The Claw of the Conciliator

What an excellent book but a challenging read. I find it interesting how challenge does not preclude enjoyment. I think that is true of many things in life: Those things that we enjoy most deeply were often challenges that we met. The book series, The Book of the New Sun is like that: challenging to read but deeply satisfying.

Similar to The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator can be confusing to read because dreams and reality seem to blend with each other. Complicating this further is that Severian, the protagonist (is he the good guy? I am not yet sure about that.) participates in a ceremony that grants him memories of someone who has died. Thus, it can be a challenge distinguishing Severian's dreams and other's show more memories from what he recollects actually happened to him. I was using a couple of excellent reading blogs that are available on the web that discuss this book, but I stopped because I found they were interfering with my enjoyment of the book. I was trying too hard to understand what was going on when I think that the actual intention of [[Gene Wolfe]] was that we, the reader, should be confused while reading this book. I think Wolfe wanted us experience what Severian experienced which is often confusion for him. Once I stopped trying so hard to understand what was going on and simply let the narrative flow through me it became an even more engrossing book. What this means, reading it this way, is that it will be ripe for a deeper re-read in the future. I like books like that. I'm looking forward to reading Sword and Citadel, the follow-up to The Claw of the Conciliator. And then once I have completed this series that encompasses The Book of the New Sun, I'll finish it off by reading The Urth of the New Sun. So much reading to look forward to! I love it! show less

Here, we follow the journey of Severian through this strange world. The book begins on a confusing note, as some time has passed, and the reader has no idea what happened to his former companions (I actually had to go back and check to make sure this was in fact the second book). While Severian is a first-person narrator, his motivations are oddly unguessable. He seems somewhat loyal to the Guild, but at one point says that his vows don't mean anything and seems in no hurry to get to Thrax. He is recruited by his childhood hero, Vodalus, but immediately claims he has no intention of carrying out Vodalus's mission (and only does so by accident). He states that finding the Pelerines is a goal, but doesn't display any urgency there, show more either. Rather, I kind of get the impression that I'm watching someone play an adventure-style computer game, with lots of "what happens if I do this?" moments, and more poking around than advancing the plot. It's kind of a strange experience. show less

Welcome to Conan the Librarian set in the far, far distant future as he lops off heads, resurrects the dead, watches creation-epic plays, and misunderstands the meaning of the universe.

Sound interesting? I've got a claw here I'd like to sell you. It comes with about three tomes of myth references couched deeply in imagery, an insistence on making us think that we must, actually, be living in a disjointed dream, and admittedly damn awesome world-building taking Clarke's maxim to the max but letting us flounder about just as much as Severian our hapless executioner/tomekeeper.

This book is what I consider a *Difficult Reading Experience*, in the same way that any book that prefers to be overflowing with myth references can be, thoroughly show more confusing the reader if you're not reading the text on that level and probably confusing the hell out of the reader even if you are.

In that respect, this is probably a worse book than the first, which at least had a fairly comprehensible plot, character development, and fairly easy progression.

On the other hand, this one had some shockingly great action scenes that led to Severian's capture, reconfirmation within the ranks, a descent into the underworld, a jaunt with the morlocks, and a quiet season at the playhouse. With witches.

There is a lot to love, but I can't help but think that I'm missing a great portion of it. That which I do get, from Adam and Eve to Ulysses to the bucketful of archetypes, seems incomprehensible in terms of plot progression.

Except... And because I haven't done any additional research or read any scholarly works on this far future SF, this is only a slight and weird intuition on my part... I get the feeling that the far future, not only having colonized the universe and having conquered space AND time, they have also conquered the role of observation upon the continuum, and beyond that, are able to slip and slide along the slope of Metaphor Made Reality.

What does this mean? It means, in a very serious way, that our distant descendants are able to make their Jungian collective unconsciousness mix with the physical reality of the universe, limited only to what knowledge gets preserved over the ages and it is NOT quite functional. I think, in this case, it's tied to the Claw of the Conciliator, and because it's only Severian who's using it, I think we can blame all of this horrible mess on him.

Reasonable, right?

He's the one with the hodge-podge education, and everyone else in the world is swirling around and being modified right down to their experiences and memories as he goes along on his Grand Quest.

It's the only way that my poor abused mind can make sense of this wonderful, difficult, beautiful, crazy work.

Or maybe the worm eating the sun has finally finished the core, allowing it to collapse like rotten fruit, JUST LIKE MY BRAIN.

I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to make the judgement call. :) show less

I still don't get the appeal. It's increasingly sunk cost driving me on to understand when the payoff happens, with the ever increasing dread that no such reveal awaits. A flash of future premonition as I kneel in terror beneath a signpost that says "it's not the destination, it's the journey".

So far I’m giving this series 4.5 stars for story structure and worldbuilding, and zero stars for the unrelenting misogyny. Reading with a group helps carry me along, but I have to take a step back every time the narrating character digresses into his views on gender and the sheer horniness he projects on every female character that walks through a scene.

I get it’s a “classic.” The story craft is definitely interesting and worth my time, but the way women are portrayed makes me want to vomit.

We continue to follow the torturer Severian on his journey to take up the position of Lictor of the city of Thrax. Along the way, we meet characters old and new, lose them, meet up with them again, and find out strange things about Severian, his travelling companions and the world of the far-future Urth.

This second volume in the series does not take up where the previous one left off; there is a gap in the narrative, and for a while it seems that some characters have gotten lost in that gap. But we continue to follow Severian in his travels. On the way, we re-encounter the rebel leader Vodalus; Severian has an other-worldly encounter with his lost love Thecla, whose death set him on this road; and we enter the House Absolute, palace of show more the Autarch. We meet again with Dr.Talos, the giant Baldanders and their troupe of travelling players, and we get to watch their play - which, it has to be said, makes as much sense to us as a modern soap opera would make to a person from Elizabethan times.

This is my first re-read of The Book of the New Sun for more than thirty years; I am finding so much more in this book and the others in the series than I suspected on first reading. I am sure that there is more for me to find; it is quite possible to read the series with a concordance at your side, looking up all the strange and unfamiliar words. But I think that would spoil the pacing and the atmosphere. I continue to enjoy the series, burning through this book in a few days the way I did with The Shadow of the Torturer, because I want to see more wonders! show less

This is the second volume in Wolfe's tetralogy "Book of the New Sun". In the first volume, lead character Severian starts out as an apprentice torturer and it's not a spoiler to say he ends up as the ruler of a continent (the Autarch) in the final volume. These books are his memoirs, written from the seat of power.

The setting is our world of perhaps thousands of years hence. Space travel had once been common, as had contact with extraterrestrial races. Now there is no more space travel, and we're stranded on "Urth", along with the remnants of alien races we've brought here, which have in some cases been genetically spliced with humans. The world under the dying sun is by turns beautiful and harsh.

But to describe this series in terms of show more run-of-the-mill science fiction does it a great disservice. This is high literature. It's multilayered and is susceptible to different interpretations and meanings. Severian is an unreliable narrator, and often it seems there is more mystery in the tale than revelation. Speaking of Revelation, one way to look at it is as a Christian allegory. There are stories within stories. Wheels within wheels.

It's the kind of book that affects your dreams. I can't praise it highly enough. show less