Sunday, February 11 2007
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Book Review: Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe.
by Arthur B
Arthur asserts his position as Ferretbrain's correspondent on Gene Wolfe Affairs.
It sounds like the first line of a joke - an unlicenced private detective, a self-proclaimed witch, a past-her-prime prostitute addicted to alcohol and binge eating, and a failed toy salesman live free of rent in a condemned boarding house. Ben Free, their ancient landlord, wants them to help him stop developers from tearing his house down; they put up a valiant fight, but soon enough the house is wrecked and Free has disappeared. Before the eviction, however, Free drops hints that he once lived in a place called the High Country, and that somewhere in his house is hidden a treasure that could restore him to that lofty place. Motivated in equal parts by concern for Free and desire for his treasure, the four companions begin tracking him down...
Free Live Free occupies an odd place in Gene Wolfe's body of work. It is one of only four novels he has written set in modern-day America - the other four are the fantasies There Are Doors and Castleview and Pandora, by Holly Hollander, a straightforward detective story packed with classical allusions and an engagingly naive narrator. The bulk of Free Live Free is a detective story, but there are liberal doses of conspiracy thriller and science fiction added to the mix, as well as some ambiguously supernatural could-be-fantasy elements. The constant shell game Wolfe plays with genre in this book works to its advantage, since the reader is forced to constantly reappraise their assumptions about what the High Country might be.
Free Live Free is also notable for having four protagonists - Wolfe almost always has a single, easily-identified protagonist in his novels, and said protagonist tends to be (but isn't always) the unreliable narrator of the tale. Conversely, Free Live Free is told in the third person, and none of the four main characters quite manages to be come the central protagonist (although Candy, the alcoholic prostitute with eating disorders, doesn't get as much attention as the other free, and almost ends up a mere supporting character). This actually hurts the novel slightly - it feels unfocused at times, and writing about the activities of four individuals allows Wolfe to pad out the novel a little. On the other hand, the interactions between our heroes are great fun - scenes like their high-tension negotiations in a hotel room immediately after the eviction, and their disastrous infiltration of a mental asylum, become a joy to read thanks to the snappy dialogue between the protagonists.
The true secret of the High Country, and the treasure Ben Free had kept hidden, are ultimately disappointing. Suffice to say that it's nothing our four protagonists expected it would be; nor does it merit the long buildup it has (it doesn't even nicely fit the available evidence). It's always difficult to avoid this kind of disappointment when you reveal the solution to a mystery, although Wolfe is better at it than most writers (The Urth of the New Sun, the coda to The Book of the New Sun, is a good example of a book where he does it right). On the other hand, by the time the big secret is revealed, it almost doesn't matter: the reader (and I suspect Wolfe) is much more interested in the redemption of the hapless quartet the book revolves around. Indeed, the ending seems rushed and forced, as if Wolfe realised that he needed to wrap things up quickly if the novel wasn't to become another long series (perhaps he was impatient to finish The Urth of the New Sun).
Another thing separates Free Live Free - and most of Wolfe's modern-day and near future stories - from his stories about long-ago or far-future times and other worlds. Wolfe has strong views about politics - views which aren't easy to pigeonhole, but can occasionally grate. He is very much against government interventionism, but is equally against major corporations and unchecked free market capitalism (to an extent Free Live Free can be seen as an indictment of Reagan's America). He yearns for the days of the wild frontier and the pioneers (although he does not idealise them or pretend they didn't do the Native Americans a terrible injustice) - when he's not pining for feudalism, that is. He is anti-federalist but pro-community, and feels that the everyday folk don't stand up for themselves enough. Characters in Free Live Free often become mouthpieces for these views - much more so than in Pandora, for example - and for every three points in Wolfe's agenda that you agree with there'll probably be one you can't stand. This is what makes the tone of Free Live Free ultimately different from the modern-day fantasies of Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman: Powers and Gaiman accept the modern world, and integrate the fantastic elements of their stories into it; Wolfe violently rejects it, and fantasises mainly about escape to a better place. When he's not writing about the modern world, Wolfe addresses major philosophical, emotional and moral quandaries on a deep and profound level; when he writes about our day and age, he can't help but try and address political questions as well, and in this field he's dissatisfying.
Free Live Free is currently out of print, although you should be able to find cheap second-hand copies on E-Bay or Amazon. If you are a fan of Gene you will doubtless want to read it anyway, but if you're not familiar with either author there are better introductions to Wolfe's work out there (The Wizard Knight and The Book of the New Sun especially).
Free Live Free occupies an odd place in Gene Wolfe's body of work. It is one of only four novels he has written set in modern-day America - the other four are the fantasies There Are Doors and Castleview and Pandora, by Holly Hollander, a straightforward detective story packed with classical allusions and an engagingly naive narrator. The bulk of Free Live Free is a detective story, but there are liberal doses of conspiracy thriller and science fiction added to the mix, as well as some ambiguously supernatural could-be-fantasy elements. The constant shell game Wolfe plays with genre in this book works to its advantage, since the reader is forced to constantly reappraise their assumptions about what the High Country might be.
Free Live Free is also notable for having four protagonists - Wolfe almost always has a single, easily-identified protagonist in his novels, and said protagonist tends to be (but isn't always) the unreliable narrator of the tale. Conversely, Free Live Free is told in the third person, and none of the four main characters quite manages to be come the central protagonist (although Candy, the alcoholic prostitute with eating disorders, doesn't get as much attention as the other free, and almost ends up a mere supporting character). This actually hurts the novel slightly - it feels unfocused at times, and writing about the activities of four individuals allows Wolfe to pad out the novel a little. On the other hand, the interactions between our heroes are great fun - scenes like their high-tension negotiations in a hotel room immediately after the eviction, and their disastrous infiltration of a mental asylum, become a joy to read thanks to the snappy dialogue between the protagonists.
The true secret of the High Country, and the treasure Ben Free had kept hidden, are ultimately disappointing. Suffice to say that it's nothing our four protagonists expected it would be; nor does it merit the long buildup it has (it doesn't even nicely fit the available evidence). It's always difficult to avoid this kind of disappointment when you reveal the solution to a mystery, although Wolfe is better at it than most writers (The Urth of the New Sun, the coda to The Book of the New Sun, is a good example of a book where he does it right). On the other hand, by the time the big secret is revealed, it almost doesn't matter: the reader (and I suspect Wolfe) is much more interested in the redemption of the hapless quartet the book revolves around. Indeed, the ending seems rushed and forced, as if Wolfe realised that he needed to wrap things up quickly if the novel wasn't to become another long series (perhaps he was impatient to finish The Urth of the New Sun).
Another thing separates Free Live Free - and most of Wolfe's modern-day and near future stories - from his stories about long-ago or far-future times and other worlds. Wolfe has strong views about politics - views which aren't easy to pigeonhole, but can occasionally grate. He is very much against government interventionism, but is equally against major corporations and unchecked free market capitalism (to an extent Free Live Free can be seen as an indictment of Reagan's America). He yearns for the days of the wild frontier and the pioneers (although he does not idealise them or pretend they didn't do the Native Americans a terrible injustice) - when he's not pining for feudalism, that is. He is anti-federalist but pro-community, and feels that the everyday folk don't stand up for themselves enough. Characters in Free Live Free often become mouthpieces for these views - much more so than in Pandora, for example - and for every three points in Wolfe's agenda that you agree with there'll probably be one you can't stand. This is what makes the tone of Free Live Free ultimately different from the modern-day fantasies of Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman: Powers and Gaiman accept the modern world, and integrate the fantastic elements of their stories into it; Wolfe violently rejects it, and fantasises mainly about escape to a better place. When he's not writing about the modern world, Wolfe addresses major philosophical, emotional and moral quandaries on a deep and profound level; when he writes about our day and age, he can't help but try and address political questions as well, and in this field he's dissatisfying.
Free Live Free is currently out of print, although you should be able to find cheap second-hand copies on E-Bay or Amazon. If you are a fan of Gene you will doubtless want to read it anyway, but if you're not familiar with either author there are better introductions to Wolfe's work out there (The Wizard Knight and The Book of the New Sun especially).
