Wizard!

I finished the second, and final, book in Gene Wolfe's Wizard Knight series a few days ago. Oddly enough, the first book was called The Knight and the second was called The Wizard.

I find that I had not yet mentioned the first book here on the blog yet even though I thought I had. So! Thoughts on both, two-for-one.

Other than thinking that the latter volume ended up being a bit rushed, particularly at the end, I enjoyed both books quite a lot. I read a little bit about why Wolfe wrote these books before I read them, so I had something of an understanding coming in what they would be like. He was disappointed about the lack of modern heroic fantasy. That is to say, where the protagonist is actually heroic rather than a dirty grey, conflicted character who doesn't see the world in terms of right and wrong. So he set out to write a story of a knight who was a heroic knight as of old.

He doesn't create a flawless archetype who ends up being boring, but a character that is a throwback to the stories of Lancelot and Arthur. He has flaws and problems, but he isn't so foolish as to fall into the trap where one equivocates about good and evil. To give it an added twist, the character narrates his own tale in the form of a letter written to his brother. Without spoiling things too much, I think it's safe to say that the other thing that makes the main character interesting is that it's an adolescent boy that is caught up by magic into another world. Hints are given throughout that could indicate that the world may only be in his mind, but there is a lot for the reader to interpret.

This is definitely not a book for little kids, however, and I don't just mean because it's long and has no pictures. The book deals very forthrightly with the sins and temptations that exist in the world and because it borrows heavily from the legends of Arthur as well as Norse myths, some of the content is certainly for adults. I do not want to leave the impression that the book is lascivious or lewd; Wolfe is a staunch, and from all reports, orthodox Catholic. But he doesn't shy away from dealing honestly with where the story leads and keeping his characters true to the way they have been presented.

Overall, like everything else I've read by him, if the story seems at all appealing, I'd recommend it highly because he's a master of his craft.