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The narrator Severian recalls that when he was younger, he only desired “high things” like justice and for the Torturers guild to regain the high regard it once had. He then writes, “I am wise now, if not much older, and I know it is better to have all things, high and low, than to have the high only.” What makes Gene Wolfe's epic different from everything else on the SFF shelf is his unique, evocative storytelling style. The reader isn't given all of the history and religion lessons (etc.) that are often dumped on us at the beginning of a fantasy epic. Rather, Severian's story is episodic and seems like it's meandering lazily, taking regular scenic detours, as if there's nowhere to go and plenty of time to get there. Because the story isn't a straight narrative, we don't understand the purpose or meaning of everything Severian relates ??? we have to patch it together as we go. By the end of the book, we're still clueless about most of it and we're starting to realize that Severian is kind of clueless, too. Much of the power of this novel comes from the sense that there is world-building and symbolism on a massive scale here, but that explanations and revelations for the reader would just cheapen it and remove the pleasure that comes from the experience of discovery. Here." He laid something in my palm: a small coin so smooth it seemed greased. I remained clutching it beside the violated grave and watched him stride away. The fog swallowed him long before he reached the rim, and a few moments later a silver flier as sharp as a dart screamed overhead . As the current narrator and Autarch, Severian ruminates on the purpose of the Sanguinary Fields (sanctioned dueling). “Whether it is good or evil (as I am inclined to think), it is surely ineradicable in a society such as ours, which must for its own survival hold the military virtues higher than any others, and in which so few of the armed retainers of the state can be spared to police the populace.” He compares it to the alternative (unsanctioned murder) and finds legal dueling to be the better choice. He concludes, “And yet how readily this practice lends itself to intrigue.” In terms of plot, The Shadow of the Torturer isn't a complex novel. The protagonist grows up under the protection of a strange, cloistered society, learns a few things about the outside world, betrays his guardians, and is thrown out to seek his own fortune -- familiar fantasy stuff. But what sets the book apart from standard swords-and-sorcery fare is the richness of its language and the great imagination in its details; the difference is like comparing a fine oil painting to a crude computer graphic rendering. It has subtlety that forces the reader to pay attention. Wolfe messes with time and space, contemplates philosophical ideas, writes long exchanges whose import isn't immediately clear, and relies on the audience to make sense of the strange, slightly dreamlike events that unfold in the story, rather than spelling out how they're connected.
It is my nature, my joy and my curse, to forget nothing. Every rattling chain and whistling wind, every sight, smell, and taste, remains changeless in my mind, and though I know it is not so with everyone, I cannot imagine what it can mean to be otherwise, as if one had slept when in fact an experience is merely remote. Those few steps we took upon the whited path rise before me now: It was cold and growing colder; we had no light, and fog had begun to roll in from Gyoll in earnest. A few birds had come to roost in the pines and cypresses, and flapped uneasily from tree to tree. I remember the feel of my own hands as I rubbed my arms, and the lantern bobbing among the steles some distance off, and how the fog brought out the smell of the river water in my shirt, and the pungency of the new-turned earth. I had almost died that day, choking in the netted roots; the night was to mark the beginning of my manhood. Dorcas eats some bread while she is recounting the prior evening and mentions that she thinks this is the first food she has had in a long, long time. She then says they encountered some soldiers and once she told them Severian was a torturer, they created a makeshift stretcher and transported him to the lazaret.Full Book Name: The Complete Book of the New Sun: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch, The Urth of the New Sun The plot is distinctly non-linear and postmodern in many ways and will not hold your hand or explain what is happening for better or worse. The benefits of this are that you are immediately immersed in Severian's head and his working knowledge of the world around him. Gene Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic. He was a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the field. I am so glad I have found another author that I can trust to deliver a worthwhile experience. It is really a bad deal to take a gamble on a new writer and feel you 'wasted' your credits.
As Severian attempts to cross westward on a bridge across the Gyoll, he is stopped by guards who tell him it is a crime to wear the “costume” (his fuligin, the guild cloak) he has on. Severian explains he is a carnifex and they bring him to their lochage, or commanding officer. The lochage confirms Severian’s knowledge of the Citadel and then tells him that the only way to keep the peace amongst the ever-growing population of Nessus is to extinguish all disturbances. He then tells Severan that he must wear more conventional clothing. Drotte was our captain, and Eata put an arm and a leg through the iron palings, but it was immediately clear that there was no hope of his getting his body to follow. Severian realizes that they had probably committed this type of legal murder before and they try to justify it, Agilus going so far as to say it was “fair combat” and invite him to fight tomorrow. Severian then realizes, “You knew that when evening came the warmth of my hands would stimulate the avern, and that it would strike at my face. You wore gloves and you had only to wait. In reality, didn’t even have to do that, because you had thrown the leaves often before.” They enter the Garden of Endless Sleep which consists of a dark lake in an endless fen. Agia explains that the lake water can preserve corpses so they are weighted down with lead to reside there and their locations noted so they can found later. An old man paddling a skiff approaches and disputes this – although he has a marked diagram, he cannot locate the body of his wife. He further explains that the deadly averns were planted here by Father Inire to kill the manatees which came through the conduit. Agia is not interested and proceeds forward but Severian slowly walks along the shore in time with the old man’s paddling while the two converse.They leave the café without paying and separate – Dr. Talos to “devote my time to the enhancement of this sylph” and Baldanders to return to the inn to get their theatrical props – and Dr. Talos asks Severian to meet them to perform at Ctesiphon’s Cross. Severian agrees to do so but has no intention of rejoining them. Per guild custom, a masked and cloaked Severian stands on the scaffold for a long time before Agilus is brought out. Once he is, the execution is swiftly completed. Severian hears Agia’s faraway scream at that moment. After the body is dragged away and Severian is paid a “master’s fee” for his services, he and Dorcas depart after dark per the advice of more experienced guildsmen. It is revealed that Severian was ill after the execution and he attributes that to nerves and concern that something would go wrong. The shopkeeper’s sister introduces herself as Agia and they proceed to the Botanic Gardens in a hired carriage (fiacre) to cut an avern. Agia says she will have time to teach Severian how to fight with it before his late afternoon duel in Sanguinary Fields but Severian is sure to be killed. When he does not appear overly concerned about his fate, Agia says, “You have the face of someone who stands to inherit two palitinates (territories) and an isle somewhere I never heard of, and the manners of a shoemaker, and when you say you’re not afraid to die, you think you mean it, and under that you believe you don’t. But you do, at the very bottom. It wouldn’t bother you a bit to chop off my head either, would it?” All right," Drotte said reluctantly, and we stepped through, the volunteers following. Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. I understood the principle intuitively that night as I heard the last volunteer swing the gate closed behind us.
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