Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

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The Detective of Dreams by Gene Wolfe

This story is available to read on-line at Baen: The Detective of Dreams

This story is part of the The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction group collection discussion.

Well, at least I found the allusions in this story comprehensible, made well nigh explicit at the end. Can you write an allegory of an allegory, or does the abstraction lose meaning after so many levels of abstraction?

★★

Synopsis
A French psychic detective is hired to investigate who is behind recurring dreams unsettling various people in Bavaria/Austria. It ends in a special take on Christ's Eucharist.

Review
The story is a pastiche of a Gothic 19th century detective story - abstracting and anonymizing names and places with their initials in the style of those works, probably reminiscent of Chesterton or Poe.

It probably isn't surprising that the dreams are variations of biblical parables, e.g. the Unmerciful Servant. Wolfe seemed to have climbed emotionally very deep into this story, and delivered - maybe as a consequence - a heavy-handed Christian story with nearly no room for interpretation left. But read Marc Aramini's interesting essay for further information :)

I don't quite understand why Gene Wolfe wrote this story for the horror anthology Dark Forces, as I can't see any horror elements in it at all - especially the dreams weren't frightening for me at all.

Andreas wrote: "story with nearly no room for interpretation left...."

So your critique is that even I could understand it? :)

I agree that I didn't see the point of the story. People get disturbing dreams based on Parables. And...?

G33z3r wrote: "Andreas wrote: "story with nearly no room for interpretation left...."

So your critique is that even I could understand it? :)"

No, that wasn't my point. I don't think that the interpretations come easily; it isn't a straightforward story - for example, I don't know if everyone could relate to those biblical parables at once. Or the possession story.

But usually you can have a range of different interpretations for a story. Which is not the case for this one. This is heavy-handed, coerced.

As you see, I found the story only ok. Which differs from Wolfe's opinion - he said that it is one of his favourite stories.

Andreas wrote: "for example, I don't know if everyone could relate to those biblical parables at once...."

Well, no — I didn't suss it out until the dream on the Unmerciful Servant. That was the most direct retelling of the lot, and you get the, "haven't I heard this before" vibe. :)

Wolfe's story doesn't reveal why each of these Dreamers gets sent the dream they receive. Perhaps it was something in their current life, but the story doesn't delve into that.

BTW, I also didn't see it as horror.

Andreas wrote: "★★

The story is a pastiche of a Gothic 19th century detective story - abstracting and anonymizing names and places with their initials in the style of those works, probably reminiscent of Chesterton or Poe...."

Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries for sure. The initializing of place names reminded me of the Bronte sisters. Maybe Wilkie Collins did it. I don't remember. I wondered if Wolfe had a hidden meaning in the initials he used.

Notice that at the first interview it is mentioned that the building was once a church, now a marketplace. Then we have what was once a noble home and now a bank. My take was that the parables had been forgotten and so now seen like disquieting dreams. Agreed, no horror.