Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Barcelona Minotauro 1989
Description
The Shadow of the Torturer is the first volume in the four-volume epic, the tale of a young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession--showing mercy towards his victim.
User reviews
LibraryThing member skholiast
Do not be misled by the apparent sword-and-sorcery genre stereotypes of the front cover, or the sci-fi sound of "thousands of years in the future..." on the back. Gene Wolfe has written some of the most innovative and beautiful fiction in the 20th century and the "Book of the New Sun," of which
Yes, I used the M-word. Wolfe is too confident to need to insist, but a growing number of readers is coming to realize that his peers are not Asimov or Herbert, despite "Foundation"'s breadth or "Dune"'s admirably realized world and stylistic accomplishment (at least the first volume's). Wolfe is in a whole different class; he belongs rather among Emerson, Melville and Hawthorne, Pynchon and Burroughs. Not that he sounds like them; they don't sound like each other. But like them, Wolfe sounds utterly like himself; and as with them, there is never any question that one is in the deft and sure hands of a master, a writer whose confidence in his craft and whose love of language and character at last equals the enthusiasm for innovation and scenario which characterizes science fiction. Wolfe’s pleasure in words is Joycean; his sureness like Burgess' or Nabokov's. He is learned: what first strikes one as neologism in Wolfe always turns out to be not invented techno-speak but resurrected archaism (one can learn more from a page of his work than from whole books of Paying to Increase Your Word Power). He is inventive: what he does with vocabulary is mere journeyman’s work compared with what he does with plot and character; it is more boldly conceived than Donaldson and sometimes more surreal than Murakami. Yet his "experimentation", if that is what it is, is so subtle, so shrewd, that it can pass almost unnoticed. Only Philip K. Dick in American science fiction comes close to Wolfe's mind-telescoping inversion of the obvious; but where Dick deals you a wallop, Wolfe slips you a mickey, stirring the narrative to an inexorable torque by such slow degrees that by the time you are descending into the maelstrom you can no longer say when the disorientation began.
Moreover, Wolfe writes beautifully. There are passages of such heartbreak, such poignancy, such unsettling terror, that the reader will have the uncanny impression of reading on full-throttle, and yet (simultaneously) staring over the book into middle-distance, lost in admiration. Like any masterpiece, Wolfe’s is not for everyone. He can be hazardous to anyone allergic to an adjective-rich diet. The style is baroque, mannered, written in raven's blood; rich and layered, like gateau de chocolate, twenty-five-year oak-cask port; or like fallen fruit in late autumn: rich and slightly rotting. His prose has something of Garcia Marquez' lush jungle-y jewel-tones, steamy with dreams. The sentences in this book sometimes have secret compartments, and can be as labyrinthine as his imagined citadels. Not at all the sort Wolfe always writes (compare the easy readability of some of his short stories, for instance), they are nonetheless just such as one might imagine in the decadent style of a corrupt Empire, slowly sinking of its own weight into its own red ruin. For those with the patience and palate, this is a connoisseur’s pleasure.
The narrative is related by Severian, an orphan raised as an apprentice by the guild of torturers, in a crumbling city beneath a swollen, dying sun. The red light of this ancient star-- omnipresent in the story-- and its bloated and unstable proportions become a metaphor like the whiteness of Moby-Dick: for the aged and untenable empire Severian inhabits; for the ubiquitous gravity-well of fate; ultimately, I think, for the sprawling narrative itself. Severian's is a bildungsroman not unlike that of Wilhelm Meister. An unforgettable antihero in a book bejewelled with fascinating characters of every stripe, Severian is one of the great unreliable narrators of the postmodern age. Possessing, he says, an infallibly precise and omnivorous memory (though the attentive reader will notice occasional telling lapses), Severian ascends by painful degrees to mastery not of his cruel craft (I have never read a book that dealt with violence less gratuitously) but of himself.
Like Wilhelm's story, Severian's is among other things a prolonged meditation on memory, destiny, relationship and calling; on what Yeats called the tension of the life and the work. Wolfe simply does not care to dazzle you with spacecraft or magic swords, nor even with the spectacle of a whole world, complete with language, religion and customs complexly imagined. His attention to such things is a real delight in his work, done for its own sake; but he is out for the Big Game: the human condition, in all its dire bliss.
Wolfe has named H.G. Wells and G.K. Chesterton as two of his strong influences, and one may well hear these great Edwardians behind his prose (as one can in Borges’, another fantastic player with reality, to whose short stories some of Wolfe's bear comparison); there is something of Chesterton's sense of dignity and promise, even lit by the blood-red light of the dying sun, to Wolfe's characters, both noble and ignoble. There are also echoes of Wells' futuristic speculation, and much of his grim and epic readiness to look bleak destiny in the eye. And though bleak, it is epic. Besides many other works, Wolfe's "Sun" books now number twelve: five in the series about Severian, and two other series (called the books of the "Long Sun" and of the "Short Sun") which are both thematically and narratively related to the first... but in ways again so roundabout and strange as to baffle. What is more amazing still is the uniformly high caliber of craft throughout. In description and dialogue, character and plot, setting and detail, Wolfe is no provincial "genre author," but a wholly original voice in American letters, edifying, demanding and lasting.
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this is volume one, is a masterpiece of American literature. Yes, I used the M-word. Wolfe is too confident to need to insist, but a growing number of readers is coming to realize that his peers are not Asimov or Herbert, despite "Foundation"'s breadth or "Dune"'s admirably realized world and stylistic accomplishment (at least the first volume's). Wolfe is in a whole different class; he belongs rather among Emerson, Melville and Hawthorne, Pynchon and Burroughs. Not that he sounds like them; they don't sound like each other. But like them, Wolfe sounds utterly like himself; and as with them, there is never any question that one is in the deft and sure hands of a master, a writer whose confidence in his craft and whose love of language and character at last equals the enthusiasm for innovation and scenario which characterizes science fiction. Wolfe’s pleasure in words is Joycean; his sureness like Burgess' or Nabokov's. He is learned: what first strikes one as neologism in Wolfe always turns out to be not invented techno-speak but resurrected archaism (one can learn more from a page of his work than from whole books of Paying to Increase Your Word Power). He is inventive: what he does with vocabulary is mere journeyman’s work compared with what he does with plot and character; it is more boldly conceived than Donaldson and sometimes more surreal than Murakami. Yet his "experimentation", if that is what it is, is so subtle, so shrewd, that it can pass almost unnoticed. Only Philip K. Dick in American science fiction comes close to Wolfe's mind-telescoping inversion of the obvious; but where Dick deals you a wallop, Wolfe slips you a mickey, stirring the narrative to an inexorable torque by such slow degrees that by the time you are descending into the maelstrom you can no longer say when the disorientation began.
Moreover, Wolfe writes beautifully. There are passages of such heartbreak, such poignancy, such unsettling terror, that the reader will have the uncanny impression of reading on full-throttle, and yet (simultaneously) staring over the book into middle-distance, lost in admiration. Like any masterpiece, Wolfe’s is not for everyone. He can be hazardous to anyone allergic to an adjective-rich diet. The style is baroque, mannered, written in raven's blood; rich and layered, like gateau de chocolate, twenty-five-year oak-cask port; or like fallen fruit in late autumn: rich and slightly rotting. His prose has something of Garcia Marquez' lush jungle-y jewel-tones, steamy with dreams. The sentences in this book sometimes have secret compartments, and can be as labyrinthine as his imagined citadels. Not at all the sort Wolfe always writes (compare the easy readability of some of his short stories, for instance), they are nonetheless just such as one might imagine in the decadent style of a corrupt Empire, slowly sinking of its own weight into its own red ruin. For those with the patience and palate, this is a connoisseur’s pleasure.
The narrative is related by Severian, an orphan raised as an apprentice by the guild of torturers, in a crumbling city beneath a swollen, dying sun. The red light of this ancient star-- omnipresent in the story-- and its bloated and unstable proportions become a metaphor like the whiteness of Moby-Dick: for the aged and untenable empire Severian inhabits; for the ubiquitous gravity-well of fate; ultimately, I think, for the sprawling narrative itself. Severian's is a bildungsroman not unlike that of Wilhelm Meister. An unforgettable antihero in a book bejewelled with fascinating characters of every stripe, Severian is one of the great unreliable narrators of the postmodern age. Possessing, he says, an infallibly precise and omnivorous memory (though the attentive reader will notice occasional telling lapses), Severian ascends by painful degrees to mastery not of his cruel craft (I have never read a book that dealt with violence less gratuitously) but of himself.
Like Wilhelm's story, Severian's is among other things a prolonged meditation on memory, destiny, relationship and calling; on what Yeats called the tension of the life and the work. Wolfe simply does not care to dazzle you with spacecraft or magic swords, nor even with the spectacle of a whole world, complete with language, religion and customs complexly imagined. His attention to such things is a real delight in his work, done for its own sake; but he is out for the Big Game: the human condition, in all its dire bliss.
Wolfe has named H.G. Wells and G.K. Chesterton as two of his strong influences, and one may well hear these great Edwardians behind his prose (as one can in Borges’, another fantastic player with reality, to whose short stories some of Wolfe's bear comparison); there is something of Chesterton's sense of dignity and promise, even lit by the blood-red light of the dying sun, to Wolfe's characters, both noble and ignoble. There are also echoes of Wells' futuristic speculation, and much of his grim and epic readiness to look bleak destiny in the eye. And though bleak, it is epic. Besides many other works, Wolfe's "Sun" books now number twelve: five in the series about Severian, and two other series (called the books of the "Long Sun" and of the "Short Sun") which are both thematically and narratively related to the first... but in ways again so roundabout and strange as to baffle. What is more amazing still is the uniformly high caliber of craft throughout. In description and dialogue, character and plot, setting and detail, Wolfe is no provincial "genre author," but a wholly original voice in American letters, edifying, demanding and lasting.
Show Less
LibraryThing member joe_chip
the shadow of the torturer is a first person narrative told by severian, an apprentice in the guild of torturers. it is the first part of the quadrilogy the book of the new sun. in it we follow severian through his last year of apprenticeship, his departure from the guild and the beginning of his
for his journey severian is equipped with a fuligin cloak , which is a colour that is blacker than black (as upon observing it one cannot detect any shadows or folds). being the uniform of his guild, this cloak naturally inspires terror in others. he also receives the sword terminus est, as a gift. the sword is huge and black, very sharp and seriously bad-ass - i mean, how much more bad-ass can you get than a sword that is called this is the end! as you can imagine severian is a very cool guy, he’s a torturer who walks around with an inky black cloak and a massive black sword!
on the way to the citadel wall he meets a few interesting characters, a giant (not a giant giant, just a very big man), an actor, a mysterious woman who has escaped from a lake and a pair of twins - the sister whom, he finds himself strongly attracted to and the brother who covets his beautiful sword.
i really enjoyed reading this book, it was fun, exciting and interesting - this is high fantasy with a touch of darkness. however, thinking back on the plot and its characters i find it somewhat strange that this isn’t one of the best books i’ve read this year. as much as i enjoyed it, i do have one reservation, and i want to get that out of the way before i describe what i liked so much about it.
its hard to pin-point exactly what my reservation is, it was more a feeling i had while reading the book. the best i can do is describe that feeling. it was like reading a book in a language that you are familiar with and can converse in, but are not fully proficient in. or a book that has been badly translated. or one could say it was like reading a book in english when you were too young to fully understand all the words and all the adult nuances of words you are familiar with. i could imagine reading the lord of the rings or dune at the age of 9 must be like that (although there are those who claim to have read them that young - if they fully enjoyed it their grasp of english was certainly better than mine at that age!).
and yet, of course, i am not 9, english is my first language and wolfe wrote it in english. wolfe does use invented words, but not to the degree that they are the cause of any lack of understanding. at times the pacing just felt odd, or sometimes it took me a while to get my bearings. there would be whole passages where i would understand the words he was writing, but i nevertheless only had a vague sense of what was being described - it was hazy like a dream. and yet, i can’t say exactly what it was that wolfe (or i) was doing wrong. this is a real pity as this is exactly the kind of semi-serious high fantasy that i love. the haziness and confusion didn’t entirely spoil it, of course, i enjoyed the book tremendously, it just meant that instead of potentially being the best book i’ve read this year, it was a book that i enjoyed a quite a lot. and did i enjoy it!
i absolutely loved the world of this book. it reads and feels like fantasy, but it could technically be termed as science fiction, as it is actually set in the far future.
our sun is dying and has lost much of its energy, and as such you have a world which is a mixture between a post-apocolyptic future and elizabethan england. for instance, i don’t think they use electricity but there are remnants of it having been used in their past. everything seems at once recognisable as well as alien.
there is also a wonderful sense of history and an awareness of a distant past. this ancient past comprises tantalising glimpses of our own ancient past, our present and an intriguing period which is our future but still in the distant past to the characters in the novel. severian’s world is so different from ours that i yearn to know what happened between now and the time he is living in. his world shows signs of great technological advances, as well as signs of decay, so that we can only surmise that there had been a period of great intellectual and cultural advancement that was followed by a decline. as such everyone that currently occupies the world has already forgotten much of what their predecessors, and our future offspring, had learnt.
machines that we almost recognise and no-one knows how to operate, stand unused, or those that they do know how to use are treated as mystical. books in a now forgotten tongue are left never to be read and the buildings are made in styles from periods - some classical, some futuristic - that no-one understands or would know how to replicate. and all this is often shrouded in shadow or poor light, as the sun’s dim rays softly illuminates the world.
wolfe’s use of language is also very interesting. the book is full of terms unfamiliar to us and yet not a single one of them is invented. he uses ancient words for his new terms, and this enhances the sense of a historical connection to the future time in which the novel is placed.
the social structure resembles a medieval england with guilds and a rigid class system. i was extremely curious about severian’s guild of torturers, but it takes wolfe quite a long time to describe them and how they operate, as we slowly learn about them through the events that take place in the story. i quite liked this as it added a sense of realism to the story for me - as if the guild just is and isn’t something that needs an introduction. there are some wonderfully macabre torture devices that the guild uses and as one would expect they don’t just implement them willy-nilly, but each device fits the crime.
the torturers themselves aren’t a bunch of sadists, though - they are absolute professionals and approach their tasks with the cold objectivity of a surgeon. it is also not a vocation that is chosen - the guild, in fact, comprises of unwanted babies who have been taken in. they are not forced to stay, but when they have served their apprenticeship they have the choice to leave. few do, however, as apprenticeship obviously prepares one very well for a career in the guild, but more significantly guild members of any kind (even apprentices) are feared by the rest of society and would struggle to fit in.
as professionally as the torturers approach their job they are nonetheless tainted by what they do. they naturally have a dark view of the world and don’t appear afraid death. ingrained in them is an understanding of the potential weakness of the human body and mind and they have a macabre respect for torturing and executions that are done well. thus, in severian, we have a very dark hero - while he is very gentle, honourable and caring, he is (at times) unsentimental and capable of very cold reasoning, and he also knows how to chop a bloke’s head off! in fact his unique combat skill, from having an intimate knowledge of how to cause pain, makes him a deliciously dark hero.
throughout we suspect him of being quite capable in a fight, but for the longest time severian doesn’t find himself in that sort of situation. then, half-way through, wolfe depicts a moment which illustrates his skill, which i absolutely love. severian’s narrative is so off-hand and calm - and he knew exactly what he was doing:
the peltast relaxed, so there was no great difficulty. i knocked his shield aside with my right arm, putting my left foot on his right to pin him while i crushed that nevrve in the neck that induces convulsions.
the fact that it takes half of the book for severian to be engaged in any violence illustrates that this isn’t some hack-and-slash fantasy romp. throughout there is a mixture of action, adventure and great drama. severian falls deeply in love with a noble who is to be tortured; is challenged to a duel; is chased; and goes to the magnificent botanic gardens to find a flower which is to be his weapon in the duel. the botanic gardens are mystical and magical and there is a very real danger that once you have entered it you may never leave.
as you can see from my long review, this was an enjoyable book to read. the setting is very colourful and the plot is a lot of fun. severian is a surprisingly believable character and a lot of this is down to his dry and matter-of-fact narrative voice. he is also very cool - that big black sword and that blacker-than-black cloak of his! i think anyone who likes fantasy will enjoy this and i’d be curious to see whether or not other people feel there was something “lost in translation”.
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journey toward the distant city of thrax. for his journey severian is equipped with a fuligin cloak , which is a colour that is blacker than black (as upon observing it one cannot detect any shadows or folds). being the uniform of his guild, this cloak naturally inspires terror in others. he also receives the sword terminus est, as a gift. the sword is huge and black, very sharp and seriously bad-ass - i mean, how much more bad-ass can you get than a sword that is called this is the end! as you can imagine severian is a very cool guy, he’s a torturer who walks around with an inky black cloak and a massive black sword!
on the way to the citadel wall he meets a few interesting characters, a giant (not a giant giant, just a very big man), an actor, a mysterious woman who has escaped from a lake and a pair of twins - the sister whom, he finds himself strongly attracted to and the brother who covets his beautiful sword.
i really enjoyed reading this book, it was fun, exciting and interesting - this is high fantasy with a touch of darkness. however, thinking back on the plot and its characters i find it somewhat strange that this isn’t one of the best books i’ve read this year. as much as i enjoyed it, i do have one reservation, and i want to get that out of the way before i describe what i liked so much about it.
its hard to pin-point exactly what my reservation is, it was more a feeling i had while reading the book. the best i can do is describe that feeling. it was like reading a book in a language that you are familiar with and can converse in, but are not fully proficient in. or a book that has been badly translated. or one could say it was like reading a book in english when you were too young to fully understand all the words and all the adult nuances of words you are familiar with. i could imagine reading the lord of the rings or dune at the age of 9 must be like that (although there are those who claim to have read them that young - if they fully enjoyed it their grasp of english was certainly better than mine at that age!).
and yet, of course, i am not 9, english is my first language and wolfe wrote it in english. wolfe does use invented words, but not to the degree that they are the cause of any lack of understanding. at times the pacing just felt odd, or sometimes it took me a while to get my bearings. there would be whole passages where i would understand the words he was writing, but i nevertheless only had a vague sense of what was being described - it was hazy like a dream. and yet, i can’t say exactly what it was that wolfe (or i) was doing wrong. this is a real pity as this is exactly the kind of semi-serious high fantasy that i love. the haziness and confusion didn’t entirely spoil it, of course, i enjoyed the book tremendously, it just meant that instead of potentially being the best book i’ve read this year, it was a book that i enjoyed a quite a lot. and did i enjoy it!
i absolutely loved the world of this book. it reads and feels like fantasy, but it could technically be termed as science fiction, as it is actually set in the far future.
our sun is dying and has lost much of its energy, and as such you have a world which is a mixture between a post-apocolyptic future and elizabethan england. for instance, i don’t think they use electricity but there are remnants of it having been used in their past. everything seems at once recognisable as well as alien.
there is also a wonderful sense of history and an awareness of a distant past. this ancient past comprises tantalising glimpses of our own ancient past, our present and an intriguing period which is our future but still in the distant past to the characters in the novel. severian’s world is so different from ours that i yearn to know what happened between now and the time he is living in. his world shows signs of great technological advances, as well as signs of decay, so that we can only surmise that there had been a period of great intellectual and cultural advancement that was followed by a decline. as such everyone that currently occupies the world has already forgotten much of what their predecessors, and our future offspring, had learnt.
machines that we almost recognise and no-one knows how to operate, stand unused, or those that they do know how to use are treated as mystical. books in a now forgotten tongue are left never to be read and the buildings are made in styles from periods - some classical, some futuristic - that no-one understands or would know how to replicate. and all this is often shrouded in shadow or poor light, as the sun’s dim rays softly illuminates the world.
wolfe’s use of language is also very interesting. the book is full of terms unfamiliar to us and yet not a single one of them is invented. he uses ancient words for his new terms, and this enhances the sense of a historical connection to the future time in which the novel is placed.
the social structure resembles a medieval england with guilds and a rigid class system. i was extremely curious about severian’s guild of torturers, but it takes wolfe quite a long time to describe them and how they operate, as we slowly learn about them through the events that take place in the story. i quite liked this as it added a sense of realism to the story for me - as if the guild just is and isn’t something that needs an introduction. there are some wonderfully macabre torture devices that the guild uses and as one would expect they don’t just implement them willy-nilly, but each device fits the crime.
the torturers themselves aren’t a bunch of sadists, though - they are absolute professionals and approach their tasks with the cold objectivity of a surgeon. it is also not a vocation that is chosen - the guild, in fact, comprises of unwanted babies who have been taken in. they are not forced to stay, but when they have served their apprenticeship they have the choice to leave. few do, however, as apprenticeship obviously prepares one very well for a career in the guild, but more significantly guild members of any kind (even apprentices) are feared by the rest of society and would struggle to fit in.
as professionally as the torturers approach their job they are nonetheless tainted by what they do. they naturally have a dark view of the world and don’t appear afraid death. ingrained in them is an understanding of the potential weakness of the human body and mind and they have a macabre respect for torturing and executions that are done well. thus, in severian, we have a very dark hero - while he is very gentle, honourable and caring, he is (at times) unsentimental and capable of very cold reasoning, and he also knows how to chop a bloke’s head off! in fact his unique combat skill, from having an intimate knowledge of how to cause pain, makes him a deliciously dark hero.
throughout we suspect him of being quite capable in a fight, but for the longest time severian doesn’t find himself in that sort of situation. then, half-way through, wolfe depicts a moment which illustrates his skill, which i absolutely love. severian’s narrative is so off-hand and calm - and he knew exactly what he was doing:
the peltast relaxed, so there was no great difficulty. i knocked his shield aside with my right arm, putting my left foot on his right to pin him while i crushed that nevrve in the neck that induces convulsions.
the fact that it takes half of the book for severian to be engaged in any violence illustrates that this isn’t some hack-and-slash fantasy romp. throughout there is a mixture of action, adventure and great drama. severian falls deeply in love with a noble who is to be tortured; is challenged to a duel; is chased; and goes to the magnificent botanic gardens to find a flower which is to be his weapon in the duel. the botanic gardens are mystical and magical and there is a very real danger that once you have entered it you may never leave.
as you can see from my long review, this was an enjoyable book to read. the setting is very colourful and the plot is a lot of fun. severian is a surprisingly believable character and a lot of this is down to his dry and matter-of-fact narrative voice. he is also very cool - that big black sword and that blacker-than-black cloak of his! i think anyone who likes fantasy will enjoy this and i’d be curious to see whether or not other people feel there was something “lost in translation”.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Radaghast
Shadow of the Torturer straddles the line between literary and indecipherable. At times, as you read the book, you feel Gene Wolfe writes with a skilled hand. At other times, you are sure he is making it up as he goes along. The basic premise of Shadow of the Torturer is intriguing. The work is
For a plot summary, that may not seem like much of a story, and for good reason. Because we see things from the eyes of Severian, and because this is the story of his life, little in the way of backstory or overarching plot is revealed. Sometimes this works, but at other times it is needlessly frustrating. You see very little of how exactly Severian's world came to be as it is. Perhaps this will be revealed in the book's sequels, but without explanation several of Wolfe's ideas seem internally inconsistent. The presence of futuristic technology in a society that has regressed to almost medieval status is hard to swallow without something in the way of justification.
Compounding the natural confusion such a writing style leads to, Wolfe attempts to give the book meaning through literary gimmicks. This is invariably a mistake. The importance and meaning of a novel should be revealed through plot and character. Wolfe tries to reveal it through perspective and language. He portrays Severian as a character who remembers everything, yet at several points Severian's memory lacks details. Maybe Severian isn't truly as all knowing as he believes, but I found little indication of that in the Shadow of the Torturer. At several points, random, seemingly meaningless events occur. Important revelations are left unrevealed. The closest analogy to Shadow of the Torturer is the Winchester Mystery House, with its stairs and doors to nowhere. Gene Wolfe is great at creating mystery, but terrible at explaining it. Wolfe also employed many created terms and archaic words in Shadow of the Torturer. Sometimes this was interesting, at other times it was tedious.
A reader can conclude one of two things when reading a book of this nature. Either, Wolfe is creating an extremely deep work that has hidden meaning if only you look hard enough, or Wolfe doesn't understand his mystery anymore than we do and has fooled his readers. I believe I am in the latter camp.
All that said, I still did not hate this book. There's a good story hidden somewhere in here. The Urth described by Wolfe is quite interesting despite its unjustified dichotomy. When characters aren't bizarrely introduced and dropped, Wolfe actually shows some fascinating characterization (most notably in the character of the librarian and his apprentice).
My final conclusion is as confusing as the book itself: Shadow of the Torturer both succeeds and fails.
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written as the first part of the memoirs of Severian. Adopted by the Torturer's Guild, Severian knows little outside of the Tower the Torturer's occupy. Gradually, as the book advances, Severian grows up, becomes a man, and experiences the outside world.For a plot summary, that may not seem like much of a story, and for good reason. Because we see things from the eyes of Severian, and because this is the story of his life, little in the way of backstory or overarching plot is revealed. Sometimes this works, but at other times it is needlessly frustrating. You see very little of how exactly Severian's world came to be as it is. Perhaps this will be revealed in the book's sequels, but without explanation several of Wolfe's ideas seem internally inconsistent. The presence of futuristic technology in a society that has regressed to almost medieval status is hard to swallow without something in the way of justification.
Compounding the natural confusion such a writing style leads to, Wolfe attempts to give the book meaning through literary gimmicks. This is invariably a mistake. The importance and meaning of a novel should be revealed through plot and character. Wolfe tries to reveal it through perspective and language. He portrays Severian as a character who remembers everything, yet at several points Severian's memory lacks details. Maybe Severian isn't truly as all knowing as he believes, but I found little indication of that in the Shadow of the Torturer. At several points, random, seemingly meaningless events occur. Important revelations are left unrevealed. The closest analogy to Shadow of the Torturer is the Winchester Mystery House, with its stairs and doors to nowhere. Gene Wolfe is great at creating mystery, but terrible at explaining it. Wolfe also employed many created terms and archaic words in Shadow of the Torturer. Sometimes this was interesting, at other times it was tedious.
A reader can conclude one of two things when reading a book of this nature. Either, Wolfe is creating an extremely deep work that has hidden meaning if only you look hard enough, or Wolfe doesn't understand his mystery anymore than we do and has fooled his readers. I believe I am in the latter camp.
All that said, I still did not hate this book. There's a good story hidden somewhere in here. The Urth described by Wolfe is quite interesting despite its unjustified dichotomy. When characters aren't bizarrely introduced and dropped, Wolfe actually shows some fascinating characterization (most notably in the character of the librarian and his apprentice).
My final conclusion is as confusing as the book itself: Shadow of the Torturer both succeeds and fails.
Show Less
LibraryThing member karamazow
This has been descibed both as a masterpiece and a rambling failure. Which is true all depends on your frame of mind, of course. If you are willing to let the text take you along, while discarding any expectations, it works very well. The style is elaborate, sometimes irritatingly so, but then
It's all about the development of the individual mind, which starts at being a ''torturer's apprentice'' (aren't we all?) and ends at being ''autarch'', a completely self-contained human being, master of fate (wouldn't we all?). On this convoluted road we meet the most incredible set of human figures, extra-terrestials, circumstances, masquerades, backdrops, coincidences, cultural differences, whatever. All serve to show the not less complex richness of the human mind, as unexploited today as ever.
An underlying current of Christian symbology becomes apparent throughout. The ''claw'', a thorn encased in a blue gem, associated with the ''conciliator'' points to the crown of thorns. When main protagonist Severian (!) inadvertently becomes the owner, he is able to raise the dead. The first one he brings back (again without being aware) is Saint Peter's wife Dorcas. The concilator is a far and vague memory only, when the book sets out. The whole world is waiting for the second coming, generally known as ''the new sun''.
Baffling complexity permeates almost everything in here. Stories within the story abound. There is a stage-play with Adam and Eve, the myth of creation as seen from the perspective of some 10,000 years ahead. There are stories told by captured ''enemies'', who speak in a manner where everything is being expressed through comparisons that show strong associations with Chinese communism. There is much and much more...
Yes, it's opulent, baroque, wordy and at times even Wolfe seems to lose the direction he's taken, small wonder considering the scope this book is trying to achieve. Whether or not this is a masterpiece, only time will tell. As it stands, it's only something for the patient reader, who is ready to let himself be carried away beyond anything ressembling normality. If you persevere, it's stunning, engaging and elevating. But, you will have to work hard for it.
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again this book tries to unravel the deepest mysteries of being human, something that a simply cut style probably would never be able to.It's all about the development of the individual mind, which starts at being a ''torturer's apprentice'' (aren't we all?) and ends at being ''autarch'', a completely self-contained human being, master of fate (wouldn't we all?). On this convoluted road we meet the most incredible set of human figures, extra-terrestials, circumstances, masquerades, backdrops, coincidences, cultural differences, whatever. All serve to show the not less complex richness of the human mind, as unexploited today as ever.
An underlying current of Christian symbology becomes apparent throughout. The ''claw'', a thorn encased in a blue gem, associated with the ''conciliator'' points to the crown of thorns. When main protagonist Severian (!) inadvertently becomes the owner, he is able to raise the dead. The first one he brings back (again without being aware) is Saint Peter's wife Dorcas. The concilator is a far and vague memory only, when the book sets out. The whole world is waiting for the second coming, generally known as ''the new sun''.
Baffling complexity permeates almost everything in here. Stories within the story abound. There is a stage-play with Adam and Eve, the myth of creation as seen from the perspective of some 10,000 years ahead. There are stories told by captured ''enemies'', who speak in a manner where everything is being expressed through comparisons that show strong associations with Chinese communism. There is much and much more...
Yes, it's opulent, baroque, wordy and at times even Wolfe seems to lose the direction he's taken, small wonder considering the scope this book is trying to achieve. Whether or not this is a masterpiece, only time will tell. As it stands, it's only something for the patient reader, who is ready to let himself be carried away beyond anything ressembling normality. If you persevere, it's stunning, engaging and elevating. But, you will have to work hard for it.
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
I like Gene Wolfe's books and I respect them a lot. I've always considered the fact that I don't love them (except maybe the Death of Dr Island collection) as a failure on my part. I don't get emotionally caught up in them.
Shadow is picaresque, not as humorous as many, but not as grim as it might
Like a speaker who needs no introduction, the Book of the New Sun is a series that needs no recommendation. Read it.
Shadow is picaresque, not as humorous as many, but not as grim as it might
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seem given the point of view is that of a journeyman torturer. The setting is (or appears to be, since this Wolfe) a far future Dying Earth set up, combined with a Gormeghastian massive citadel that the protagonist barely gets to the edge of in the first book. Companions are collected, but I make not assumptions about how many will still be there with the next volume. Like a speaker who needs no introduction, the Book of the New Sun is a series that needs no recommendation. Read it.
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LibraryThing member edgeworth
When I was researching acclaimed fantasy series towards the end of 2011, trying to get back into the genre, two names came up more than anything else: A Song of Ice And Fire, and The Book of the New Sun. With the TV series spurring its popularity, last year was clearly the time to read A Song of
Wolfe’s series is very different from Martin’s. A Game of Thrones is set in a largely traditional fantasy world, and achieved prominence through Martin’s inversion of genre tropes. The Shadow of the Torturer is set in the real world, in the far future, after who knows how many civilisations have risen and fallen. (It’s not really relevant, given that apparently no remnants of modern civilisation remain, but from the vague details dropped here and there I suspect it takes place somewhere in Argentina.) It’s therefore technically science fiction, but I wouldn’t hesitate to call it fantasy, given its diction and tone. Unusually for a fantasy novel, it’s narrated in first person, by Severian, a young apprentice at the guild of torturers in the city of Nessus.
The first half of the novel plays out extremely well, detailing Severian’s life in the guild and the circumstances leading up to his departure. The second half of the novel, covering what happens to him after he leaves, is unfortunately not as enjoyable. Severian has a destination and a purpose in mind, but is led about at the whim of strangers and keeps encountering people and places which have a bizarre episodic nature to them. There’s a lot of apparently irrelevant scenes and deus ex machina, only some of which are resolved by the end of the novel. The Shadow of the Torturer is, however, clearly the first book in a larger work, and hopefully the future books will improve on this.
Wolfe’s writing style – or Severian’s writing style, rather – is very different from the bog standard fantasy prose one finds elsewhere. This is clearly “literary” fantasy, which means that it’s often bogged down with philosphical meandering and dream sequences that probably have a deep symbolic meaning I couldn’t be bothered ferreting out. On the plus side, however, it also makes Severian’s future one of the more interesting fictional worlds I’ve read about, purely because of the way Wolfe uses his first-person narrator to carefully drop intriguing details. Early in the novel, for example, Severian is describing the Citadel at the centre of the city, a massive and ancient structure where he and many other guild members reside, and casually mentions that “the examination room was the propulsion chamber of the original structure.” Equally fascinating are the references to “the pale cacogens who sometimes visit Urth from the farther stars.” Then there is the concept within the series’ title itself, The Book of the New Sun – it becomes apparent, again not through explicit statements but rather mentioned in passing, that the sun is dimming and dying; Severian mentions a structure reaching up into the visible stars during a scene that takes place at midday, and characters seem to hold some prophesised, possibly religious belief that a “New Sun” will one day come (to the best of my recollection, this is only mentioned twice).
Heightening this technique is Wolfe’s brilliant use of language, which he discusses in a brief afterword, saying that he could have “saved [myself] a great deal of labour by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so.” The Shadow of the Torturer is full of terms like peltast and fiacre and chatelaine, which have the effect of lending a foreign air, as the made-up words of a fantasy novel would, but which are perfectly real words (at least, most of them are – googling a few of them only turns up sites referencing the novel, whatever Wolfe claims, though perhaps they’re from another language.) And despite taking place in the real world, there’s still plenty of exotic fantasy, as the genetic engineering of some past civilisation has resulted in strange beasts and altered humans, and – as any science fiction reader knows – “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The Shadow of the Torturer presents a fascinating fantasy/sci-fi world in an excellent style. Whether it tells a good story or not is a matter of taste. Personally, I found the second half a little too rambling, a little too aimless, a little too strange, and the authorial voice which works so well at creating a world often stumbled when it came to imparting a sense of urgency and presence in the narrative. Severian is writing about the events from some point in the future; although it wasn’t so much this narrative method as it was the sense that the plot was unfolding not in a natural manner, but rather by the iron fist of the author. (I’m actually quite interested to see how Wolfe employs Severian’s future vantage point in the future; at one point in this book, not even very far into it, he casually mentions that he is now “on the throne.”) I can’t say I found The Shadow of the Torturer easy to read, or that it was always enthralling, but I did find it refreshingly original and I definitely look forward to reading the rest of the series.
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Ice And Fire, and I’m glad I devoted much of my reading time in 2012 to digesting George R.R. Martin’s five-book epic. Now, though, I look forward to reading Gene Wolfe’s much more manageable four-book series. (Actually, having just finished The Shadow of the Torturer, the first book of the series, I must warn that it doesn’t even attempt to reach any kind of conclusion, and I’m glad that I have The Claw of the Conciliator on hand so I can continue immediately).Wolfe’s series is very different from Martin’s. A Game of Thrones is set in a largely traditional fantasy world, and achieved prominence through Martin’s inversion of genre tropes. The Shadow of the Torturer is set in the real world, in the far future, after who knows how many civilisations have risen and fallen. (It’s not really relevant, given that apparently no remnants of modern civilisation remain, but from the vague details dropped here and there I suspect it takes place somewhere in Argentina.) It’s therefore technically science fiction, but I wouldn’t hesitate to call it fantasy, given its diction and tone. Unusually for a fantasy novel, it’s narrated in first person, by Severian, a young apprentice at the guild of torturers in the city of Nessus.
The first half of the novel plays out extremely well, detailing Severian’s life in the guild and the circumstances leading up to his departure. The second half of the novel, covering what happens to him after he leaves, is unfortunately not as enjoyable. Severian has a destination and a purpose in mind, but is led about at the whim of strangers and keeps encountering people and places which have a bizarre episodic nature to them. There’s a lot of apparently irrelevant scenes and deus ex machina, only some of which are resolved by the end of the novel. The Shadow of the Torturer is, however, clearly the first book in a larger work, and hopefully the future books will improve on this.
Wolfe’s writing style – or Severian’s writing style, rather – is very different from the bog standard fantasy prose one finds elsewhere. This is clearly “literary” fantasy, which means that it’s often bogged down with philosphical meandering and dream sequences that probably have a deep symbolic meaning I couldn’t be bothered ferreting out. On the plus side, however, it also makes Severian’s future one of the more interesting fictional worlds I’ve read about, purely because of the way Wolfe uses his first-person narrator to carefully drop intriguing details. Early in the novel, for example, Severian is describing the Citadel at the centre of the city, a massive and ancient structure where he and many other guild members reside, and casually mentions that “the examination room was the propulsion chamber of the original structure.” Equally fascinating are the references to “the pale cacogens who sometimes visit Urth from the farther stars.” Then there is the concept within the series’ title itself, The Book of the New Sun – it becomes apparent, again not through explicit statements but rather mentioned in passing, that the sun is dimming and dying; Severian mentions a structure reaching up into the visible stars during a scene that takes place at midday, and characters seem to hold some prophesised, possibly religious belief that a “New Sun” will one day come (to the best of my recollection, this is only mentioned twice).
Heightening this technique is Wolfe’s brilliant use of language, which he discusses in a brief afterword, saying that he could have “saved [myself] a great deal of labour by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so.” The Shadow of the Torturer is full of terms like peltast and fiacre and chatelaine, which have the effect of lending a foreign air, as the made-up words of a fantasy novel would, but which are perfectly real words (at least, most of them are – googling a few of them only turns up sites referencing the novel, whatever Wolfe claims, though perhaps they’re from another language.) And despite taking place in the real world, there’s still plenty of exotic fantasy, as the genetic engineering of some past civilisation has resulted in strange beasts and altered humans, and – as any science fiction reader knows – “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The Shadow of the Torturer presents a fascinating fantasy/sci-fi world in an excellent style. Whether it tells a good story or not is a matter of taste. Personally, I found the second half a little too rambling, a little too aimless, a little too strange, and the authorial voice which works so well at creating a world often stumbled when it came to imparting a sense of urgency and presence in the narrative. Severian is writing about the events from some point in the future; although it wasn’t so much this narrative method as it was the sense that the plot was unfolding not in a natural manner, but rather by the iron fist of the author. (I’m actually quite interested to see how Wolfe employs Severian’s future vantage point in the future; at one point in this book, not even very far into it, he casually mentions that he is now “on the throne.”) I can’t say I found The Shadow of the Torturer easy to read, or that it was always enthralling, but I did find it refreshingly original and I definitely look forward to reading the rest of the series.
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
When this book first appeared back in the early 1980s, I disregarded it, as fantasy wasn't my thing and this definitely looked like fantasy. But then a number of people whose opinions I respected said that it was worth reading, and so I relented. And of course, it isn't fantasy, but a story set in
The first time I read it, I seem to remember not really grasping the objective of the book, and the power and achievement of the author only sank in as I progressed through its sequels in the series making up 'The Book of the New Sun'. But that was more than 35 years ago. Recently, I was browsing some back issues of an academic journal and came across a series of papers on Gene Wolfe and his novels; and I thought perhaps I'd better revisit these books, and catch up with what else he'd written in the same universe later, whilst I still had time. Think of this as a bucket list read, then.
So what do we have here? On the face of it, a simple story. Severian is an apprentice torturer, of the Guild of Torturers in the great Citadel in the city of Nessus, which may be somewhere in South America or possibly South Africa. He may be destined for high office in the Guild, until the day he betrays the Guild and allows one of those committed to them to be subjected to excruciations to take her own life and thus escape her fate. For this, he is expelled from the Guild; but it is politically convenient for him to be sent to the distant city of Thrax, where he would take up his duties as their resident torturer and so expiate his guilt to the Guild. This first book tells Severian's story up to the point where he reaches the gate in the city wall of Nessus.
You will gather from that description that we are not looking at a high-powered, thrill-a-minute adventure story. Neither are we talking about a novel of horror, despite the title, though there are accounts of Severian's trade which discuss the calling of torturer with some degree of professional detachment. Rather, we are shown the society of the city of Nessus, its inhabitants, and get an insight into what living in such a society might be like. Along the way, we have the benefit of Severian's inner musings; he is telling his tale in hindsight, reflecting on his history. Severian is not a cruel man - indeed, if he were, he would not have been allowed to become a torturer, for torturers are not allowed to take pleasure in their work - but he gives clues that he may be an unreliable witness.
But if there is little action (though the story does advance in terms of the people Severian meets and the situations he gets into - fighting a duel, falling in love, carrying out an execution and starring in a play), the description of the setting is memorable. The city seems huge to Severian and its ways strange, he having been sequestered in the Citadel for most of his life; so he is something of an innocent abroad, and everything is new to him. And above all that, the dying sun casts its feeble light. The descriptions of the scenes and settings are reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast', but this is a sombre setting, its colours and shadows reminiscent of the English painter Joseph Wright, renowned for his canvasses of contrast between light and shade.
I enjoyed this start to my re-read, and am looking forward to the next volume in the series, 'The Claw of the Conciliator'.
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a distant future when the sun is dying and human civilizations have lost all sense of time. We don't find this out immediately, but Wolfe's world-building is so clever that he gradually gives us clues as to where we are, both in space and time. Humanity has been to the stars and come back, and mainly forgotten what it did out there. So despite what looks like a classic fantasy setting, despite there being figures with swords and archaic speech, the reader has to keep alert, because references to 'pistols' almost certainly mean energy weapons, and 'ship' may refer to a vessel on the water or one travelling to distant suns.The first time I read it, I seem to remember not really grasping the objective of the book, and the power and achievement of the author only sank in as I progressed through its sequels in the series making up 'The Book of the New Sun'. But that was more than 35 years ago. Recently, I was browsing some back issues of an academic journal and came across a series of papers on Gene Wolfe and his novels; and I thought perhaps I'd better revisit these books, and catch up with what else he'd written in the same universe later, whilst I still had time. Think of this as a bucket list read, then.
So what do we have here? On the face of it, a simple story. Severian is an apprentice torturer, of the Guild of Torturers in the great Citadel in the city of Nessus, which may be somewhere in South America or possibly South Africa. He may be destined for high office in the Guild, until the day he betrays the Guild and allows one of those committed to them to be subjected to excruciations to take her own life and thus escape her fate. For this, he is expelled from the Guild; but it is politically convenient for him to be sent to the distant city of Thrax, where he would take up his duties as their resident torturer and so expiate his guilt to the Guild. This first book tells Severian's story up to the point where he reaches the gate in the city wall of Nessus.
You will gather from that description that we are not looking at a high-powered, thrill-a-minute adventure story. Neither are we talking about a novel of horror, despite the title, though there are accounts of Severian's trade which discuss the calling of torturer with some degree of professional detachment. Rather, we are shown the society of the city of Nessus, its inhabitants, and get an insight into what living in such a society might be like. Along the way, we have the benefit of Severian's inner musings; he is telling his tale in hindsight, reflecting on his history. Severian is not a cruel man - indeed, if he were, he would not have been allowed to become a torturer, for torturers are not allowed to take pleasure in their work - but he gives clues that he may be an unreliable witness.
But if there is little action (though the story does advance in terms of the people Severian meets and the situations he gets into - fighting a duel, falling in love, carrying out an execution and starring in a play), the description of the setting is memorable. The city seems huge to Severian and its ways strange, he having been sequestered in the Citadel for most of his life; so he is something of an innocent abroad, and everything is new to him. And above all that, the dying sun casts its feeble light. The descriptions of the scenes and settings are reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast', but this is a sombre setting, its colours and shadows reminiscent of the English painter Joseph Wright, renowned for his canvasses of contrast between light and shade.
I enjoyed this start to my re-read, and am looking forward to the next volume in the series, 'The Claw of the Conciliator'.
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LibraryThing member DRFP
I found this a frustrating book that's not nearly as clever as it wishes it were (Wolfe's note in the appendix about the difficulty of translating Severian's writing from, "a tongue that has not yet achieved existence," is the clearest indication of the author's pretension). Jackkane notes in
For a fantasy (or science fantasy) novel this is also a surprisingly dull read. I don't need great action and quests in my fantasy (I think Tehanu as good as any of the Earthsea novels, for instance) but really very little in the way of excitement happens here. The section in the Botanic Gardens was far too long, there are number of literary dead ends, which I feel do not serve to add mood but only to stroke Wolfe's authorial ego; and, to be honest, I couldn't help but snigger when the "climax" of the novel (if it can be called that) is a fearsome duel with leaves.
I read through to the end but I wasn't impressed. I'm willing to give the second novel a chance but if it's not markedly better I won't stick around for the second half of the series.
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another review below many of the clichés that litter the book. Wolfe's attempt to seem smart with his use of unfathomable words is a distraction at best and an annoyance at worst. I don't mind the author trying to have a unique voice, what with the first person narrative and the in-world diction, but too often it feels as if Wolfe is trying too hard towards that end.For a fantasy (or science fantasy) novel this is also a surprisingly dull read. I don't need great action and quests in my fantasy (I think Tehanu as good as any of the Earthsea novels, for instance) but really very little in the way of excitement happens here. The section in the Botanic Gardens was far too long, there are number of literary dead ends, which I feel do not serve to add mood but only to stroke Wolfe's authorial ego; and, to be honest, I couldn't help but snigger when the "climax" of the novel (if it can be called that) is a fearsome duel with leaves.
I read through to the end but I wasn't impressed. I'm willing to give the second novel a chance but if it's not markedly better I won't stick around for the second half of the series.
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LibraryThing member cshoughton
I suspect I don't read enough trash fantasy to always catch when Wolfe is playing around with the familiar tropes, but I was all too aware of him toying with my general expectations as a reader. That's fine. I didn't take it personally whenever the narrative dropped out underneath me and I thumbed
What I did mind was the passivity of the narrator. Severian gets blown around the city by Wolfe. I liked that the few real decisions the character makes tend to be piss-poor. That's fun. But still, plot follows character, and in this book Severian doesn't have any idea what he wants. Instead of complaining about the lack of plot post-guild (or praising it as some post-genre fic advanced structure), I'll just say that the story structure suits Severian.
There's a lot I liked in this book. The details were captivating. I loved Terminus Est with its liquid core, and I'll never forget the height of the city walls or the cringe-worthy descriptions of the spiky flower weapon plant thingy. Despite the original print date, many of the ideas in this book are still fresh.
Then again, some old ideas get roughed up pretty hard. One is love. I get that the narrator knows nothing of love or women. That's fine. He can be as unreliable as Wolfe likes, but it's still the writer's job to eventually make it clear through observable action that the narrator is dribbling bull-shit. I also have to say that even if Wolfe's women are intentionally written as shallow two-dimensional jigsaws of body parts and unknowable fancies (at least when seen through Severian's eyes), it's painful stuff to read.
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around for a missing page that never existed. What I did mind was the passivity of the narrator. Severian gets blown around the city by Wolfe. I liked that the few real decisions the character makes tend to be piss-poor. That's fun. But still, plot follows character, and in this book Severian doesn't have any idea what he wants. Instead of complaining about the lack of plot post-guild (or praising it as some post-genre fic advanced structure), I'll just say that the story structure suits Severian.
There's a lot I liked in this book. The details were captivating. I loved Terminus Est with its liquid core, and I'll never forget the height of the city walls or the cringe-worthy descriptions of the spiky flower weapon plant thingy. Despite the original print date, many of the ideas in this book are still fresh.
Then again, some old ideas get roughed up pretty hard. One is love. I get that the narrator knows nothing of love or women. That's fine. He can be as unreliable as Wolfe likes, but it's still the writer's job to eventually make it clear through observable action that the narrator is dribbling bull-shit. I also have to say that even if Wolfe's women are intentionally written as shallow two-dimensional jigsaws of body parts and unknowable fancies (at least when seen through Severian's eyes), it's painful stuff to read.
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LibraryThing member jackkane
I expected better of Wolfe's work, because of its reputation. In the end, I realized I was reading another fantasy book about a young male protagonist who is a member of an exotic cabal, possessed of a magical sword, an irresistible chick magnet, the chosen one of various prophesies, the owner of a
The writing is satisfying. Wolfe infuses his book with a fitting legendary tone that elevates drab encounters into scenes that would fit in a collection of myths. Neologisms abound, and while most are easily decipherable, some seem to function only as touches of color, in which role they work well.
Wolfe's world left me unsatisfied. Urth felt like a collage of weird paintings, rather than a contiguous place. Most characters were barely introduced, and are likely to reappear in the following books in a play of the Deux Ex machina.
I don't intend to finish the series. I can recommend 'The Shadow of the Torturer' as an adequate fantasy/mystery novel, but I don't think the book is a classic.
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magical artifact, the fortunate benefactor of mysterious superpowers, who undertakes an epic journey to attain his destiny and become a king.The writing is satisfying. Wolfe infuses his book with a fitting legendary tone that elevates drab encounters into scenes that would fit in a collection of myths. Neologisms abound, and while most are easily decipherable, some seem to function only as touches of color, in which role they work well.
Wolfe's world left me unsatisfied. Urth felt like a collage of weird paintings, rather than a contiguous place. Most characters were barely introduced, and are likely to reappear in the following books in a play of the Deux Ex machina.
I don't intend to finish the series. I can recommend 'The Shadow of the Torturer' as an adequate fantasy/mystery novel, but I don't think the book is a classic.
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
Dull. Frankly disappointing for something that is supposed to be one of the classic's of the genre. It has it moments, but spends far too much time wandering around the point, showing off the landscape without any actual plot happening.
Severain is a boy growing up in the guild of torturers in a
The prose itself is intelligent and easily readable, despite the lathering of obscure words - some of which the author admists in the Afterword to having made up for no reason. But the characters are not interesting. Severain who could at the least have suffered some moral quams over his role of torturer or executioner, doesn't. Not even in it's my job style, he just doens't think of it, neither do his two companions.
There is a lot of potential here, and back when it was written maybe it could have been a significant milestone. But these days it is just labored, badly foreshadowed, contrived, unnecessarily convoluted adn dull. I put it odwn several times because looking at my phone was more interesting. AT times I skimmed through paragraghs of drivel, mostly Severain attemptin to describe the obvious, moaning, or pages of random dream sequences that bore no relation to anything at all.
Don't bother. I certainly shan't be reading the remaining 4 books! Gods another 4 whole books of this diatribe. Being tortured would be nicer.
Severain is a boy growing up in the guild of torturers in a
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Citadel on part of a archaic planet that might have had an interetsing past. But we don't get to hear about it. It seems like it's a future centuries after humanity left Earth, but now long ost to the spacefaring technology and reverted back to standard fantasy style trappings. All of which is cometely irrelevant to the plot, such as it is, and the tiny hints fdropped here and there just confuse or tantalise the reader. There are various other guilds and a more elite upper class as well as a working class, but again explanations aren't forthcoming. Serverain eventually commits a gross breech of guild rules by killing someone and is exiled. He gets to explore the surrounding City in a longwinded way in the compnay of two women. None of them are interesting, and the reasons for his doing so are completely contrived. The City could have been interesting, but proves to be merely disjointed. Again contrvensions of physical laws are unexplained, not in a this is how my world works kind of way, but in a this is a weird thing I thought of so I stuffed it in here way. Which doesn't work. The prose itself is intelligent and easily readable, despite the lathering of obscure words - some of which the author admists in the Afterword to having made up for no reason. But the characters are not interesting. Severain who could at the least have suffered some moral quams over his role of torturer or executioner, doesn't. Not even in it's my job style, he just doens't think of it, neither do his two companions.
There is a lot of potential here, and back when it was written maybe it could have been a significant milestone. But these days it is just labored, badly foreshadowed, contrived, unnecessarily convoluted adn dull. I put it odwn several times because looking at my phone was more interesting. AT times I skimmed through paragraghs of drivel, mostly Severain attemptin to describe the obvious, moaning, or pages of random dream sequences that bore no relation to anything at all.
Don't bother. I certainly shan't be reading the remaining 4 books! Gods another 4 whole books of this diatribe. Being tortured would be nicer.
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LibraryThing member SwampIrish
Smart and brisk. The prose is interesting if not always altogether clear. The sci-fi elements are surprising when they are dropped into the narrative but are really vague.
LibraryThing member mrtall
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun saga kicks off with this excellent first installment.
As usual, Wolfe immerses the reader in a vivid, haunting alternative world -- his ability to mix epic sweep with minutely detailed set pieces that jump off the page and into the imagination is unparalleled.
The
Highly recommended.
As usual, Wolfe immerses the reader in a vivid, haunting alternative world -- his ability to mix epic sweep with minutely detailed set pieces that jump off the page and into the imagination is unparalleled.
The
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star attraction here is, well, the star attraction, i.e. Severian, the young apprentice torturer who's tormented himself by the burden of total recall. Even though this installment takes us only a quarter of the way through this four-part story, Severian's character is already unforgettable.Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Sunyidean
On the book itself, I doubt I will be able to say more than others have (certainly I won't say it any better). There are reams of deconstructive groups, books, essays, etc.
What I will say is this - Gene Wolfe is everything that modern readers are being taught to hate - subtle, thoughtful,
Increasingly the writing advice I see being given to authors and editors alike is to basically write/edit everything in super active phrasing at the expense of actual prose, and to create a series of hooks with an incoherent plot (ie Frozen, Tomb Raider in films; Name of the Wind in Patrick Rothfuss) because this sells better despite a total lack of payoff. But hey, who cares, because you sold a million copies and you're the next Dan fucking Brown or 50 Shades of Shite.
I respect Gene Wolfe for not treating his readers like they're incurably stupid, and being self-assured enough to not worry that at times he provokes a bit of a marmite reaction. To the book itself - I loved it, even if I'm not clever enough to get every reference, or to follow every argument.
What I will say is this - Gene Wolfe is everything that modern readers are being taught to hate - subtle, thoughtful,
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introspective, unusual. He breaks all the rules because most of the rules probably don't matter; you really can do what you like as long as you do it well, in writing.Increasingly the writing advice I see being given to authors and editors alike is to basically write/edit everything in super active phrasing at the expense of actual prose, and to create a series of hooks with an incoherent plot (ie Frozen, Tomb Raider in films; Name of the Wind in Patrick Rothfuss) because this sells better despite a total lack of payoff. But hey, who cares, because you sold a million copies and you're the next Dan fucking Brown or 50 Shades of Shite.
I respect Gene Wolfe for not treating his readers like they're incurably stupid, and being self-assured enough to not worry that at times he provokes a bit of a marmite reaction. To the book itself - I loved it, even if I'm not clever enough to get every reference, or to follow every argument.
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LibraryThing member wvlibrarydude
Difficult to say what I think about this book. Lots of depth in imagery, language and narration. Reading other reviews, I understand that one needs to read all 4 books, to really appreciate. I'm determined to do so.
LibraryThing member jeffjardine
The Shadow Of The Torturer has received a lot of critical acclaim. Wolfe is a fine writer and he has assembled a complex and intriguing setting here. It is an immersive and mysterious world. Unfortunately, the characters just didn't grab me for the most part. The main character's interactions with
Maybe things are woven together in the rest of the books in the series. I doubt I'll ever find out. As much as I would like to further explore Wolfe's world, I can't gather up enough interest in the story to convince myself to continue. Maybe it's the symbolism that doesn't sit well. Who knows. I can understand the appeal of the book - it's just not for me.
Also, I *loathe* dream sequences. "Here is a bunch of fantastical exposition somehow related to the plot (because why else would it be included)! Ignore, for the moment, that in reality dreams are nothing but random blather and take my word for it (I'm an *author* after all) that THIS dream is MEANINGFUL and it's up to YOU to DECIPHER it! Indulge me! Whee!!"
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women were particularly off-putting. The line of the plot doesn't just have dangling threads, it is frayed along its entire length. Plenty of things are happening and few appear to have much to do with the progression of the story.Maybe things are woven together in the rest of the books in the series. I doubt I'll ever find out. As much as I would like to further explore Wolfe's world, I can't gather up enough interest in the story to convince myself to continue. Maybe it's the symbolism that doesn't sit well. Who knows. I can understand the appeal of the book - it's just not for me.
Also, I *loathe* dream sequences. "Here is a bunch of fantastical exposition somehow related to the plot (because why else would it be included)! Ignore, for the moment, that in reality dreams are nothing but random blather and take my word for it (I'm an *author* after all) that THIS dream is MEANINGFUL and it's up to YOU to DECIPHER it! Indulge me! Whee!!"
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LibraryThing member ForeverMasterless
Some of the most masterful world-building I have ever had the pleasure to read is weighed down significantly by the absence of a clear plot; an unsympathetic protagonist, and shallow female characters. I was sucked into the world of the story, but not the story itself. This book had the sense of
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being a setup to something better, and there were enough elements that contrigued (confused but intrigued) me that I'm willing to see what book two has to offer...eventually. At some point. Hopefully it has a more interesting story to tell than this one did. Show Less
LibraryThing member lyrrael
The tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim -- and follows his subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.
So this week may not have been the
SO. I read the first half of this pre-drama, enjoyed it but didn’t really look too closely at it, which I gather is not the way to read this book. Then drama happened, I took a day or two off from reading, and came back to it a bit lost. I gulped the second half of the book down today with the frequent periodic outbursts of a video gamer cursing at his game coming from my husband, and I totally did not understand the significance of anything that happened. Woo. From about where we met Dr. Talos, I felt like the whole story took a loop for the genuinely odd, and while I got the greater riffs of the story I don’t really see what was so significant about them or whether I should continue on. Sigh.
So this week may not have been the
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appropriate week to read this book. Like, by a long shot. This week may have even been one where I’d have had trouble digesting something simple and YAey since we had lots of family drama, which usually (and this time, too) leads me to indulge in weird daytime TV that mostly involves HGTV and little else. SO. I read the first half of this pre-drama, enjoyed it but didn’t really look too closely at it, which I gather is not the way to read this book. Then drama happened, I took a day or two off from reading, and came back to it a bit lost. I gulped the second half of the book down today with the frequent periodic outbursts of a video gamer cursing at his game coming from my husband, and I totally did not understand the significance of anything that happened. Woo. From about where we met Dr. Talos, I felt like the whole story took a loop for the genuinely odd, and while I got the greater riffs of the story I don’t really see what was so significant about them or whether I should continue on. Sigh.
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LibraryThing member ragwaine
So much for being a fantasy classic. I'm reading the blurbs of praise on the back of this thinking, "What? Are they talking about the same book that I just read?" I'm really trying to think of nice things to say but "I got nutin'". I guess it does make me want to know what happens next since really
The story was incredibly slow. The characters were boring (except for Dr. Talos and the big guy but they were only in the story for a very short time). Every woman that appeared in the story (besides the crones) was a complete sex object as if someone had set Piers Anthony loose in a girls only college dorm.
The entire plot seemed like just some small side trek that got stretched into half a novel (the other half being the boring background story of life in the guild).
To make things worse I left the book at my doctor's, then they couldn't find it so I had to buy another copy of a book I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like (because I was already half way through). The good thing is that I can now get rid of the 10+ Gene Wolfe books I have. They might be good but I'd rather take a chance on some other author.
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the adventure "has just begun". But really I can't imagine torturing myself through more of the same.The story was incredibly slow. The characters were boring (except for Dr. Talos and the big guy but they were only in the story for a very short time). Every woman that appeared in the story (besides the crones) was a complete sex object as if someone had set Piers Anthony loose in a girls only college dorm.
The entire plot seemed like just some small side trek that got stretched into half a novel (the other half being the boring background story of life in the guild).
To make things worse I left the book at my doctor's, then they couldn't find it so I had to buy another copy of a book I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like (because I was already half way through). The good thing is that I can now get rid of the 10+ Gene Wolfe books I have. They might be good but I'd rather take a chance on some other author.
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LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn
This book was everything I heard it would be: mysterious, thought provoking, full of allegory, cryptic, and a tool for exercising my imagination. I am glad I read it now, while I'm in my 30's, rather than my high school Star Wars fiction years, when I would have no tolerance for such obscure
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linguistic riddles. Thanks college for toughening me up. My current motivation spawned from reading through the new Monte Cook RPG book Numenera. Cook cites The New Sun series as the major inspiration for his game setting. That's when I said to myself "Well, I guess its time I took this on." And I'm glad I did. The other series of books that instantly remind me of Gene Wolfe's style is The Gormenghast Series by Mervyn Peake. Both have that strange and weird sense of unhealthy otherness going on. It's creepy. Not like Lovecraft creepy, but more like "inevitable future of doom" creepy and I can't get enough of it. I look forward to reading the rest of this series. Show Less
LibraryThing member ivan.frade
Too many words to say too little. The plot can be summarized in a couple of lines and the futuristic world, although intriguing and with a lot of possibilities, is not explained nor developed at all.
The story goes as by chance, moving randomly, so even when the book has some good ideas and few
The story goes as by chance, moving randomly, so even when the book has some good ideas and few
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brilliant scenes, as a whole doesn't work. Too many superfluous pages. Show Less
LibraryThing member Karlstar
Shadow of the Torturer is unique in tone and setting. Its not every book that has a torturer for a hero. Severian is just a good civil servant trying to do his job, but he's in over his head and doesn't know it. Urth is similar in scope and feel to Silverberg's Majipoor, but a bit cheerless. A
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fantasy classic. Show Less
LibraryThing member Phrim
The Shadow of the Torturer tells a fairly commonplace story about a naive boy who goes out into the world for the first time, and is immediately duped by a pretty lady who wants to rob him blind (or in this case, dead), only to be saved by some sort of mystical power. What makes this book stand out
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is that a) the main character, Severian, is a professional torturer/executioner, and b) the setting is completely bizarre--I guess one would classify it as an "urban fantasy" setting, but very little is familiar to the reader, and Wolfe uses incredibly obscure language to reinforce this. While Severian was a likable enough character, he never really seemed to exhibit any agency in his own story--events just seemed to happen, and he was along for the ride. Throughout the book, I found it somewhat difficult to follow what was going on, and a little difficult to care. Still, it was interesting enough, and I look forward to see where Wolfe is going with this. Show Less
LibraryThing member coffeesucker
Wow! This is an incredible book!
LibraryThing member Lyndatrue
This burst on the SF scene like raging thunder. It became the first of four (I refuse to admit any others exist), and kept me haunting the bookstores for the next three.
Subjects
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1980)
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 1981)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist — 1981)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1981)
Gigamesh Award (1990)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1980
Physical description
343 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
9788445070963
Other editions
Sombra del Torturador, La (Spanish Edition) by Gene Wolfe (Paperback)