arbitrary landscape, slaughtering enemies as they go, until they accumulate enough plot coupons to finish the story. Here the feeling is never one of comfort. The world young Able finds himself in is not safe, it is rife with danger and treachery; and for all that Able gains extraordinary power, he never gains mastery over his circumstances. He recounts his tale with an intensity that is wholly earned and that compels his reader’s attention and wonder.

Gene Wolfe’s writing is deeply concerned with questions of identity. Able, thrust into a world where he should not belong, is given a new name by Parka, whose own name would be a blatant clue even without the thread she spins that she is Fate. Now there was someone with that name in Mythgarthr, the young brother of Bold Berthold, and there are hints throughout the book that this other Able may have switched places with him, and gone on to live a heroic life in America. At times Able is no longer sure there is a difference between his real brother, Ben, and Berthold. This blurring of identity, this disquieting uncertainty, is a key element in Wolfe’s work. And so is its converse, that moment when identity is regained, the recognition that comes as a burning shock and forces us to see the story in a new light.

In The Wizard Knight, we see many characters whose name connects them to other stories we already know. King Arnthor echoes Arthur from the Matter of Britain, as does his sister Morcaine; the giants are named after figures of myth, and their roles are often parallel. Idnn, the daughter of Baron Beel who is sent off to be married to a giant for diplomatic purposes, shares the name of the goddess of youth who in Norse mythology was abducted by the giant Thiazi—and in whose absence the gods grew old and gray. Michael, the being of Kleos whom Able encounters, bears the name of the best-known archangel, and may well be the character who most closely parallels his namesake. This is not allegory, though, and always Wolfe teases us, sometimes following the mythic model, sometimes going against it. (I will tell you here that if you want to dig deeper into the links between this book and Norse myths, the significance of names, hypotheses about Able’s parentage, and much more, you should obtain Michael Andre-Driussi’s The Wizard Knight Companion, a slim and delightful reference book.)

So, since a lot of Wolfe’s fiction asks “who is this character, really?” and often ultimately provides a very chilling answer, it kind of follows that the protagonist will be asking himself “who am I, really?” As in: what kind of person am I? Who do I want to be? And thus we come to the question of how we can be good in a terribly imperfect world.

This question recurs in Wolfe’s work and it is foregrounded in this book. Able of the High Heart is not some cardboard cut-out with a morality shaped by the roll of alignment dice; he is a complex, imperfect yet exceptional person, a child in the body of a man, quite literally so. He is at times surprisingly violent; but then, he encounters many people who try to betray and kill him. From my comfy perspective this can seem excessive, mere artifice to drive up the tension in the story; then I remember that the man who wrote this novel fought in the Korean War. Perhaps he had experiences that find an echo in these scenes, and similar ones in other books of his; perhaps I have it all wrong. (A biography of Wolfe might shed some light here. I don’t even ask for a good biography; I’d take what I could get. But such a book does not exist.)

I mentioned just now that Able is still a boy in a man’s body. I find, whenever I read The Wizard Knight, that I tend to forget that. Both because Able does not write like a child (although at times he falters, revealingly), and also because we grown-ups, putative adults, are all like Able, trapped in bodies we have not earned, though we desperately try to deny it. When I peer inside myself, for all that I am over fifty, that I am married, employed, that I have a daughter—I see the boy within me, holding my reins, clinging on for dear life and sometimes wailing in terror. Thus do Able’s interlocutors, when he tells them he is a child in an adult’s body, say it is the same for them. Able is upset because it is literally true for him and they won’t understand that, but he isn’t wise enough to see that in the end there is no difference.

It is magic, naturally, that transforms Able’s body into that of a man. It does not, and could not, transform his soul. Yet that does change; through his experiences, of course, but also in another way. We have seen this theme in other Wolfe books (I’m thinking especially of Patera Silk and Hyacinth in The Book of the Short Sun) but here it is stated more plainly than in all his other works: Love redeems us. Love transforms, improves, both Able and Disiri, the one he loves. And not that abstracted, sublimated, intellectual brand of love; no, earthly and earthy love is shown in Wolfe’s work to have transformative powers. Able’s overwhelming, obsessive passion for Disiri is not a bad thing, not an addiction, or a curse: it is redemptive. This may feel exaggerated, unrealistic, artificial; yet it is a reflection of the power of God’s love for us and our love for God.

Because we do have to talk about God here. Wolfe was a devout Catholic (though certainly not your garden-variety Catholic) and this is an important key to his work. Those of his exegetes who ponder Catholic lore (I am not one of them) have gained insights into various aspects of his stories. Some of his fiction uses very specifically Christian motifs (see “The Detective of Dreams” or “La Befana,” and of course so much of the elements of Severian’s and Patera Silk’s lives).

Not that this means one has to be a Catholic or a Christian—or even believe in God—to appreciate Wolfe. (I am tempted to say if you don’t worship good prose, though, you’re very much missing out on what makes him one of the greatest SF writers ever.) Even if the allusions and hints go over your head, the evocative power of his writing will carry you through.

There is a lovely passage of theology early in the book, which warms even my hardened unbeliever’s heart. Able reflects upon how the Most High God who dwells in Elysion, the topmost level of the layered cosmos, would feel looking down at all that lies beneath. And while at first he thinks it would make him proud, he quickly realizes “It would make you kind instead, if there was any good in you at all.” And if he were put in a similar position of being the only adult in a world full of children, Able writes “I would just take care of the kids as well as I could, and I would hope that someday they would get older and be people I could really talk to.”

Much as Severian ponders the Increate and Patera Silk the Outsider, Able engages with the concept of the divine and our relation to it. He is no mystic—who has the time for mysticism when giants threaten the land and you have to make sure you’ll have something to eat tomorrow?—but his thoughts and deeds paint a compelling picture in bright colors on the somber canvas of his world: a life lived to the fullest, striving always for the highest of aspirations. Honor, duty, and love are the beating heart of this story of a boy who becomes a knight and so much more, in a world alive with the reverberations of ancient myth and yet wonderfully new.

This is the book I sometimes imagine Gene Wolfe wrote just for me. But the best thing is that he wrote it just for you, too.

—Ottawa, Mythgarthr, 2019


The Knight copyright © 2004 by Gene Wolfe

The Wizard copyright © 2004 by Gene Wolfe

Illustrations copyright © 2004 by Gregory Manchess

Introduction copyright © 2020 by Yves Meynard