Peace - Gene Wolfe

I found Peace by Gene Wolfe to be a very beguiling read; it has the familiar trait Wolfe uses in his books, one of using multiple narrative strands being related to the reader from one viewpoint, whose purpose and method of narration is often hazy, and the story often diverges and meanders from the central plot. The single viewpoint in Peace is told from the perspective of Alden Weer, in a sort of Wild West American setting. Weer is looking back at his life, and recounting his experiences and stories that have been told to him.

I didn’t exactly get through this quickly, and yet I neither took forever, it just sort of strolled by as I read it. Wolfe endlessly wanders about in the text to tell us a new tale or a dream of a dream from the protagonist, even thought it’s rooted in a very plain and austere setting the content is often related to a Ghosts and a few wildly out of tune escapades.

It isn’t really a fantasy novel, in the sense of the setting and the content which is more of a literary ghost story at times. Weer isn’t really a reliable narrator, and his memoirs seem often bitter as its being told when he is an old man, and as a character he was well drawn, yet not likable, and he seems to have killed people. As the book is essentially his life as he wants to tell it, you’re never fully getting the whole picture and nothing is really resolved or made quite clear, is Weer an old senile man making it all up, or can he do some of the remarkable things that come to light in the relation of his life to us.

Yet it’s all this depth and richness that still makes Peace a worthy read. Wolfe has an in built obsession in all of his books (At least the ones I’ve read) to mess around and explore the devices of narration. With its compelling prose and thought provoking devices any Wolfe novel with these becomes something completely otherworldly, it's challenging and yet begs to be read again, just to see what else can be picked out again.

Peace - 8 / 10