gene wolfe's book of the NEWSUN!!!!! reading club

i'll finish my re-read before they finish their spoiler-lite close reading.

did u guys know patton oswalt is a fan?
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/12/29/what-science-fiction-movie-or-novel-is-most-prescient-today/book-of-the-new-sun-by-gene-wolf

there's so much that opens up on re-reads. it's unlike anything else in that way, ime.

― ian

agree! one of a small # of books that are fairly made for re-reading.

Having recently finished my third reading of the book of the new sun, I started listening to the Alzabo Soup podcast mentioned upthread and am enjoying it a lot. There are definitely many things that are easy to miss even after multiple reads that these guys are pointing out. I liked the part about how Severian is probably hiding the coin he got from Vodalus not so much because he treasures it so much but because it links him to his murder of the person who was trying to stop Vodalus in the first chapter and he doesn't want to get found out.

On the other hand it kind of annoyed me that they keep saying that Severian is obviously lying about his perfect memory because he mentions forgetting about the coin in his pocket or other similar examples, when it seems pretty obvious that when Severian talks about perfect memory he's talking about having perfect recall, not about actually never forgetting anything.

I've been listening to Alzabo Soup as I work one of my day jobs (washing LPs & 45s or taking photos of LPs & 45s for 8 hour stretches) -- i just caught up with them last week. sometimes i think they overreach in looking for significance in things, but it's really nice when they explain where certain names come from, and where certain stories come from.

The thing with Severian's memory is tricky because it depends on how the reader chooses to interpret the book. It seems too simple to think that "Severian's a liar so we can't believe his interpretation of things exactly" -- his issue tends to be more sins of omission (Jolenta's rape, probably other things that make him look bad) he mentions a few times saying he sometimes wonders if he's going/gone insane, and he refers to "all you inside me" or something like that, before what he receives as autarch is revealed. I have no concrete answers because I keep thinking about it too hard and confusing myself. Bu the the idea of the Writer Severian relating not only episodes from his life, but also possibly making reference to things that happened not to him, but did happen to other Autarch's, or to Thecla. We know he has Thecla's memories in there -- are there other scenes in which he's disconnected from the rest of his companions that could potentially be recollections by a different person, recast by Severian as "I" for the writing?

sorry i can't think much better than this right now.

Also how many times did he die.
And what is the relationship of Inire and the Hierodules. if any ?

man I need a glossary for all the different social classes

still not done with the 4th one, been real busy

inire is a hierodule

i figured he is a non-human of some kind, but is he the same being as the hierodules that Sev meets in the castle or one of a different type? He doesn't seem to have the same relationship to time that the hierodules say they have.

same was my assumption. i thought he didn’t experience time backward because he was stuck on earth and not traveling on tzadkiel’s ship? i don’t know, wolfe half explains and half abandons that idea in book 5.

i need to re-read Urth next i guess.

i never understood the relationship of abaia and erebus to the hierodules, also the cumaean, what’s up w her

i think the hierodues are working in opposition to erebus and abaia, who are trying to enslave humanity/control urth for their own nefarious ends. no idea what's up with the cumaean. is she litereally snakelike or is that a metaphor

rip

dang, just finished the first book of the new sun ... was unfamiliar with this guy, but loving it so far.

just saw this, RIP

I literally just found a replacement copy of the 4th New Sun book yesterday, I lost my copy when I was almost done. Looking forward to diving back in.

RIP big man

Aw fuck off :(

is this where i admit i don't care for anything he wrote except "fifth head" and tBotNS?

Aw man, I just finished a third reading of New Sun. I was really spending a lot of time thinking about this book the last couple of months.

xp

book of the long sun is totally worth reading. First book is basically just a heist in a weird setting (I enjoyed it, but I guess not everyone would) but then it really opens up starting with book 2.

i started litany of the long sun but couldn't get very far into it

:(

it just felt very "normal sci fi" to me

i've only read the four orig sun books but i picked up a used urth of the new sun the other day, should get to it soon. rip. good stuff.

^^ that one's next up for me

might kill a can of pringles today in his honor

two immense Catholic pinnacles felled in one day

it was a bummer. ok, he was 87, but i still wanted to talk about it, and apparently nobody i work with has ever heard of the book of the new sun

i should sometime reread the book of the new sun, i liked it but whenever i read this thread it becomes apparent to me that i have no idea about anything that happens in that book. i thought it was, just, people dueling with leaves and maoists telling stories.

at least i finished it though!

well those things do happen

https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/25/18515675/gene-wolfe-science-fiction-author

Urth of the New Sun is kinda blowing my mind right now, I have no idea what's gonna happen next (1/3 of the way through)

did you finish it yet, sleeve?

yes! I'm still a bit confused about what exactly happened at the end, I'll probably re-read it in 6 months or so.

some of the parts in "Urth" where all the puzzle pieces of the time travel fit together were really cool, like the Witch's Tower getting damaged and the origin of the Claw (which seems to be entirely self-referential?)

yeah the claw is an ouroboros

by the end you mean the *very* last scene? yeah i was always unsure about the significance of that too, except that perhaps it closes the loop (the first novel begins in a graveyard)

well that scene yeah, with the "gods" that were the 4 survivors on the raft, but also the whole stone town thing (last few chapters? with Apu-Punchau), I think some of it will become clearer when I re-read but iirc the stone town stuff was all in book one and my memory is already hazy on that.

The last time I did a re-read a couple of months ago I tried re-reading the stone town chapters in Urth of the New Sun and Book of the New Sun back to back just to get a better idea of what exactly is happening but I'm still not sure I completely get it.

As far as I can tell the real Severian died on the ship and the hierodules come to the stone town to help save a copy of Severian (an aquastor I think?) and another dead copy of Severian is left behind for the ritual with Hildegrin who will be destroyed by coming into contact with the real Severian from the end of Claw of the Conciliator. I'm going by memory here though, it was somewhat clearer when I read it. I'm still unclear on what purpose that ritual served.

stumbled upon this, i wish i were rich

https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/the-book-of-the-new-sun.html

Just finished reading all of these and enjoyed the short sun a lot more than I expected; new sun probably still best but no regrets about reading the whole thing.

i don't listen to podcasts, but this one might be intersting

Such an honor being asked to discuss Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun for the Great Books Podcast! https://t.co/J7rjGaHPGl

— Ada Palmer 💉🎉 (@Ada_Palmer) August 5, 2021

that podcast was good. I know mostly nothing about Ada Palmer but it was nice to get a historian's perspective on New Sun. Liked the line "There is nothing more similar to the future than the past".

Also I'm listening to the Alzabo Soup podcast mentioning above and following along reading Book of the Long Sun which they are currently doing and am slowing coming to think (as the hosts of the podcast do) that Long Sun is actually even better than New Sun.

Wow that’s saying a mouthful!

I just finished The Book of the New Sun and read this thread.

I really liked it overall with a few reservations. The worldbuilding is incredible. My favorite parts were most of Shadow (especially the beginning), the scenes at the House Absolute in Claw, after Severian leaves Thrax in Sword (especially the scenes with little Severian), and the last 100 pages of Citadel. I really felt the first half of Citadel dragged. I could also do without some of the pancreator stuff, but at least it sort of answers the question, "What if HP Lovecraft were CS Lewis?"

I love the feeling like Greek or Sumerian myths of a disorientingly weird cause and effect (or lack thereof) where characters act like natural phenomenon instead of people. On the other hand, Severian is the only character with much depth.

One of the freakiest parts is in the Antechamber in the House Absolute and the reference that it has a drop ceiling. Just another way in which time is layered like geologic stratum that have been revealed and now coexist.

So basically the last thing that happens chronologically is the brief reference to Severian riding in a spacehip to be judged on behalf of humanity?

iirc yes, which is fleshed out a lot in the 5th book

I need to re-read these

I think I'm going to order that 5th book.

it rules

i never got around to the long sun books tho i have them on my shelf

i'm gonna try long sun again.

I'm about halfway through Urth of the New Sun - it's fine, but I'm not nearly as into it as I was the other books. That could be due to tiring of them as I've progressed, but I also think some of it is more clumsy (repeated callbacks) and less mysterious than the first four.

i'm gonna try long sun again.

― ian, Wednesday, February 23, 2022 1:58 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Long Sun was FANTASTIC. Stylistically super different from New Sun but it really really worked for me. Amazing characters. General Mint is the best. Blood. Horn. Auk. Of course our boy Silk. Loved it.

I read the first two books of Short Sun and liked them but felt like I was missing a LOT of stuff that was happening between the lines. I got distracted from the third book, Return To The Whorl, for some reason or another but I'd really like to give those first two another read & then try Whorl again.

just to follow up on the “novel of everything” idea that i had brought up on the ulysses thread … i love novels in that style because there are so many details to figure out about the pov the narrator inhabits

i think i finally figured out the second reason thecla’s group (chatelaines? i forget what the equivalent rank was) has long necks … i always figured it was to look down on people, but maybe it’s also to make it easier to fit on the chopping block!

LONG SUN.