Shadow & Claw : The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'

Rating:
Summary: A long beautiful dream
Review: Gene Wolfe is a damn genius and 'The Book of the New Sun,' the first half of which is under consideration here, is the ultimate proof. This is one of the most haunting, lyrical, dreamy, hallucinatory and, ultimately, affecting works I've read in a long time. While it's nominally a genre work (either sci-fi or swords-n-sorcery - take your pick), I truly believe this transcends the speculative fiction ghetto, and ranks as a premier work of literature.

In the dreamlike (and occassionally nightmarish) prose, I hear echoes of Borges, Kafka, Mervyn Peake. Vance's 'Tales of a Dying Earth' is an obvious (and, I believe, acknowledged) influence). And Wolfe's style continues to reverberate in the Samuel Delaney's Neveryon cycle (I see some comparison between Gorgik and Vodalus, for example) (though Delaney, I should add, is pretty damned amazing in his own right).

Pretty much everyone's summarized the plot of these first 2 books in the cycle, so I'll refrain. I do note that the plot is meandering, to say the least. Threads are raised and abandoned, fifty page detours occur for seemingly no reason. It could, conceivably, be frustrating to those unfamiliar with Wolfe's voice or who simply don't appreciate this sort of thing. I do note that a great deal of what seem to be completely unresolved bits do, slowly, come together as one reaches the second half, and some only make sense after reading 'The Urth of the New Sun,' which is sort of the keystone that makes everything fit together.

There's also the matter of vocabulary - Wolfe's choices are more than a little unusual and a copy of the OED might come in handy. Wolfe explains this rather well in the appendix to 'Shadow of the Torturer' - the work is written as though it were back-translated from a non-existent language and, given that, some of the obscurity in the prose starts to make sense.

So, this (the first half of the 'The Book of the New Sun') is a difficult work. Sprawling and seemingly random at times though it may seem, every last bit is essential. Reading it is a genuinely new and amazing experience.

Rating:
Summary: A monumentally complex work
Review: *sigh* It saddens me, truly, to see the recent swath of negative reviews for this book. But then again, the majority of the people reading this book are Fantasy or Science Fiction readers, which are absolutely wonderful genres and their best works can contain a great deal of literary depth. However the majority of their readers don't read their best works.

So why is this book (and it's sequel) so misunderstood? And why do I think it's so fantastic? Well first off, I can't go into great depth here, because this is a review, and full literary analysis would a)require me to spoil the book and b) require me to read the book many more times. So, let me just try and combat the criticisms. First, yes there is no plot... on the surface. The plot is fairly weak (in the traditional sense), even when you get to the core of it, which is hidden under layers of Severian's deceptions. It's not a work of great Pathos, but it is layered and it is complex. The complexities are hard to fully understand in one readthrough, even from a surface "what happened?" standpoint (more on that later). However, a good analogy to make for the plot would be between this and Catcher in the Rye, both told by essentially insane narrators, and both are apparently plotless. So check off the need for a great pathos driven plot for great literature.

OK, moving on to the language. Yes, obscure words are used. This is to help convey a sense of a truly different place and a truly different time. It's just that simple. It's not literary masturbation, it's for atmosphere.

Next: To those who wonder where the subtleties and complexities are, much of it is in the nature of the Narrative. Every single one of Gene Wolfe's books is heavily shaded by the narrator in the story, and this one is absolutely no exception. Severian is insane and Severian can remember everything, but he is a liar. The majority of his lies will not be apparent the first time through, because this is NOT an easy, accessible book. The interplay between what happens as Severian tells it and what actually happens is fascinating and worthy of this books "great book status" by itself.

Where else are there complexities? Well this book is laden with symbolism. Almost everything that happens to Severian has a symbolic place, it seems to me. This is true especialy of dream sequences, but many other events follow suit. This symbolism, like in any book in the modernist tradition (and yes this book is in the tradition of authors like Hemmingway in that there is a factual plot and a symbolic plot that coexist. This, however, much like books from Joyce or Pynchon seperates it further into a told plot, the real, factual plot and the symbolic plot, so if Post-Modernist writings can be considered to fall into that category, this is probably a post-modern work). Also, I know there are many other characteristics of each respective movement, and many of these appear in this novel, such as the fractured world perspective epitomized by T.S. Elliot's Wasteland and the self-awareness of many of the post-modern novels, which is present here in that the narrator lies to the audience.

Finally, all of the characters are very three dimensional. Enough of your whining about how Severian isn't explicitly influenced by his career as a torturer. You said it yourself, he's a violent, violent person. Does the author have to TELL you that for you to make the association? If so, you should not be attempting to understand this book. No offense intended, but work up your literary analysis skills and come back later.

Finally, yes, the most easily appreciable aspect of this book is the unusual setting. And yes it is unusual. Yes China Mieville may have created a more unusual setting. However, he stole half his setting based ideas for the admittedly wonderful Perdido Street Station.

And what does it all mean? Well, like many great works of fiction, that's highly debatable.

So what do we have? A truly complex, truly difficult book with a group of readers who are trying to review it before they've even read the entire thing through once. *sigh*