From: Mark Kelly <mpk@realtimecontrol.com>
Subject: (urth) Urth mood music & reading recommendations
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 08:52:17 +0100

My last post was truncated half way through for some reason so here's =
the rest of it again...

Re: Urth Music
How about some suggestions about music to listen to while reading =
TBOTNS? I propose the music of Dead Can Dance, which is difficult to =
describe but combines orchestral, medieval and world instruments, songs =
in English and chanting in invented tongues. It is highly atmospheric =
and always evokes Urth for me, especially on albums like "Within the =
Realm of a Dying Sun", "The Serpent's Egg" and "Aion", or individual =
tracks like "Black Sun" or "Severance". I noticed that Christopher R. =
Culver <crculver@aol.com> on this list has a quote from Brendan Perry =
(half of the group) in his .sig., so I can't be the only person who =
likes both Gene Wolfe and Dead Can Dance!

Re: Reading list
To those people who suggested "The Magus" by John Fowles, and the =
"Gormenghast" trilogy by Mervyn Peake, I heartily agree. I would also =
add a book called "The Quincunx" by Charles Palliser, which is a novel =
with an extremely complex plot set in Dickensian London. The narrator is =
trying to discover who his father was and unearth his family history, =
while being manipulated by others for purposes he doesn't understand. It =
is full of plots, machinations and sudden shifts in perspective as layer =
after layer of secrets are revealed or shown to be false. It also =
requires the reader to read between the lines and infer things from =
omissions or oblique references (one whole chapter of a diary where a =
crucial event occurs is "ripped out").

cheers
Mark.



*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/