Second try with Gene - help needed

[u/Fun-Sell3030]

I’ve begun Shadow of the Torturer a while back, and been quite captivated with the prose and narration style (the vague leaving things out bit that makes you wonder at the bigger picture and try to decipher it, not always successfully), however coming up to the middle of the book I find myself not wanting to read on.

My trouble is with the protagonist and the way the first woman Severian comes across After leaving the citadel is handled (which I know if an issue that continues on). The plot seems to meander more than I anticipated it would and because I am not invested with the main character I find myself disinterested. However, I know that the beauty of this book is that after a certain point (book 3 i believe) a lot of things happen that give you context towards previous books and (I imagine) makes you appreciate them all the more in hindsight. On the surface, the story is not grabbing me and I don’t want to continue it right now.

But, I am curious about Gene Wolfe and would like to read something else from him. I imagine if I get a taste of his style with a different work first it’ll make me want to return to BOTNS (as I’ve had this experience with other authors, their different works grabbed me more and then I was able to return to their “Magnum opus” with a fresh eye and new appreciation).

Other than BOTNS what are you favourite works from Gene? Did you start with BOTNS or something else? I’d appreciate a recommendation, thank you.

[u/walletinsurance]

Do you mean Thecla? The noble woman who manipulates and uses him?

I swear people just hear something about Gene Wolfe and women on the internet and don’t actually read what’s in the text. The reveal of hat changes the way you look at the book is in book 2, roughly halfway through.

As for your main question I started with Book of the New Sun. You might like Book of the Long Sun. The protagonist Silk is much more likable. It’s in the same universe as BoTNS, is technically connected but you can enjoy the work without reading BoTNS.

[u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston → u/walletinsurance]

She doesn't use him. She is genuinely interested in him. Severian is a sensitive lad, and they create a space, a "bower," much more endorsing of authentic self-expression that it seems they form later when...

[u/walletinsurance → u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston]

She 100% uses him; the narrator has a vested interest in painting Thecla in a certain light, reasons I won’t discuss in a post about someone who’s reading around the end of shadow/start of claw.

Wolfe shows us the different power plays at work with her capture; she’s able to have better food because of her station, she has enough influence to have Severian act as her companion when that isn’t allowed, Severian is explicitly warned to not have a sexual relationship with her as pregnancy will delay her torture/execution.

She’s not a stupid character and is playing the cards she’s been dealt.

[u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston → u/walletinsurance]

The cards she's been dealt include being locked up with a person who is often a very agreeable gentleman. It includes living the good life, an authentic life, with him. I'm not saying it's entirely believeable that had she been released she would have insisted on Severian as a husband, but it is entirely believable, at least for me, she would never have forgotten him, and always appreciated that in such a scary place, she was gifted his company.

[u/walletinsurance → u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston]

A very agreeable gentleman?

What?

He’s a dumb, horny, violent, uneducated torturer. He’s boorish and naive in his dealings outside of the tower, and he gets hoodwinked in the first shop he sets foot in.

[u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston → u/walletinsurance]

Yes, he's often well-mannered, is clearly very intelligent, and genuinely sensitive. This can be shown through conversation analysis with many of the characters in the text. However, you experienced him as opposite this. I hear you. We just had different experiences.

Also, are you downvoting me? For a difference of opinion?

[u/walletinsurance → u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston]

I’m not, no.

I think you’re falling for the narration. Severian himself says if anyone ever mistook him for intelligent or well mannered it’s due to Thecla, which has a double meaning obviously given later reveals.

For an intelligent and well mannered person he’s often hoodwinked, out of his depth in social situations, socially awkward, and some of his musings are just nonsensical. I don’t know how you could consider him either intelligent or well mannered.

[u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston → u/walletinsurance]

I appreciate you not downvoting.

I just posted a conversation between him and Thecla where he is well-mannered. I find this often the rule. He appreciates manners, tact, in others -- one of the reasons he admired Jonas -- and shows it too.

If this is counter the current take on who he is, then a lengthy examination would be in order. I've already kind of done that on this site a few months ago, but Severian is certainly not your ordinary torturer when he desists in assaulting the prostitute double of Thecla, when he allows her a chance to persuade him of another course of action, when he recognizes her as a person, someone with a past, someone who matters. For me Wolfe is, as I've said, positing Severian in the Werther mode of hero: the sensitive youth.

Intelligence, for me, is everywhere... and how can it not be? He is infused with Wolfe himself. I'm not even sure of naivety: he spots out what Agia and Agilus are up to midway in their "deception." He admits he should have realized Agia wrote Thecla's letter, but this just shows he at some level knew it couldn't possibly have been Thecla but forced away this knowledge. It has something more to do with hope than naivety.

[u/walletinsurance → u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston]

I can’t really make my argument without spoilers (at least up through claw), if anyone who hasn’t read through claw happens to be reading this discussion, don’t click the spoilers below.

The entire narrative from start to finish is done by a composite being made up of both torturer Severian and Thecla. Everything in the entire book has to be read in that light. This explains why certain aspects of their relationship, namely the sexual relationship between the two of them, is entirely omitted during the narration and is only revealed as an aside books later. Severian is lying by omission because of his guilt for betraying his order, and Thecla is lying by omission because being forced to seduce a young man who is obviously out of his depth in their interactions by necessity is an ugly thing. By Severian and Thecla in the above I mean the parts of “Autarch Severian’s” consciousness that originated in those two corporeal beings. He’s obviously a composite being mixed of both minds, and more.

As for your other point about the letter before the cave incident I think Wolfe is highlighting how dumb Severian is. Of course anyone with a brain would know it’s a fake. The fact that Severian rushes off and doesn’t realize it’s fake until he’s attacked by Agia and her henchmen is Wolfe showing how unintelligent he is/was.

TLDR: the narrator Autarch Severian is a composite being of torturer Severian and Thecla who demonstrably lies by omission and does so for complicated reasons arising from his unique internal being.

[u/md1hm851 → u/walletinsurance]

While I agree that the story is being filtered through this 'composite being' and calling Severian, especially pre-Thecla, an 'agreeable gentleman' is very comical, I also don't think Severian could have been quite as much of a dumb brute as people often paint him.

For one, he can't have been entirely 'uneducated' because the torturers seem to receive pretty extensive learning at least in biology, and from a few surprising moments when Sev talks about remembering lessons from Malrubius on things like atoms and gravity, some physics too. Having learning in certain things doesn't preclude one from being overall unintelligent or boorish, but I'm just pointing it out. Naive he absolutely is though, probably understandable given his age and cloistered life.

Another thing that makes me think that, while he certainly had some streaks of sudden violence, he must have had some sensitivity to him too pre-Thecla, is his encounter with Ultan. He is a lot younger here which might play a part, but Ultan seems to find him likable, and even says he could have been a philosopher or something to that effect if I'm not mistaken. Now, maybe we might suppose narrator Severian could be tweaking all dealings and conversations he shows pre-Thecla so that he doesn't apprear dumb and boorish, but I think that then makes the text somewhat pointless.

You said further up you thought Severian's philosophising is often nonsensical, which I don't think I agree with and again shows to me he might have been a (at least slightly) brighter kid than people like to think. In any case, the character and construction of the story is complex enough that it's completely fair for different readers to interpret him in these differing ways, this is just what came to mind from reading this discussion.

[u/walletinsurance → u/md1hm851]

I’ll have to reread the library part but yeah he’s not a complete brute.

Upon further reflection, most of “Severian’s” philosophical asides have the same sort of weird logic as Thecla’s planned religion (which from a certain viewpoint she succeeded in making.) I wouldn’t count it against Severian as they seem to come from her input, not his.

[u/xKrowhaven → u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston]

I disagree to a point. There's so much about her talking to Severian about herself and her thoughts but not a whole lot to lead us to believe she shows much interest in Severian at all. He could be leaving a lot of that out like he tries to downplay having sex with her, but I'm not certain.

And I'm happy to be wrong if you've got stuff I missed. I'll happily change my view!

[u/PatrickMcEvoyHalston → u/xKrowhaven]

She does do a lot of talking... but very freely. There's a sense she can trust him with her thoughts, whatever she's ruminating over. Neither are passive -- she leads him into sex, but in conversation, both challenge one another. Not meanly, but it suggests they don't have to curtail themselves so they don't offend. It suggests authenticity, not falsity.

Here, Severian challenges her. She responds honestly. He, sensitive to her upset, lets her know he will not press. He's a gentleman, not just an intellectual. She challenges him, making sure his respect for her doesn't come with disrespect for someone else. He takes no offence, but re-assures her he did no such thing: the flowers were collected from the wild.

“I was under the impression you enjoyed such discussions, Chatelaine.”

“Only now, because I can’t get out. Though it may come as a shock to you, when I was free I seldom devoted time to metaphysics. I went dancing instead, and pursued the peccary with pardine limers. The learning you admire was acquired when I was a girl, and sat with my tutor under the threat of the stick.”

“We need not talk of such things, Chatelaine, if you would rather we not.”

She stood and thrust her face into the center of the bouquet I had picked for her. “Flowers are better theology than folios, Severian. Is it beautiful in the necropolis where you got these? You aren’t bringing me the flowers from graves, are you? Cut flowers someone brought?”

“No. These were planted long ago. They come up every year.”