This was fun! I love the intro with the quote and early movie footage. I'm looking forward to the day when I've read them all and nobody has to worry about spoilers!
I came across The Claw Of The Conciliator in a second hand bookshop during the 80s and very soon realised I NEEDED to find not just the first volume, but everything else he had written. Since then Wolfe has often left me awe struck, occasionally infuriated me and only rarely disappointed me. The Book Of The New Sun has revealed itself however, to be my Book of Gold. Shadowy figures have appeared, and since then I have belonged only to the librarians.
👏👏. Fantastic. I love that scene. I considered quoting it but it works best in it’s chapter. A great example of Wolfe saying something to us, the characters saying something to each other, and subtext between two characters. This a book of Gold for me too. For Wolfe but also for other weird and challenging books and writers as well. Though Wolfe has always remained my favorite. Thanks for stopping in.
@@literallybooks I have so few friends who have read or can be persuaded to read Wolfe that content like this is pretty valuable to me. Your work is appreciated. Thanks for replying.
I’ve had a similar experience trying to get people into this book and Wolfe’s writing. Its always a pleasure to find someone else. And thank you. I can never tell how this sort of thing will go off so its great to hear you found value in it. There’s much more Wolfe to talk about and discover. I hope you’ll find more reasons to return. 🙂
Excellent review and discussion. As a writer of an unreliable and manipulated narrator, Severian was always my gold standard, even though I trusted him implicitly the first two times I read the books! Great insight into LOTR with the sense of the amount of work the writer put in to the book being both a driver for re-reading, and a reward for those re-reads, as they remain satisfying. I enjoyed your take on Shadow, and it made me want to read it again, it has been a long time for me, so I am excited to see how the book shifts according to my own changed perspective, how the symbols that meant one thing to me at 14, at 23, and at 30 now appear to me in my 50s.
Thank you. It looks like we have a very similar reread schedule. I’m really enjoying this go round and taking notes. I can’t recommend that enough. Chris (Liminal Spaces) and I just spent 4 or 5 hours on Sunday talking about book 2. It was a blast.
This was a great follow-up after I just finished the book, thank you for covering it! I'm glad you mentioned that not using the appendix is a perfectly valid way to approach it, because that's exactly what I did. I sort of ended up creating my own reality and definitions as I went along from what I could gather.
Its so great to hear you tried a self-generated mythology type of approach. There aren’t many chances in literature to be so involved in the process. (Its also good to hear someone besides me did this 😆)
It isn't easy accepting that someone wrote something so perfect. My favorite books. Even the stories from the Brown Book aren't just good, they're hands down some of the best parts in the series.
Totally agree. The story of the two angels in Shadow does so much work. Breaks up the action, a peak at the world’s theology, highlights Severian’s introspective personality, a has a dry as the Sahara punchline, so dry I wondered if I was supposed to laugh. And they’re things unto themselves also. They could be lifted, I believe in most cases, completely from the book and still work. Thanks for dropping in! 😁
There are two more stories from the Brown Book that don't appear in any of the five volumes of the Book of the New Sun, but are published in one of Gene Wolfe's anthologies of short stories.Their titles are "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun" and "Empires of Foliage and Flower"...
Very very nice, really nice how you broke it down. :) I read two years ago. Then I listen to the audio book just a few mounts ago. Now I understand why people say Gene Wolfe’s books start at the reread 🤯🙌🤯
The final line of the first chapter is him stating that he ascended to the throne. It isn't him literally stating he becomes the Autarch, but it implies that he becomes a king of some sort.
Good catch. Its been 12 years since my last read of the series and first time taking notes while I read. I’m discovering all sorts of things I forgot or missed. Thanks!
I think I'm going to have to read them all again. I started reading the Long Sun series when I finished New Sun recently but felt "Wolfed" out. Need to come back to the originals in a few months I think. Heartening to hear it's not just me missing around 80% of what it's about lol
Missing 80%, or feeling like you did, is definitely how Wolfe wanted you to feel. 😄 I have a deep affection for the long sun series, though it isn’t the same kind of book. The short sun, which I need to reread, is a real mind bender.
Random thought: Have you noticed that "Death, Death has come" is the same line that Agia says at the Sanguinary Field? No idea what to make of the fact that Dr. Talos repeats it, but there you are.
call it serendipity, but i watched your video yesterday and at night i was reading borges when i came across this passage: "Bioy Casares came over for dinner tonight and we spent long hours discussing the execution of a first person novel in which the narrator would omit or alter the facts while contradicting himself at several points, all in such a way as to allow a few readers, very few readers, to discern some atrocious or banal truth."
Was Wolfe trying to write a book comparing "magical realism" to fantasy and science fiction? Is this even a fantasy or sci-fi book? Is Wolfe disguising his exploration of literature, of literary experimentation, as a genre?
@mikescott4195 At this moment I’ve come to think that Wolfe was experimenting with revisionism. As in historical revisionism. The New Testament has 4 different interpretations of Jesus’ life according to his apostles. Those versions are supposedly contemporaneous with Jesus’ life. I think Wolfe was experimenting with other forms of revisionism. In Book of the New Sun he experiments not with different points of view of a singular character, Severian, but with a single character with different memories, experiences, and points of view. In the 5th head of Cerberus he takes liberties with the identities of the colonizers and the indigenous population, as well as with the clones and their progenitors. To what end? I don’t have a clue. Was he against historical revisionism, including “presentism”, or was he saying it was valid, or was he saying it was a natural process of evolution or change, or it didn’t really matter any which way?
This series is the closest thing in book ficiton that has come close to the Fromsoftware storytelling. Mythological, paradoxical, uses Deep time to layer the world and its eras, complete in its incompleteness, you do not read this series, it reads you.
Both leave it to you to decide and decipher the meaning of things. With so much deciphering an uncertainty creeps in as to whether you have strayed too far from the path or have struck on something.
It took me way too long to remember this phrase. 😆 Yes. In the 4th book. I actually typed that section out in a text to my wife before we were married. Didn’t win me any points but I just had to share it.
She did. And I remember that comparison and I know that I've read someone saying "...he's our home-grown Borges," too. But I just looked and did not find the quote I know I've seen a few times. I can only guess that it was inside some book and not on the back cover or that I'm confusing Le Guin with someone else. The internet was not super helpful on this.
I was toying with the idea that New Sun is a bit like a metroidvania. Symphony of the Night would have been a better choice but I had just watched RagnarRox’s video on Simon’s Quest and how it had many of the elements of a metroidvania. It was stuck in my head and worked, for me at least, on a level. It didn’t hurt that Simon’s being transported by Death here and that Severian, often identified as death is our guide through his world. Its loose but worked for me. Also I like how Simon’s Quest looks in the screenshot. 🤷🏻♂️
It's one of my most favorite books ever. While I don't really agree with the message of it. Or at least what I took from it. It seems humanity is irredeemable and has to be destroyed so something better can replace it. Which is part of his whole catholic thing I guess. I also thought the ending chapters are kinda weak (the part where he becomes one with all religions or something, after all the cool reveals. It's been a while). I also really, really can't stand the green men. Who I imagine will replace humans (I haven't read book of the new urth). The idea of a green species of humanoids who live of photosynthesis just kinda irks me, so does their appearance with the leave skirt etc. That said, I don't mind this as much, as it's always kinda amusing when it happens/is revealed in books. But why do so many great books involve incst lol. Agia and her brother, Severian and his grandmother etc. Oh, and lastly, this did kinda annoy me. A lot of the weird or questionable stuff has a reason or is explainable. E.g. Severian's "walk" with Jolenta, the scene paints it as if Severian assaults Jolenta. He also uncharastically gets furious when Jolenta starts talking about how even women can't resist her. It's only much later that you find out that Severian believes she's been sleeping with Dorcas and of course that her beauty is an inhuman, unnatural, drug like illusion created by Dr Talos and his alien technology. And Jolenta, who never was a women that got much attention, abuses her power at every chance. When Severian returns to them she's literally using Dorcas as her servant. And when you know the full story it's clear that it's Jolenta that is seducing and basically SA'ing Severian with her inhuman beauty, forcing him to give in to her (despite how he insists he's not going too) etc. Pretending to pass out. Needling him about having banged Dorcas. But the one thing I can never explain or justify away are the Authochtons. They're a short, brown, bow legged people that are constantly described in rather ugly ways. And as someone that has been called an allochtoon (non native in Dutch) my entire life I'm very aware that autochton means native. I've seen some poeple claim they are aliens. But I don't remember any hints towards that claim. Why would they be called autochtons in that case. Severian also sleeps with one. And whenever they're described it seemed like regular people. Only most of them are ugly and deformed
@@3choblast3r4 This is such a great (and spoiler laden, as my response will be, 😆) comment and I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring it because I take forever to respond sometimes. I agree with so much of what you say and part of the rediscovery I’m having on this reread has been remembering that Severian is possibly a psychopath (I’m not throwing that word out carelessly). He’s quick to sacrifice someone, he extols the virtues of the torturers, can be seen to be predatory in sexual encounters, admits to not examining the effects of his actions on others, doesn’t think or understand others lack of memory (which makes him disassociated), the longer I think the more I find. But like Vance’s Cugal who is also horrible, but more obviously, the story makes you come to like Severian. He’s so intelligent and reasonable that you agree with him. Then he’ll do or say something that shocks you or makes you uncomfortable and you don’t know how to feel. You want to like him, love the story, but he might be terrible and you wonder if he’s playing the same “trick” on you. In Shadow for example when visiting the prostitute he talks like he’s so deep in delusion that he could snap at any minute, then chillingly says no one will hear you if you scream. You can tell the girl is terrified and she puts all her energy into appeasing him. Then they talk and he calms down. Of course I’m not saying he definitely is a psychopath and being just less than halfway through Claw I’d want to have a full reread to work with. Even if I’m wrong that scene and others are decisions Wolfe made. Severian could be likened to Paul in Dune. A character the narrative builds you up to like but implies that there could be some serious problems with. Not to mention Severian has complete control of the narrative. Definitely go read Urth. Its been a decade but I remember it and it’s ending were wonderful. You will not regret it. Severian fascinates me but I save all my character love for Silk and Able 😁 As for the natives. Yeah. That sucks. I don’t have the details in my memory but I feel the attention your unique circumstance brings to it means you looked carefully and are probably correct in judgement. I don’t know that I could throw that on Severian. Is Wolfe playing on pulp tropes? A very weak maybe. It just seems like a really poor decision. There’s scattered bits of sexist comments in a few of Wolfe’s books I’m sorry to say. These are usually passed off as observations or bits of wisdom. I’d have to go look it up but in Borrowed Man someone says “Women always lie because they’re good at it” (heavy paraphrase). I think the Authochtons may be another example. I hope this isn’t too rambling. I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for more clues as to what is happening with Severian. Maybe the genesis of a whole video could spring from this comment. Though I better have my facts in order to defend a negative statement about Severian or I’ll find myself on the Revolutionary. 😆😅 Thank you for the comment. Its always a pleasure to discuss this book with another reader.
@@literallybooks Nor problem at all mate, take your time! I'm glad you enjoyed my comment, as I've really enjoyed your content (and subbed) I certainly agree Severian has some psychopathic tendencies. I don't think he's a psychopath, the actual condition that you're born with. Certainly not a sociopath since he does shows some empathy from time to time. He cares about certain people etc. But he also doesn't really know how to deal with regular people, especially not women. Since he had very, very little contact with women growing up outside of being their captor. jailor and torturer. It's not rambling at all mate, you should see my entire esssay lenght comments hahaha. I've got a terrible headache, otherwise I'd probably write a much, much lenghtier reply.
@@3choblast3r4Tendencies is a very good word. I should have added something like mental conditions aren’t a light switch but a rheostat. He can be very compassionate, his caring for Jonas in Claw as example. I wonder how much is Thecla? Well he isn’t as polarized as my comment suggests since I should have labeled it as musings. Anyhow great comment, hope to talk again. 😁
The real question is not if you "understand" this book, its if Gene Wolfe understands this book. I think Wolfe has gotten away with something unforgivable. I think he has inserted a "cuckoo" into sci-fi and fantasy literature. His books aren't sci-fi and fantasy. However many sci-fi and fantasy "allusions" has fooled many sf&f fans. This book has no sf&f tropes. It is as if you were reading a physics textbook and you found yourself trying to understand a particularly confusing paragraph. Only later to realize that the publisher of the textbook had made a mistake and inserted passages from an electrical engineering textbook into the section on the electromotive force. Same subject different discipline. I suspect many sf&f fans think that there's a really good sf&f story in Wolfe's cuckoo. Unfortunately their failure to find said sf&f story, and their hopeful references to things they think are "true", only feeds the malignant cuckoo in their nest. We should admire authors who demand we think. "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville does hold secrets that should be admired. Secrets about the difference between morality and legality. About the human condition. While i hear about references to Borges and Greek myth from readers of Wolfe, i dont hear references to conflicts between good and evil, conflicts between science and religion, between politics and the human condition. For "our Melville" as Le Guin asserts, i find very little discussion about how our vain obsessions destroy us; but i do find otherwise intelligent people obsessing about finding the most obscure reference, and acting as if it doesn't add to the obtuseness of understanding Wolfe's BotNS! The fact that certain passages are clarified in your mind, doesn't clarify the whole thing, does it? Much less clarify it in someone else's mind.
Sorry for the delayed response. I appreciate the criticism you bring here and in other videos to this series. I don’t find myself convinced by your conclusions anymore than you will be by mine. I’ll repeat what I said elsewhere that its been more than a decade since my last reading so specifics of the second half are vague. However, I think If I am most critical of BotNS I would say it is a well written slice of life story. Its moment to sentences develop Severian’s character in a way I find interesting and compelling. There may be no message in Severian’s story itself. Just a series of well written vignettes. Some sci-fi ideas but no sci-fi plot. Perhaps a fantasy plot. The puzzle or game I mention can add to that depth but doesn’t seem absolutely necessary to a reader. It makes the journey “fun” but not everyone will find value in that. This is my least forgiving take. A sort of devil’s advocate. I don’t find much critique harsher than this when I search, though I’m sure it must exist. I truly doubt everyone, or even most, enjoys BotNS. I do feel his peers would have said something and not been so quiet if they had felt it was a hoax. And if it is then it is a singularly well written hoax. So well done that it should be noted for its execution. But Wolfe went on to write so much more. I’ve read a good selection of it, as have others, and I would be surprised if evidence of this wouldn’t have surfaced elsewhere. I think its very hard to pretend to be something one is not for very long. He has 40+ years of continued work to examine. Both that and what I can judge of his character doesn’t seem to align with a concerted effort to deceive or present a false depth. I’ll have to look with a slightly more critical eye at the next two books and make a more concrete judgement of the series then. I really do appreciate your comment. I reminds me to be wary of putting something on a pedestal carelessly.
@@literallybooks Do you have "faith"? "Faith" in Wolfe? Faith in what exactly? Faith that Wolfe has hidden treasure, from his own literary stockpile not someone else's, in his labyrinthine text? Jesus didn't ask for this much faith. He had witnesses and disciples who testified about his "treasure from heaven". Does Wolfe have anyone who has unearthed his treasure; anyone willing to testify? Severian isn't a character, he's a pretext. He doesn't have moral, ethical, aesthetic, logical or any other justifiable reason for being. The only reason Severian exists is to what? Further a plot, center a narrative, or confuse the reader? Confuse the reader as to what? The significance of his role, the significance of others' roles? There is a discussion of Wolfe to be had, but not with those who have "faith" in Wolfe. Blind faith. "Faith without works is dead".
This was fun! I love the intro with the quote and early movie footage. I'm looking forward to the day when I've read them all and nobody has to worry about spoilers!
Thanks! We’re definitely going to need to get together and talk about this and books in general. If only because it will be a lot of fun!
I came across The Claw Of The Conciliator in a second hand bookshop during the 80s and very soon realised I NEEDED to find not just the first volume, but everything else he had written. Since then Wolfe has often left me awe struck, occasionally infuriated me and only rarely disappointed me. The Book Of The New Sun has revealed itself however, to be my Book of Gold. Shadowy figures have appeared, and since then I have belonged only to the librarians.
👏👏. Fantastic. I love that scene. I considered quoting it but it works best in it’s chapter. A great example of Wolfe saying something to us, the characters saying something to each other, and subtext between two characters.
This a book of Gold for me too. For Wolfe but also for other weird and challenging books and writers as well. Though Wolfe has always remained my favorite.
Thanks for stopping in.
@@literallybooks I have so few friends who have read or can be persuaded to read Wolfe that content like this is pretty valuable to me. Your work is appreciated. Thanks for replying.
I’ve had a similar experience trying to get people into this book and Wolfe’s writing. Its always a pleasure to find someone else.
And thank you. I can never tell how this sort of thing will go off so its great to hear you found value in it. There’s much more Wolfe to talk about and discover. I hope you’ll find more reasons to return. 🙂
The Latro series will never be finished 😢
@@benjaminjeffrey8533I know 😢
Excellent review and discussion. As a writer of an unreliable and manipulated narrator, Severian was always my gold standard, even though I trusted him implicitly the first two times I read the books! Great insight into LOTR with the sense of the amount of work the writer put in to the book being both a driver for re-reading, and a reward for those re-reads, as they remain satisfying. I enjoyed your take on Shadow, and it made me want to read it again, it has been a long time for me, so I am excited to see how the book shifts according to my own changed perspective, how the symbols that meant one thing to me at 14, at 23, and at 30 now appear to me in my 50s.
Thank you. It looks like we have a very similar reread schedule. I’m really enjoying this go round and taking notes. I can’t recommend that enough. Chris (Liminal Spaces) and I just spent 4 or 5 hours on Sunday talking about book 2. It was a blast.
This was a great follow-up after I just finished the book, thank you for covering it! I'm glad you mentioned that not using the appendix is a perfectly valid way to approach it, because that's exactly what I did. I sort of ended up creating my own reality and definitions as I went along from what I could gather.
Its so great to hear you tried a self-generated mythology type of approach. There aren’t many chances in literature to be so involved in the process. (Its also good to hear someone besides me did this 😆)
It isn't easy accepting that someone wrote something so perfect. My favorite books. Even the stories from the Brown Book aren't just good, they're hands down some of the best parts in the series.
Totally agree. The story of the two angels in Shadow does so much work. Breaks up the action, a peak at the world’s theology, highlights Severian’s introspective personality, a has a dry as the Sahara punchline, so dry I wondered if I was supposed to laugh. And they’re things unto themselves also. They could be lifted, I believe in most cases, completely from the book and still work.
Thanks for dropping in! 😁
There are two more stories from the Brown Book that don't appear in any of the five volumes of the Book of the New Sun, but are published in one of Gene Wolfe's anthologies of short stories.Their titles are "The Boy Who Hooked the Sun" and "Empires of Foliage and Flower"...
Very very nice, really nice how you broke it down. :)
I read two years ago.
Then I listen to the audio book just a few mounts ago.
Now I understand why people say Gene Wolfe’s books start at the reread 🤯🙌🤯
Very true! Thank you stopping in. 😁
The final line of the first chapter is him stating that he ascended to the throne. It isn't him literally stating he becomes the Autarch, but it implies that he becomes a king of some sort.
Good catch. Its been 12 years since my last read of the series and first time taking notes while I read. I’m discovering all sorts of things I forgot or missed. Thanks!
Technically, the line is that this is the story of how he, Severian, was backed into the throne. Not ascended.
@@Shamino1Haha, it is. Which says so much but reveals so little. Thanks!
I think I'm going to have to read them all again. I started reading the Long Sun series when I finished New Sun recently but felt "Wolfed" out. Need to come back to the originals in a few months I think. Heartening to hear it's not just me missing around 80% of what it's about lol
Did you read "Urth of the New Sun"?
Missing 80%, or feeling like you did, is definitely how Wolfe wanted you to feel. 😄
I have a deep affection for the long sun series, though it isn’t the same kind of book. The short sun, which I need to reread, is a real mind bender.
@@tasosalexiadis7748
Yes. It really is great. The ending is one of those types that makes it hard to read anything else for a day or two.
@@tasosalexiadis7748 yup read the lot
Random thought:
Have you noticed that "Death, Death has come" is the same line that Agia says at the Sanguinary Field? No idea what to make of the fact that Dr. Talos repeats it, but there you are.
Whoa!! I never would have noticed that. I have no idea what that means either. Still very cool. Thank you!
Great video!
Thanks! 😁
call it serendipity, but i watched your video yesterday and at night i was reading borges when i came across this passage:
"Bioy Casares came over for dinner tonight and we spent long hours discussing the execution of a first person novel in which the narrator would omit or alter the facts while contradicting himself at several points, all in such a way as to allow a few readers, very few readers, to discern some atrocious or banal truth."
Wow!! This is so incredibly cool. Thank you for sharing it.
Was Wolfe trying to write a book comparing "magical realism" to fantasy and science fiction? Is this even a fantasy or sci-fi book?
Is Wolfe disguising his exploration of literature, of literary experimentation, as a genre?
@@kallianpublico7517he was just a big fan of Nabokovs "Pale Fire"
@mikescott4195 At this moment I’ve come to think that Wolfe was experimenting with revisionism. As in historical revisionism. The New Testament has 4 different interpretations of Jesus’ life according to his apostles. Those versions are supposedly contemporaneous with Jesus’ life. I think Wolfe was experimenting with other forms of revisionism.
In Book of the New Sun he experiments not with different points of view of a singular character, Severian, but with a single character with different memories, experiences, and points of view. In the 5th head of Cerberus he takes liberties with the identities of the colonizers and the indigenous population, as well as with the clones and their progenitors.
To what end? I don’t have a clue. Was he against historical revisionism, including “presentism”, or was he saying it was valid, or was he saying it was a natural process of evolution or change, or it didn’t really matter any which way?
@@kallianpublico7517revisionist is a word I am using more and more when thinking about these books.
cool.
😁
This series is the closest thing in book ficiton that has come close to the Fromsoftware storytelling.
Mythological, paradoxical, uses Deep time to layer the world and its eras, complete in its incompleteness, you do not read this series, it reads you.
Both leave it to you to decide and decipher the meaning of things. With so much deciphering an uncertainty creeps in as to whether you have strayed too far from the path or have struck on something.
Darmok and Jalad play Sudoku at Tanagra.
It took me way too long to remember this phrase. 😆
Yes. In the 4th book. I actually typed that section out in a text to my wife before we were married. Didn’t win me any points but I just had to share it.
Also a great Next Gen. episode
I thought lequin called him “our Melville”?
She did. And I remember that comparison and I know that I've read someone saying "...he's our home-grown Borges," too. But I just looked and did not find the quote I know I've seen a few times. I can only guess that it was inside some book and not on the back cover or that I'm confusing Le Guin with someone else. The internet was not super helpful on this.
Why'd you use Simon's Quest in the thumbnail?
I was toying with the idea that New Sun is a bit like a metroidvania. Symphony of the Night would have been a better choice but I had just watched RagnarRox’s video on Simon’s Quest and how it had many of the elements of a metroidvania. It was stuck in my head and worked, for me at least, on a level. It didn’t hurt that Simon’s being transported by Death here and that Severian, often identified as death is our guide through his world. Its loose but worked for me. Also I like how Simon’s Quest looks in the screenshot. 🤷🏻♂️
It's a game
Yes. It kept coming up again and again in my mind as I read.
It's one of my most favorite books ever. While I don't really agree with the message of it. Or at least what I took from it. It seems humanity is irredeemable and has to be destroyed so something better can replace it. Which is part of his whole catholic thing I guess. I also thought the ending chapters are kinda weak (the part where he becomes one with all religions or something, after all the cool reveals. It's been a while). I also really, really can't stand the green men. Who I imagine will replace humans (I haven't read book of the new urth). The idea of a green species of humanoids who live of photosynthesis just kinda irks me, so does their appearance with the leave skirt etc. That said, I don't mind this as much, as it's always kinda amusing when it happens/is revealed in books. But why do so many great books involve incst lol. Agia and her brother, Severian and his grandmother etc. Oh, and lastly, this did kinda annoy me. A lot of the weird or questionable stuff has a reason or is explainable. E.g. Severian's "walk" with Jolenta, the scene paints it as if Severian assaults Jolenta. He also uncharastically gets furious when Jolenta starts talking about how even women can't resist her. It's only much later that you find out that Severian believes she's been sleeping with Dorcas and of course that her beauty is an inhuman, unnatural, drug like illusion created by Dr Talos and his alien technology. And Jolenta, who never was a women that got much attention, abuses her power at every chance. When Severian returns to them she's literally using Dorcas as her servant. And when you know the full story it's clear that it's Jolenta that is seducing and basically SA'ing Severian with her inhuman beauty, forcing him to give in to her (despite how he insists he's not going too) etc. Pretending to pass out. Needling him about having banged Dorcas. But the one thing I can never explain or justify away are the Authochtons. They're a short, brown, bow legged people that are constantly described in rather ugly ways. And as someone that has been called an allochtoon (non native in Dutch) my entire life I'm very aware that autochton means native. I've seen some poeple claim they are aliens. But I don't remember any hints towards that claim. Why would they be called autochtons in that case. Severian also sleeps with one. And whenever they're described it seemed like regular people. Only most of them are ugly and deformed
Damn, don't mind the spelling and grammar errors, I'm high af and it's 8 am
@@3choblast3r4 This is such a great (and spoiler laden, as my response will be, 😆) comment and I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring it because I take forever to respond sometimes. I agree with so much of what you say and part of the rediscovery I’m having on this reread has been remembering that Severian is possibly a psychopath (I’m not throwing that word out carelessly). He’s quick to sacrifice someone, he extols the virtues of the torturers, can be seen to be predatory in sexual encounters, admits to not examining the effects of his actions on others, doesn’t think or understand others lack of memory (which makes him disassociated), the longer I think the more I find. But like Vance’s Cugal who is also horrible, but more obviously, the story makes you come to like Severian. He’s so intelligent and reasonable that you agree with him. Then he’ll do or say something that shocks you or makes you uncomfortable and you don’t know how to feel. You want to like him, love the story, but he might be terrible and you wonder if he’s playing the same “trick” on you. In Shadow for example when visiting the prostitute he talks like he’s so deep in delusion that he could snap at any minute, then chillingly says no one will hear you if you scream. You can tell the girl is terrified and she puts all her energy into appeasing him. Then they talk and he calms down.
Of course I’m not saying he definitely is a psychopath and being just less than halfway through Claw I’d want to have a full reread to work with. Even if I’m wrong that scene and others are decisions Wolfe made. Severian could be likened to Paul in Dune. A character the narrative builds you up to like but implies that there could be some serious problems with. Not to mention Severian has complete control of the narrative.
Definitely go read Urth. Its been a decade but I remember it and it’s ending were wonderful. You will not regret it.
Severian fascinates me but I save all my character love for Silk and Able 😁
As for the natives. Yeah. That sucks. I don’t have the details in my memory but I feel the attention your unique circumstance brings to it means you looked carefully and are probably correct in judgement. I don’t know that I could throw that on Severian. Is Wolfe playing on pulp tropes? A very weak maybe. It just seems like a really poor decision. There’s scattered bits of sexist comments in a few of Wolfe’s books I’m sorry to say. These are usually passed off as observations or bits of wisdom. I’d have to go look it up but in Borrowed Man someone says “Women always lie because they’re good at it” (heavy paraphrase). I think the Authochtons may be another example.
I hope this isn’t too rambling. I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for more clues as to what is happening with Severian. Maybe the genesis of a whole video could spring from this comment. Though I better have my facts in order to defend a negative statement about Severian or I’ll find myself on the Revolutionary. 😆😅
Thank you for the comment. Its always a pleasure to discuss this book with another reader.
@@3choblast3r4 Haha. No problem at all. I’m a bit of a spelling and grammar errorist myself. 😄
@@literallybooks Nor problem at all mate, take your time! I'm glad you enjoyed my comment, as I've really enjoyed your content (and subbed)
I certainly agree Severian has some psychopathic tendencies. I don't think he's a psychopath, the actual condition that you're born with. Certainly not a sociopath since he does shows some empathy from time to time. He cares about certain people etc.
But he also doesn't really know how to deal with regular people, especially not women. Since he had very, very little contact with women growing up outside of being their captor. jailor and torturer.
It's not rambling at all mate, you should see my entire esssay lenght comments hahaha. I've got a terrible headache, otherwise I'd probably write a much, much lenghtier reply.
@@3choblast3r4Tendencies is a very good word. I should have added something like mental conditions aren’t a light switch but a rheostat. He can be very compassionate, his caring for Jonas in Claw as example. I wonder how much is Thecla? Well he isn’t as polarized as my comment suggests since I should have labeled it as musings. Anyhow great comment, hope to talk again. 😁
The real question is not if you "understand" this book, its if Gene Wolfe understands this book.
I think Wolfe has gotten away with something unforgivable. I think he has inserted a "cuckoo" into sci-fi and fantasy literature.
His books aren't sci-fi and fantasy. However many sci-fi and fantasy "allusions" has fooled many sf&f fans. This book has no sf&f tropes.
It is as if you were reading a physics textbook and you found yourself trying to understand a particularly confusing paragraph. Only later to realize that the publisher of the textbook had made a mistake and inserted passages from an electrical engineering textbook into the section on the electromotive force. Same subject different discipline.
I suspect many sf&f fans think that there's a really good sf&f story in Wolfe's cuckoo. Unfortunately their failure to find said sf&f story, and their hopeful references to things they think are "true", only feeds the malignant cuckoo in their nest.
We should admire authors who demand we think. "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville does hold secrets that should be admired. Secrets about the difference between morality and legality. About the human condition. While i hear about references to Borges and Greek myth from readers of Wolfe, i dont hear references to conflicts between good and evil, conflicts between science and religion, between politics and the human condition.
For "our Melville" as Le Guin asserts, i find very little discussion about how our vain obsessions destroy us; but i do find otherwise intelligent people obsessing about finding the most obscure reference, and acting as if it doesn't add to the obtuseness of understanding Wolfe's BotNS! The fact that certain passages are clarified in your mind, doesn't clarify the whole thing, does it? Much less clarify it in someone else's mind.
Sorry for the delayed response. I appreciate the criticism you bring here and in other videos to this series. I don’t find myself convinced by your conclusions anymore than you will be by mine. I’ll repeat what I said elsewhere that its been more than a decade since my last reading so specifics of the second half are vague.
However, I think If I am most critical of BotNS I would say it is a well written slice of life story. Its moment to sentences develop Severian’s character in a way I find interesting and compelling. There may be no message in Severian’s story itself. Just a series of well written vignettes. Some sci-fi ideas but no sci-fi plot. Perhaps a fantasy plot. The puzzle or game I mention can add to that depth but doesn’t seem absolutely necessary to a reader. It makes the journey “fun” but not everyone will find value in that. This is my least forgiving take. A sort of devil’s advocate.
I don’t find much critique harsher than this when I search, though I’m sure it must exist. I truly doubt everyone, or even most, enjoys BotNS. I do feel his peers would have said something and not been so quiet if they had felt it was a hoax.
And if it is then it is a singularly well written hoax. So well done that it should be noted for its execution. But Wolfe went on to write so much more. I’ve read a good selection of it, as have others, and I would be surprised if evidence of this wouldn’t have surfaced elsewhere. I think its very hard to pretend to be something one is not for very long. He has 40+ years of continued work to examine. Both that and what I can judge of his character doesn’t seem to align with a concerted effort to deceive or present a false depth.
I’ll have to look with a slightly more critical eye at the next two books and make a more concrete judgement of the series then. I really do appreciate your comment. I reminds me to be wary of putting something on a pedestal carelessly.
@@literallybooks Do you have "faith"? "Faith" in Wolfe? Faith in what exactly? Faith that Wolfe has hidden treasure, from his own literary stockpile not someone else's, in his labyrinthine text?
Jesus didn't ask for this much faith. He had witnesses and disciples who testified about his "treasure from heaven". Does Wolfe have anyone who has unearthed his treasure; anyone willing to testify?
Severian isn't a character, he's a pretext. He doesn't have moral, ethical, aesthetic, logical or any other justifiable reason for being. The only reason Severian exists is to what? Further a plot, center a narrative, or confuse the reader? Confuse the reader as to what? The significance of his role, the significance of others' roles?
There is a discussion of Wolfe to be had, but not with those who have "faith" in Wolfe. Blind faith. "Faith without works is dead".