Shadow & Claw

The Book of the New Sun is a tetralogy of books written by its fictional narrator, Severian, detailing his forced journey into the world outside the halls of the Torturer's Guild where he grew up. Through him, we are introduced to a faded, anachronistic world under the thin light of a pale, dying sun. He has triumphs, adventures, and sorrows, and his strange encounters bring him into a unique understanding of the New Sun, a sort of religious concept and prophecy of his world. The series is full of both references to mythology and western antiquities as well as alien-sounding wonders. It's also a book that seems to move under your hands while you read it, such that passages you reread may not feel the same. It's a spectacular read, wildly imaginative, and written in a way that conjures the readers' full force of imagination. Not gonna lie, this is an instant new favorite of mine.

It's hard to talk about the plot without taking away from the experience of reading the book, as the limited-keyhole-view of the narrative is part of that experience. Severian travels to a distant city to become the chief torturer there, armed with little more than the signature dark cloak of his guild and a masterwork executioner's sword with the evocative name Terminus Est. On the way he makes the acquaintance of various unlikely companions; not because they are oddly paired, but because his acquaintances are increasingly unlikely people. Later in the series we are introduced to inter-or-multi dimensional beasts, angelic entities, riddles within reflections, mysterious and potentially miraculous forces of healing, a entire mountain sculpted to look like a man, old witches, devastating energy lances, fishermen-warriors armed with flint spears, an entire people who speak only in quotes, and the question of what, exactly, is actually so special about the gemstone known as the Claw of the Conciliator.

The series consists of four books: 1. The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) 2. The Claw of the Conciliator (1981) 3. The Sword of the Lictor (1982) 4. The Citadel of the Autarch (1983) There is a fifth book, The Urth of the New Sun (1987), written as an afterward years after the last book, which I haven't read, so I won't be including that in this review.

The language of the book is sometimes difficult but well-considered. The words Severian uses often feels archaic, or rooted in social norms of European and middle eastern antiquities. This isn't incidental, as one of the afterwards clarifies it's used to evoke the reader's associations of what is ancient with Severian's own associations, though those ancient things continue to exist in his own time. I find the language also has the effect of reinforcing the strange, alien feeling of this world, as well as makes effective use of Severian as a narrator of very limited scope. Everything he writes reflects his paradoxical breadth of knowledge and the limitations of his point of view, having been raised within the cloistered walls of his guild.

The world Severian inhabits is one of high technology fallen into disrepair and ruin. Many elements of the world have long histories, of both higher and lower technological application than they may serve in Severian's own time, and one of the ways the book changes as it is read lies in how details become revealed that change the implications of previous passages. Additionally, there are creatures and materials that do not originate on this world at all, entirely alien to its long histories, and it's not always clear which of these camps anything, or anyone, might belong. The book is delightfully wrapped in mysteries and ambiguities, which I found engaging as I would unconsciously fill in blanks with my own associations.

There are a lot of references in this book, many of which I suspect went over my own head. There is a lot of Latin, which gets used for most official government positions or military purposes, but there is also a lot of Greek as well as Judeo-Christian mythology and European folklore. Due to the ambiguities of the narrative it's not always clear if the things being described are like those mythological entities or situations or if he actually considers them to be the same thing. Or maybe they resurfaced through time and space. Or maybe those things were alien all along. Or maybe it's something even stranger of which only a small piece is actually perceived. It's really hard to tell. There are likely a few ways in which these books can be read, but nothing feels accidentally placed or mentioned off-hand without some purpose (by the time you get to the end, that is).

This isn't a casual read - I did a fair bit of google-searching unfamiliar words but I found it vastly rewarding. Through Severian, Gene Wolfe contemplates faith, obedience, authority, individualism, cruelty, miracles, illusions, and compassion across extreme paradigm shifts of consciousness, time, space, and dimension. And it's a great story.

I'd heard a great deal about the Book of the New Sun before finally deciding to pick it up. I knew the general outline of the premise, and I was familiar with much of the praise directed at the series, so I know that in theory one reading is not enough to fully appreciate what's going on. I also have the distinct impression that I will need to read Sword & Citadel before really having a complete picture of the thing.

That said - Gene Wolfe does some amazing worldbuilding in this. The descriptive writing, the approach to unfamiliar terminology and concepts, the setting itself, all of them are engrossing and engaging, and frankly they were the highlight of this book during my first read. Some of his narrative techniques are also quite effective - the way he uses callbacks and foreshadowing, the elisions and the retreading of familiar events, the narrator's position in space and time, and so on. The structure of the story is quite interesting in and of itself.

The plot of the story itself meanders in fits and starts, though - the protagonist Severian almost seems to bumble into plot points, and a great many things are driven by the force of sheer coincidence, or so it at least appears. The first volume here, Shadow of the Torturer, barely feels like a complete story (and even the whole of Sword & Citadel mostly feels like an opening act or two), so this is something you'll need to be in for the long haul.

Severian himself, our protagonist and narrator, is unpleasant in several ways, and I'm having a hard time deciding whether this is to the detriment of the reading experience or not. I certainly don't mind unlikable protagonists, but there's something about Severian's sometimes casual cruelty, his impromptu ramblings about the nature of love and lust and women, and his unstable yet apparently very strong political allegiances that are disagreeable in a way that is off-putting to the narrative itself.

And speaking of women, don't come here looking for balanced or mutually satisfying relationships. Seemingly every woman Severian sleeps with is in a position of powerlessness when he does so, women who try to fight for themselves generally end up being punished by the plot, and there's a sense that the narrator, at least, sees women as properly inhabiting a narrower field of opportunity (whether the story ultimately supports the narrator's views on this is less clear). It was jarring to read, though since this was written over thirty years ago I did go into this assuming there would be at least some gender baggage like this.

Overall, despite its irritations, there's a core of something really enthralling in this first half of the Book of the New Sun, and the world and atmosphere it explores. I can see why it's inspired so much love, and I'm certainly interested in reading the rest of the series, though I'll be steeling myself against the ways in which it's painfully out of date.