One does not read Wolfe, one only re-reads him.

This might be of interest: there's a Polish sf writer named Jacek Dukaj; almost completely unknown in the West (although like most people these days he's got a Netflix series based on his work, 'Into the Night'), here in Poland he's basically considered the biggest deal since Lem (hallowed be his name, thou shalt have no books before 'Solaris'). Dukaj's also a massive Wolfe fan, and here are some of his comments (translation by me, sadly; also spoilers): 'Wolfe is a seasoned pathologist. That's his first obsession you'll notice: death, decay, degeneration. The Sun is dying, the Universe is dying. The main hero and narrator, Severian, is a torturer. When he becomes the Autarch, he shall possess the memories and personalities of dead hundreds; he shall assimilate death. The fatal growth of his internal entropy (increasing schizophrenia) is symmetrical to the growth of surrounding entropy: Urth (Wolfe's version of Earth endlessly remote in time), immersed in various visions, is undergoing a process of total anarchization - turning into a sort of Universe's junkyard.' 'It's nothing like a cliché fantasy work where the cowherd becomes the king because that is his destiny - here it's the other way around: Severian becomes the ruler by accident, and all his earlier adventures are a direct effect of this later accident, because Wolfe's time can flow both ways.' (originally published in ‘Nowa Fantastyka’ magazine)

The Soldier series set in ancient Greece also uses a similar frame narrative (method writing in you're terminology) where he is "translating" a found text.

Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist series has the same method of "narrator as character" but for a fundamentally different reason.

I read Shadow of the Torturer some years back, and couldn’t understand why it was so highly regarded. With the concluding sentence, I accepted the invitation to tap out unreservedly. But this month I watched Media Death Cult’s summary with Alzabo Soup sitting in, and I decided to go back in and start over. This video of yours is even more illuminating and instructive than MDC’s. Thank you for it.

Just saw you declare this as your best book of 2023 and yeah, you are just an absolute G for that move! Wishing you all the best in 2024 😊

I really appreciated this review. Great job!

Thank you SO MUCH for doing this readalong. Between listening to your discussions and the Alzabo Soup podcast, this was easily one of the best reading experiences of my life. I don’t know that I liked the books but I am positive I loved thinking about and processing everything. Like you, I very much look forward to a reread.

I’ve been looking for a good way to “sell” this series to some of my friends and this is by far one of the best overviews to actually do it. Great stuff.

Great video BOTNS is my favorite book in my mid year book tag, so happy you made a well thought out, complete guide to get more ppl to read this book.

It’s always good to hear new perspectives. I said just other day that if this series was all I could ever read again, I probably be alright with that. It’s one to read over and over. 👍❤️

Been wanting to read this for a while. Thanks for making this video

The beautiful thing about these books is that the first 14 chapters are so incredibly strong, I think they are really hard not to LOVE. Personally, I fell in love with the rest of the books too, but these are definitely under the slow burn/ hard to read category. Get your mind blown by Gene Wolfe new readers

Great breakdown on what makes The Book of the New Sun unique.

i've been wanting to reread these books and when I do I'm going to keep your theory in mind; it's a really interesting take and makes sense (though as you specified, mostly in 1-4 and not in Urth).

Thank you for covering this series. It's refreshing to hear a new perspective on it, and though I don't agree with everything you said, I really respect your opinions and talent.

Bought it when it came out and I still re-read the series every few years as well as the Short and Long Sun series. Nice to see it still getting coverage.

Loved this series. Definitely a flavor I've never experienced before.

This was fantastic. I love BotNS, but you did an excellent job of describing why it isn't for everyone. Bravo!

Love this video. Wolfe definitely was a genius, and The New Sun was his best. I discovered it when I was searching for a novel that had a similar feel to the Dark Souls video games, and I got everything I wanted and a lot more.

thx for this insight on "should you read urth"... I'm thinking I will read it, but not after my first read of botns... maybe after the second, probably after the third

Nice to see a fair review of the work and also that you don't fall into the trap of assuming Severian's positions are shared by Wolfe. Thank you for that.

I'm just now starting book 4 and I would definitely also describe the series as "A heck of a thing 🙃"

I'm not watching this as I'm incredibly spoiler-phobic but I've bought the first book because of your previous video on it

The Shelved By Genre podcast got me into (and out of) the Book of the New Sun, really good context and and analysis!

This has become my favorite series of all time. I had no idea what i was getting into and it blew my mind. I always say, to new readers asking about the book, if you want a book that gives you that "David Lynch" type feeling. Its great!

re: urth: i would have said that the questions posed in urth, were present in botns. wolfe just shines the light on some things we may’ve not considered previously, even as he presents answers to some of the mysteries in the botns.

I loved reading these books and learning about the process of Gene Wolfe and his story technique of translating from another author. Still, I remember Michael Crichton's book "Eaters of the Dead" having the same narration... of found texts proving that the tale of Beowulf was accurate?

Excellent review thanks, I've been wanting to get started on some of Wolf's books. Philosophy is not outside of religion, a common misconception is that religion and faith have no part with reason but that's confusing faith with fideism.

"Unreliable narrator" is a phrase that gets bandied about with the same abandon that "inconceivable" is in a certain narrative, and like the latter word, doesn't seem to mean what the user thinks it means. Severian isn't dishonest or crazy; he simply lacks the facts to "reliably" report certain actions or details with context. For instance, when he sees an image of an armored man on a desert with a strangely stiff flag, to the read this is obviously some moon-landing; yet Severian doesn't know that, and doesn't know how better to describe it. In this, he is unreliable. Or certain things are so obvious that he fails to mention them, as in the mountains he is passing through in the latter middle books are carved with the faces of past Autarchs, Typhon being the one who originally seemed to have started this tradition; yet this is only a passing detail that I missed until my second read through of the series, because it's so obvious to Severian that the mountains have faces that he needn't have described it in the first place. Or Severian didn't understand in the moment as it happened what was going on, as in the "Antechamber" of the House Absolute, a girl asks Severian where the woman who was with him went---but there was no woman, Severian was there alone. Severian records this instance, yet is unable to explain what it means, but an alert reader knows that it was Thecla who was standing there in the body of Severian, in one of those moments when the identity of Severian and Thecla have blurred, and it isn't clear which is looking out from his eyes. Or the lacunae in the narrative, as in whatever happened outside the Piteous Gates between the first and second books. These things are all "unreliable" in the way that historical texts are often unreliable. In a way, I see this as Gene Wolfe asking the reader to reflect on the text as if it were real and somewhat true, in a way that fiction often fails to do (epistolary novels are another example of fiction which does this, a la Stoker's Dracula). That is, it's unreliable in the way that real things are unreliable, after we've accepted to play the game with Wolfe and accept his phantasies "for the sake of argument".

8:15 One thing I speculate is that Candide serves as the scaffolding for Severian's journey, essentially the journey of the Fool from the tarot.

Pringles 😄

such a unique book and author, highly recommend

damn. it hurts to hear about Wolfe's life in the past tense.

This is definitely on my tbr. Probably for fall.

I needed a break from my book so I turned on YT. Found this, watched it and had a cuppa. I might skip the end bits... Welp, back to The Citadel of the Autarch.

I'm probably a bit of a Severian apologist, BUT I've always felt that considering his world and specifically his background... he really should have been an even worse person than he actually is, possibly way worse. Chandler wrote about the protagonist in his novels being "the best man in his world" and Severian is at least somewhat less awful than the world that surrounds him. Which I guess says more about Urth's impressive levels of rot.

Please read Long and Short Sun. Long really colors a major-minor character from botns and short is probably Wolfes finest work. Great video regardless!

In my review, I said it was “like an ogre eating an onion” lol lots of layers. Great video!

Thanks for this frank analysis! I’m still in psycho-emotional therapy following completion of the 10-volume Malazan Book of the Fallen, and my primary caregiver, Dr. Punkin has advised that Gene Wolfe’s opus is a good thing to steer clear of until I have fully recovered 😼🤯

This is actually a really good review.

Having not read the book, the spoilers section made no sense. But I loved it anyway! (I'd never heard of this book, and I can't entirely decide whether it sounds like it's for me...)

This reminds me of how LOTR, the Hobbit and the Silmarillion are supposed to be translated from the Red Book of Westmarch

is UotNS narrated by Severian? great video btw, I'm happy to find another woman talking about this amazing piece of literature

If you don’t believe The Claw is real how do you explain the Avern not killing Severian? I’m just curious. I’ve pondered this myself and have a hard time reconciling it.

I still haven't read Citadel of the Autarch because these books are so intense.

Very cool video. I like your interpretation of the first four books…i may have considered that myself…but Urth ruins that and to me undermines a lot of other aspects of my ways of taking the original four volumes.

The Sun and Earth of the New Sun are my favorite books. I have read/reread them at least 6 times and on every read I’ve made new, significant, discoveries. These books are on par with the very best that is available in English literature, however these are not for everyone. Suggesting these books is to someone is like trying to suggest the Brothers Karamazov, not the type of books that will appeal to most people.

I highly recommend reading Short Sun. It’s Wolfe at his best, but of course you have to get through Long Sun, which is necessary to read but not as engaging

I'm very curious about this series. a pity that there are no editions in Brazilian Portuguese

You NEED to read the Book of the Long Sun.

@LienesLibrary You must read 'Peace' by Gene Wolfe. You will be able to see your 'spoiler theory' come to full bloom.

I just finished the first book, I loved the mood it sets on the first half but I think it looses some of that appeal once he gets to the Garden. It's like a book where "stuff happens" and it just ends anticlimactically. I will only read the second book because of your review, it convinced me that I didn't read it "wrong"

Him being a catholic shows in the character's names, most of them are very obscure saints names, a kind of private joke that only catholics notice.

Now ain't this sichiation a hella head-scratcher, eh? This book, it's like wrasslin' with a highfalutin talker, partic'larly when ol' Severian starts spoutin' off about love or the fairer sex, or when he's defendin' the existence of his grisly torturer's guild (a stance he reneges on later, showin' a mite of growth). The man's mad as a hatter, no doubt, and he don't shy away from admittin' it. But he's the genuine Autarch too, his ol' noggin a-spinnin' with the consciousness of the Old Autarch, who's a whole damn Legion (whose history would make this missive longer'n a prospector's tale of a lost gold vein). This somewhat shatters the lad, but grants him legitimacy at the same time (and shakes him throughout time, 'cause time's a bizarre thing in these books. Think eternalism ain't nothin' but a concept? Think again, pardner!). Our Severian, he can open the old doors, he performs this Assimilation ceremony (a grand event usually observed on a galactic scale, but now only doable on Urth by an Autarch with the necessary gizmos). Even Father Inire starts pitchin' in, evidenced by his missive alerting Severian 'bout the war sichiation with the Ascians. All this hullabaloo is written down by Severian a decade into his rule, just as he's preppin' to head off for the Yesod test. The feller's still cracked, mind you, not too dissimilar to Hethor, albeit Hethor might be worse, havin' perhaps coarsely absorbed the consciousness of his fleet (like the yarn he spins about bein' both the Cook and a Captain bold). The symbolism is like pannin' for gold and findin' a big ol' nugget. A Messiah figure who's also Legion, like that demon from the Good Book, or an Urth-saver who ends up floodin' it, or a torturer turned savior, it's all hella interesting. Wolfe done took the Eucharist and turned it into actual corpse munchin', but didn't strip it of its spiritual weight. He stirred in a mess o' Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and other faiths, showin' how things have meshed together over thousands o' years. It's a faith-laden tale without bein' preachy. Severian's a conundrum, like tryin' to figure out what's at the bottom of a deep mine. He can be as harsh and cruel as a mountain winter (there's whispers that he did to little Severian what he done to Jolenta), but he can also be as kind as a soft summer rain. Leaves ya flippin' back and forth, unsure of what to make of him. I reckon even Dorcas might have been low-key scared of him. He's a hard man to stan, bruh, but as a character, he's as rich and intriguing as a vein of pure gold. This book done ruined first-person narratives for me, 'cause none of 'em do all the oddball stuff with narration this one does. And don't get me started on the worldbuildin', it's as wild as a gold rush but only hinted at in passing. All this to say, I LOVE this book, and I'm pleased as punch you led this discussion. I'll share it with anyone interested, no cap.

yes you should read it.

Thank you, what is exile level or grade level of this novel? I think it must be 12 but i couldn't find any source that accept it

This feels like the perfect story for fans of games involving Tetsuya Nomura, Yoko Taro, and Hideo Kojima

This sounds fun. May have to see if my library has it.

The saga is amazing.

It's if Shakespeare wrote the Dune series. It's as good and as bad as that sounds. If you're this deep, read it.

SPOILERS: The healing doesn't come from the Claw. The healing is inherent to Severian, as he is the New Sun (meaning he has the power of the White Fountain). We can confirm this by his resurrection of Triskele in chapter 3 of Shadow. He didn't have the Claw then, and Severian in the narrative also doesn't understand himself that Triskele was dead and that he brought him back, so he's not interpreting anything. He's completely missing it actually. And also Severian in the narrative is the one that argues against the supposed magical powers of the Claw. He can't heal Jonas or Jolenta because they have been heavily augmented by machines/science. Jonas was originally a robot/android that grafted human flesh on himself in order to survive after his space ship crashed (which is also why the electric whips in the Antechamber he gets struck with damage him so much). That's also why he is so attracted to Jolenta. Doctor Talos uses mechanical augmentation to artificially enhance her looks.

Have you read 3 body problem?

The Claw Of The Conciliator is just a rock, or thorn. It has no power. like you mention but unknowingly to Severian the power comes from him. As noted when he revives both Triskele and Dorcus before he has the jewel.

Severian, the narrator and main character, is an orphan who has been raised by a guild of torturers. As described in the original title in the first book! "Shadow of the Torturer". Expect his behavior to reflect this, he doesn't "get over" this in the first chapters. Also, I often hear readers say that Severian doesn't outright lie, but omits truths that make him look bad. There is one big lie that he tells over and over, though. It's his insistence that he remembers everything perfectly. He says this so his audience won't contradict his version of events. Which Wolfe very much wants the reader to do!

There’s a bit of a clockwork orange vibe to severians narration. I think what he says happened actually happened but it’s oddly glossed over and obfuscated by the language he uses that you can easily miss stuff or have things come across much milder than it actually was.

While I don't buy into your explanation of BoTNS (that Sev. is crazy or at least mentally unwell), it did make me wonder if your theory would be justified if Philip K. Dick had written BoTNS!! That is, a psychologically damaged or at least ambivalent protag., where it's not clear if he's seeing things as they are or not (think VALIS). I did agree with your "onions" take on it though!

I can't say i agree with your reading of the stories, honestly i find myself on the exact opposite end of the spectrum in trusting Severian's words a lot. At least, when it comes to the literal events. On almost everything emotional or moral i dont. All the magic and such i trust is real, but i believe he is certainly lying by omission a lot and also generally an unempathetic maniac, especially with women. On that subject, I'm curious about something. What are your thoughts on Thecla and Severian's relationship? I trust him on the literal events, but believe he's missing a lot, be it willfull ignorance coping or not. Sev is a kid at that point, just a teenager, and presumably Thecla is older. He falls for her really as any kid might when faced with a regal and beautiful woman, and my reading is that Thecla keeps him around as an object of comfort. Immoral though it is, he is all she can grasp while in this dungeon faced with the threat that every day could be her last. In their relationship, who wields more power? The young jailer in the midst of his puppydog love, or the prisoner using him for her desperate comfort?

Book of the Long Sun is IMO better than New Sun and my personal favorite of Wolfe's work. You might dig it.

Please give Sun Eater by Christopher Ruocchio a chance. A hundred times better that Book of the New Sun but very similar vibes.

Question: Is Severain's badness and his poor understanding of women in a way that makes sense as a product of his upbringing/culture, or is he a particularly bad person considering his surroundings?

your copout section makes it sound like a Don Quixote story - Don Quixote has a magic helmet that is in reality a spittoon, he has aggrandized himself as a knight and escaped his caregivers (as a feeble old man), most women he meets he treats them as though he were a chivalric knight, at the end of book 1 he ends up back in the care of the original people looking after him, also the entire book was not written by Cervantes but a translation from an Arab scholar. Sancho Panza is the character who has the lowest social status in the book, circa Imperial Spain, but he is Quixote's foil and seen as voice of rationality

This is an excellent overview of the book. Thank you for this! And thank you for stressing the difference between narrator Severian and Wolfe. SPOILERS. This book felt like having an argument with a person especially when Severian goes on his tangents about love or women or when he makes an argument for the torturer's guild's existence (which he disbands later upon reflection and growth). And yes Severian is insane and he's aware of it. He even tells us. But he is also the Autarch truly. He takes on the consciousness of the Old Autarch, who is Legion (a process whose history will make this comment too long to describe), which sort of cracks him but legitimizes him all the same (and cracks him throughout time because time is weird in these books. Eternalism as a concept is real in here). He is able to access the old doors, performs the ceremony of Assimilation (a ceremony usually done on a galactic scale but now could only be done on Urth by the Autarch who has the tech to do it), etc. Father Inire starts working with him which we see from his letter telling him about the situation of the war with the Ascians. And the whole narrative is penned by Severian ten years into his reign when he's about to set off for the test on Yesod. Still, he's a little cracked, like Hethor except Hethor is worse because Hethor possibly did a crude absorption of the consciousness of his fleet (see "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell" which Hethor references when talking about himself: "I am the Cook and a Captain bold"). I love all the symbolism like a messiah figure who is also Legion like the demon in the Bible, or a savior of Urth who also floods it, or even a torturer as the savior. I love how Wolfe took the Eucharist and turned it into literal corpse eating but still did not undercut the spiritual significance of it. Or how he mixes in Gnosticism and Kaballah and other belief systems to show how things have meshed together over the millennia. I love how this book is religious without proselytizing. I love a character like Severian that makes you unsure of what he's about. He can be horrible and cruel (there are hints that he did things to little Severian like he did Jolenta) but he can also be kind. So you are left flipping back and forth on things. I think even Dorcas might have been terrified of him. He is very hard to like, I have mixed feelings on him as a person but as a character he is so rich and interesting. And this book ruined first person stories for me because so much of them don't do all the weird stuff with narration that this book does. Then there is the worldbuilding which is insane but only hinted at in passing. All this to say, I LOVE this book, and I am so glad that you did this discussion. I will share it with whoever is interested in the book.

Not me starting and finishing this book right before this video dropped and now I’m like what the fuck 😂

Reading 'The Urth Of The New Sun' I got the impression that Wolfe was reluctantly writing it. Whether this was frustration at having to do so, or concern that it would undermine the experience of reading the first four books, I do not know.

With respect to the gender discourse, I find it interesting and subtle how his "female side" comes out more and more in the second two books. The line for his character between regular misogyny and, uh, "internalized misogyny" is very blurry.

Severian was cool. Not meant for women.

Spoiler: Jonas is not unaffected by Severian's attempts to heal him. Jonas is ruined by them. Jonas says exactly why in the story. He's not human. He is a star sailor, and probably a sentient machine. He said he was very badly hurt and that they repaired him with what was available: the implication eventually becomes clear that he was repaired with cadaver parts. When Severian "healed" Jonas, his intent was not to heal the robot. He reanimated the tissue that Jonas had been repaired with, and it revolted against how it found itself. It was simply missing any organic tissue that would have allowed it to say anything. It's actually one of the more terrifying parts of the tale for me.

Severian is not a good person - but he's nowhere near as bad as could be given his background. But I'd remind myself that Severian's telling his story from his own perspective and he's not above leaving out stuff or even being aware he's doing so.

I gotta say personally I’m not such a fan of the “severian is schizophrenic” theory. I think that he could be unreliable for portions of the story, BUT and this is a big BUT, I feel like a lot of his interactions with women are mostly true to “reality”. The reason being is I feel the author is saying something about youthful love/lust through these characters and each one represents a type of lover/victim/muse (however you want to categorize them) in his life. Each one brings out a different side of him and represents something different. We have the first honeymoon lover gone too soon, a toxic relationship that never ends, and this weird relationship where he likes her but can’t stop thinking about thelca and that and other things leads him to this r@pe scenario with jolenta. And here’s the thing; this shit is hard to process and feels REALLY WEIRD through our modern lenses. I’m not just gonna use a time period defense here, because what he did was meant to be seen as bad in my head. My point here is we shouldn’t just write all this off as “well he’s a bad person and we shouldn’t trust anything he says so we can feel good about reading this” I think gene Wolfe was trying to say something about masculinity and the hero trope and what happens when an abused child is sent out into the world with the ultimate trauma (thelca) already inflicted. What do women mean to him? How do different women affect him? Is his love for any of them genuine? Does it matter? Is he becoming a better person because of these women? Is he worse off? These are the type of questions I’m asking.

I never got the impression that Gene was a "devout" Catholic. He definitely believed in God, but he said that he converted to Catholicism to make it easier for his wife's family to accept their marriage. That detachment shows in his symbology. He doesn't promote Catholicism, but he objectively adapts it, including it's gnostic offshoots. He also puts a TON of Kabbalah into the books as well, along with various non Abrahamic motifs.

Yes. I’m a criminal.

Oh, Lord, just shut up and read the book, it’s a fantasy.

the sun 😎

Publisher: "Gene, you need to write another book that explains everything." Gene Wolfe: "Ok." Writes the weirdest, most confusing drug trip of a story since Endgame.

u should read cause its weird.... like legit, "a weird book"

My theory is this was all a joke brought to us by 'Old Sticks.' But for real, thus sounds like something else I need to eventually read.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the style. I much prefer Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books.

GBYe

"Urth?" 😂

I do believe these books changed me as a reader. It just makes you think, it's unrelenting and I just imagine Gene Wolfe cackling every time he finished a chapter. Also, I think a feminist reading of BotNS would be very interesting, the torturers make an interesting analogy for patriarchal structures

I'll just wait for the movie.

DONT READ IT!!! ive been loat since i finaihed this master piece!!!

I completely disagree with your outro spoiler conclusions.

Wolfe wrote multiple works in what you call a "method writing" style, which is actually called a found document or 'epistolary'

I think there is a good deal that supports your theory of Severian being mentally unbalanced. He even says at one point that he thinks he could be insane. However, I don't think this entirely works. The whole issue is complicated by our only having his point of view to go by. Dorkas' young age would be unaccountable for if Severian did not unknowingly resurrect her (if we can believe anything about her). I don't believe the Torturers' Guild would humour Severian for a moment. He was a low ranking member even before his expulsion. These are just two examples of inconsistencies. I don't think Wolfe intended us to be able to come to any clear interpretation. We have to keep trying to work out the possibilities. It is obvious that there is more to the circumstances of his expulsion from the guild than Severian states. Both the specific 'crimes' he committed against the guild's laws and also why he is treated so leniently as a consequence. So we just go back and forth trying to interpret what may really be the 'truth' behind his account.

Your final interpretation is very close to the one I made when I first finished the books: that basically Severian is not only *not* the exalted figure he portrays himself as, but is in fact really a kind of pathetic and unremarkable figure "in reality." His grandiose narrative about himself is actually the primary piece of evidence that he *is* a pathetic figure. (Think of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. He tells himself that he's some kind of righteous avenging angel, but he's really a frightened, confused, and finally, delusional man.)

Not big on your theory, but for what it's worth it's impossible to falsify due to that very method writing thing. Since Severian is explicitly the only point of view of the whole story, it really is his word against yours and he can't exactly conclusively prove that he can be trusted to any particular degree. He is the only source, it's literally "trust me bro". Great review though! I think you laid it out really well. And your distaste for certain Severian's behaviors is of course very understandable.

Woman moment