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primeidealThis is the first two books of the "Book of the New Sun" quadrology, republished as a single volume.
What I had osmosed about the series: it is highly-regarded in the subgenre of "sufficiently advanced technology," which is a subgenre I like very much; also, there are a lot of Biblical allusions that one should be on the lookout for, potentially even the protagonist being kind of a Christlike figure in some ways.
Are there Biblical allusions? Yes. On one page the narrator, Severian, has a meager meal of loaves and fishes while being told there's no room in the inn; later, someone tells him that he could "become a carpenter or a fisherman."
But it's more than that. In "Piranesi," the narrator namedrops things like types of medicines and a year-numbering system that are too weirdly specific to be "hmm some fantasy world that's similar to ours but different;" the questions aren't so much "what" and "where" as "how" and "why." Something similar is going on here; Severian alludes to a holy woman named Katherine who's associated with being tortured on a wheel and persecuted by a man named Maxentius (okay, I recognize her iconography more from "Doomsday Book" than the actual legend), people read the Biblical story about the death of Moses, like...it can't be just some random expy, it's our world's Mount Nebo. So what's going on?
Wolfe mentions in the "translator's notes" that "I might easily have saved myself a great deal of labor by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so." That is, his "neologisms," and there are many, are all based on real if archaic vocabulary. For example, Sevarian's cloak is a magical substance that's "darker than black"; Wolfe describes this as "fuligin," which was not a word I was familiar with before, but comes from the Italian word for "sooty." Maybe if I'd been reading along on an e-reader I would have been more motivated to look up some of these, but since I was reading a paper version I mostly just nodded along and got the gist of it as "general SF worldbuilding flavor." I'm willing to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt here that this part was effortful and clever.
In some ways, it's a picaresque; Severian wanders around and meets lots of strange people. In no particular order, we have giant merpeople, duels fought via poisoned plants, time-travelling photosynthesizers, grave robbers, a miraculous relic, underground ape-people, the legend of Theseus and the minotaur, an underground palace, a Borgesian realm of secret passageways and optical illusions hidden inside the underground palace. Sounds cool, right?
Unfortunately, the overall effect is less than the sum of its parts, because Severian himself doesn't seem particularly interested in any of that. Instead, his motivations involve rising through the ranks of the Torturers' Guild, and then, when he gets exiled from the guild, keeping possession of the cool sword his former teacher gave him. And, beyond that...well, his inner monologue is a lot like "Mambo No. 5." A little bit of Thecla in her cell. A little bit of Jolenta, what the hell. A little bit of Agia with her sword. A little bit of Dorcas, thank the Lord... Women are so hot in so many different ways! And as a professional executioner, Severian has plenty of "clients" to practice his "trade" on, if you know what I mean. When he comes of age, he's given the opportunity to leave the guild, but turns it down because he doesn't know what else he'd do with himself. "Not the Messiah but just a naughty boy" is kind of an understatement.
Here's the narrative lampshading Sevarian's ignorance:
There are a couple places where the book uses Latin to represent what, to the characters, is an ancient language. The caveat here is that the translations are slightly "wrong." For example, Sevarian's cool sword which he spends a lot of time chasing around is "Terminus Est," which he translates as "This Is The Line Of Division." It's more literally an allusion to "It is finished" (what Jesus says on the cross, get it????) Earlier, there's a quote about "Lux dei vitae viam monstrat," translated as "The beam of the New Sun lights the way of life." Are we saying that the New Sun is "dei," God? Is it a literal sun in the sky, like the Mother Star is in Noren's world? Is it some alien fusion technology that will replace the old sun? Who knows? Certainly not Severian, that is for darn sure.
Again, this is only half of the overall series, so it's possible things are be more cohesive in parts 3 and 4; however, the things I've osmosed since then seem to indicate that it's a lot more of the "picaresque vibing but not a lot of plot." I understand that for those who enjoy that kind of thing, putting together the background clues about what's going on even though Severian doesn't know or care might be fun (see: the pacing of "Steerswoman"). However, I'm worried it might be more like "Piranesi," which I didn't care enough about to pursue past the free sample in the Hugo packet.
Bingo: First in a series; "Claw of the Conciliator" would be an Alliterative title; lots of underground settings, including the imperial House Absolute and the cave of the ape-people; lots of weird and magical dreams; side character with a disability (the blind librarian)--there's also Jonas, who seems at first to have a prosthetic hand, but the reveal of what's going on with him is interesting and clever; hints of Eldritch Abominations (the alien monster beings living in the ocean whom the mermaids serve?); reference materials (the "translator's notes"); previous readalong.
What I had osmosed about the series: it is highly-regarded in the subgenre of "sufficiently advanced technology," which is a subgenre I like very much; also, there are a lot of Biblical allusions that one should be on the lookout for, potentially even the protagonist being kind of a Christlike figure in some ways.
Are there Biblical allusions? Yes. On one page the narrator, Severian, has a meager meal of loaves and fishes while being told there's no room in the inn; later, someone tells him that he could "become a carpenter or a fisherman."
But it's more than that. In "Piranesi," the narrator namedrops things like types of medicines and a year-numbering system that are too weirdly specific to be "hmm some fantasy world that's similar to ours but different;" the questions aren't so much "what" and "where" as "how" and "why." Something similar is going on here; Severian alludes to a holy woman named Katherine who's associated with being tortured on a wheel and persecuted by a man named Maxentius (okay, I recognize her iconography more from "Doomsday Book" than the actual legend), people read the Biblical story about the death of Moses, like...it can't be just some random expy, it's our world's Mount Nebo. So what's going on?
Wolfe mentions in the "translator's notes" that "I might easily have saved myself a great deal of labor by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so." That is, his "neologisms," and there are many, are all based on real if archaic vocabulary. For example, Sevarian's cloak is a magical substance that's "darker than black"; Wolfe describes this as "fuligin," which was not a word I was familiar with before, but comes from the Italian word for "sooty." Maybe if I'd been reading along on an e-reader I would have been more motivated to look up some of these, but since I was reading a paper version I mostly just nodded along and got the gist of it as "general SF worldbuilding flavor." I'm willing to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt here that this part was effortful and clever.
In some ways, it's a picaresque; Severian wanders around and meets lots of strange people. In no particular order, we have giant merpeople, duels fought via poisoned plants, time-travelling photosynthesizers, grave robbers, a miraculous relic, underground ape-people, the legend of Theseus and the minotaur, an underground palace, a Borgesian realm of secret passageways and optical illusions hidden inside the underground palace. Sounds cool, right?
Unfortunately, the overall effect is less than the sum of its parts, because Severian himself doesn't seem particularly interested in any of that. Instead, his motivations involve rising through the ranks of the Torturers' Guild, and then, when he gets exiled from the guild, keeping possession of the cool sword his former teacher gave him. And, beyond that...well, his inner monologue is a lot like "Mambo No. 5." A little bit of Thecla in her cell. A little bit of Jolenta, what the hell. A little bit of Agia with her sword. A little bit of Dorcas, thank the Lord... Women are so hot in so many different ways! And as a professional executioner, Severian has plenty of "clients" to practice his "trade" on, if you know what I mean. When he comes of age, he's given the opportunity to leave the guild, but turns it down because he doesn't know what else he'd do with himself. "Not the Messiah but just a naughty boy" is kind of an understatement.
Here's the narrative lampshading Sevarian's ignorance:
"Agia, have you had a child? How old are you?"
"Twenty-three. That's plenty old enough, but no, I haven't. I'll let you look at my belly if you don't believe me."
I tried to make a mental calculation and discovered I did not know enough about the maturation of women. "When did you menstruate first?"
"Thirteen. If I'd got pregnant, I would have been fourteen when the baby came. Is that what you're trying to find out?"
"Yes. And the child would be nine now. If it were bright, it might be able to write a note like that."
I want to be careful here, because identitarian metrics are not (and shouldn't be) the end-all, be-all of a story's quality. There are lots of books and stories that I genuinely enjoy that don't really pass the Bechdel test or have many well-rounded women characters. If I'm reading about Noren trying to defy the Scholars' tyranny, or Mark Watney surviving Mars, or Erasmas angsting about impostor syndrome, then even if the characters aren't demographically similar to me, I can relate to the puzzles they're trying to solve and the discoveries they're making about the world they live in--that's interesting in its own right. Conversely, if we're talking about Messiahs, the biblical Jesus' inner circle was infamously male-skewed--but he also had a mother and Auntie Elizabeth and people like Mary and Martha who he could hang out with as friends, not just objects to perform miracles on! Severian's POV exists at the intersection of "not particularly curious about anything else except weapons and ladies" and "women don't exist as freestanding people, just objects of attraction or violence," and the result is worse than either of the two alone."Twenty-three. That's plenty old enough, but no, I haven't. I'll let you look at my belly if you don't believe me."
I tried to make a mental calculation and discovered I did not know enough about the maturation of women. "When did you menstruate first?"
"Thirteen. If I'd got pregnant, I would have been fourteen when the baby came. Is that what you're trying to find out?"
"Yes. And the child would be nine now. If it were bright, it might be able to write a note like that."
There are a couple places where the book uses Latin to represent what, to the characters, is an ancient language. The caveat here is that the translations are slightly "wrong." For example, Sevarian's cool sword which he spends a lot of time chasing around is "Terminus Est," which he translates as "This Is The Line Of Division." It's more literally an allusion to "It is finished" (what Jesus says on the cross, get it????) Earlier, there's a quote about "Lux dei vitae viam monstrat," translated as "The beam of the New Sun lights the way of life." Are we saying that the New Sun is "dei," God? Is it a literal sun in the sky, like the Mother Star is in Noren's world? Is it some alien fusion technology that will replace the old sun? Who knows? Certainly not Severian, that is for darn sure.
Again, this is only half of the overall series, so it's possible things are be more cohesive in parts 3 and 4; however, the things I've osmosed since then seem to indicate that it's a lot more of the "picaresque vibing but not a lot of plot." I understand that for those who enjoy that kind of thing, putting together the background clues about what's going on even though Severian doesn't know or care might be fun (see: the pacing of "Steerswoman"). However, I'm worried it might be more like "Piranesi," which I didn't care enough about to pursue past the free sample in the Hugo packet.
Bingo: First in a series; "Claw of the Conciliator" would be an Alliterative title; lots of underground settings, including the imperial House Absolute and the cave of the ape-people; lots of weird and magical dreams; side character with a disability (the blind librarian)--there's also Jonas, who seems at first to have a prosthetic hand, but the reveal of what's going on with him is interesting and clever; hints of Eldritch Abominations (the alien monster beings living in the ocean whom the mermaids serve?); reference materials (the "translator's notes"); previous readalong.
