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I thought the Children were separate to the natives I assumed the Children had previously been human because that's the shape the natives appeared to take in the story and the Shadow Children refer to the natives modelling themselves on how the Children were when they arrived and were at the height of their power. That short story was itself from a very unreliable source however and of course my memory could be off edit: on another Children-related note, in Citadel of the Autarch one of the troops mustered by the Ascians is made up of dwarves riding on the shoulders of giants, directing and controlling them. were it any other author i'd assume it's just an idea rehash, but with Wolfe you have to think they could be Shadow Children in however many hundreds of thousands to millions of years. i do not think earth and the moon (which is green in the New Sun) are anne and croix though. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 08:42
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Sorry if I wasn't clear, but yeah I agree the natives and children are different. There are a lot of parallels between St Anne and St Croix in Fifth Head and Blue and Green from Short Sun (I'm at the part where Horn first encounters a Neighbor), but Gene Wolfe has gone on record saying they're not the same planets. But can you really trust him?
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Jan 5, 2018 14:34
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There's a somewhat convincing theory out there that (major possible Short Sun spoilers, seriously don't look unless you don't care about having much of the mystery possibly revealed) Green is the future Urth/Ushas and Blue is...something else, maybe Mars/Verthandi. I think the idea is that the Whorl was always intended to make a circular journey and return Typhon to power via Silk after the New Sun had come. Severian bringing the New Sun had major consequences for the solar system, shifting planetary allignments and such. The Inhumi are what humanity eventually ended up as, maybe the eventual result of the green man's evolutionary line. Look for Marc Aramini's stuff if you want to read more, he wrote like 200 pages about this. I don't know if I buy it at all but it does bring the solar cycle full-circle and link BOTNS with LS and SS in a very tragic way. Aramini says he sent his original 'Blue is Urth' theory to Wolfe and he replied that 'no, Green is Urth' which may or may not be actual evidence. Wolfe's tricky and I wouldn't trust that he would just say that...
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Jan 5, 2018 16:41
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my bony fealty posted:There's a somewhat convincing theory out there that (major possible Short Sun spoilers, seriously don't look unless you don't care about having much of the mystery possibly revealed) Green is the future Urth/Ushas and Blue is...something else, maybe Mars/Verthandi. I think the idea is that the Whorl was always intended to make a circular journey and return Typhon to power via Silk after the New Sun had come. Severian bringing the New Sun had major consequences for the solar system, shifting planetary allignments and such. The Inhumi are what humanity eventually ended up as, maybe the eventual result of the green man's evolutionary line. Here's Aramini's write-up in full https://pastebin.com/3Rz644i0 in case anyone else wants to read. It's long but pretty easy to follow. I think he's fairly close to the mark with his thoughts on the relationship between the neighbours / inhumi / trees / vines. I need a re-read to comment on the planets situation. I didn't think the spirit travel went through time, but he does, and that's one of the important assumptions of his theory.
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Jan 6, 2018 04:39
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Even if they were Ushas and Lune, it wouldn't mean they were those we spent BotNS on. The Severian encountered is, I think, not ours, but one from a previous iteration of the universe. The tell as to that I remember is Severian saying he'd never include them in a book he wrote because no one would believe him. I remember pausing at that - really, Severian, given the other poo poo in there? There are others that are a bit too foggy to remember - maybe Triskele being alive when he shouldn't have been? So this could mean the Short and Long Sun are from a prior creation. Which would kind of make sense, for the NEW Sun to post date the Short and Long Suns. As I said though, I thought the evidence was too scant to say Blue was Ushas.
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Jan 6, 2018 09:07
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I like the alzabo soup guys well enough, but I seriously wish they'd stop mapping every single thing onto "the virgin/whore" idea. I also think their secularism causes them to misread certain scenes. Like, I don't think the scene in the gardens where we encounter the missionaries is a "critique" of missionary activity.
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Jan 7, 2018 21:55
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Agreed. Nor do I think a reference to a Freudian idea is because Freud applied his notions too broadly and was 'colonising' ideaspace. The guy with the theatre background is worse about this.
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Jan 8, 2018 11:27
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CountFosco posted:I like the alzabo soup guys well enough, but I seriously wish they'd stop mapping every single thing onto "the virgin/whore" idea. I haven't heard the lastest episode so I'll be cynical and suspend judgment for know. But the Virgin whore thing is usually one of those things that people bring up and then you end up filling a million edges off every female character in order to fit them in one of the two categories to prove...something? Honestly it usually is one of those things where people miss the point by a mile and ironically end up deny female characters there own agency in the story cause they're too busy trying to talk about how make characters see them, they never bother to bring up what purpose they serve outside that. I feel like a lot of my judgement against alzabo guys is gonna rest in their analysis of Dorcas, who I feel is a strong character with development and her own motives but a more surface level viewing of her would miss them.
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Jan 8, 2018 12:46
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Gaius Marius posted:I haven't heard the lastest episode so I'll be cynical and suspend judgment for know. But the Virgin whore thing is usually one of those things that people bring up and then you end up filling a million edges off every female character in order to fit them in one of the two categories to prove...something? Honestly it usually is one of those things where people miss the point by a mile and ironically end up deny female characters there own agency in the story cause they're too busy trying to talk about how make characters see them, they never bother to bring up what purpose they serve outside that. I feel like a lot of my judgement against alzabo guys is gonna rest in their analysis of Dorcas, who I feel is a strong character with development and her own motives but a more surface level viewing of her would miss them. Dorcas v Jolenta are an extremely virgin/whore pairing. Thecla is more complicated, I guess.
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Jan 8, 2018 13:18
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Eh, I think it's a legit question as long as you realize it's Severian making this distinction, not Wolfe.
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Jan 8, 2018 13:21
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Hammer Bro. posted:I think this was what I read. Glancing at it again there are some pretty tenuous arguments, but some things still resonate with me, so it'll make the next reread more interesting. I love this, haha - some of it seems really reaching but y'know, who knows? quote:There's the clue of the werewolf's "swift loping walk, even in women." (p. 206). Margaret bobs along (p. 59). Does any other female character have a unique walk described? A lope and a bob are...plausibly similar? I do like the Margaret as future-Cassie idea. There's too much hinted at with the letters from Woldercan arriving before they're sent to not have some sort of time shenanigans involved in the main plot. And I'd have to read it again, but there's the bit near the end where old Cassie passes Margaret in the street and it feels, to me the reader, like the latter intentionally does not recognize the former. Hammer Bro. posted:I originally had the impression and never felt the reason to question it that it was Gideon's magic wearing off. They talk a fair bit about how changing upward is much more difficult to do and maintain than slipping downward. I figured it was either a return to how she should've been after the life she'd lived or maybe a little extra downward slide. I thought more about this and it occurred to me that Gideon's magic going away is definitely exactly what's happening - because of Jolenta in BOTNS. Not to say it isn't evident from just the text, but it's a very clear example of Wolfe using similar themes and character transformations in different works, as he loves to do. It was pretty whack when SHARK GOD HANGA showed up in Evil Guest, like exactly the same character from "The Tree is my Hat." Maybe there's a shared Wolfe-verse that all his works take place in  Hammer Bro. posted:If you buy the interpretation of Sorcerer's House that much if not all of the supernatural is fabricated, which I do because it makes the work significantly more interesting, then it's not Wolfe being racist, it's Bax being incendiary toward George and Millie. I'm inclined to that interpretation too and it definitely makes more sense if Bax is the culprit. I should clarify that I don't think Wolfe is really being "racist," more so just lazy - he loves to do unique speech patterns so it follows that he'll give one to the Japanese computer personality, but it feels like he didn't actually bother to research what this would sound like and went for the boring "R pronounced like L." From a comment elsewhere: quote:A little note here: IF a japanese AI were to have an actual, japanese-based japanese accent (which might be because it can only talk in the hiragana writing system of syllables), it would say "artificial" not as "artificiar" but as "artificiaru". So stereotyping accents isn't even correctly done... Neurosis posted:Even if they were Ushas and Lune, it wouldn't mean they were those we spent BotNS on. The Severian encountered is, I think, not ours, but one from a previous iteration of the universe. The tell as to that I remember is Severian saying he'd never include them in a book he wrote because no one would believe him. I remember pausing at that - really, Severian, given the other poo poo in there? There are others that are a bit too foggy to remember - maybe Triskele being alive when he shouldn't have been? So this could mean the Short and Long Sun are from a prior creation. Which would kind of make sense, for the NEW Sun to post date the Short and Long Suns. That was my immediate thought too, it's a different universal cycle. Triskele and Merryn being present in the scenes don't mesh up with BOTNS's chronology. Which is even weirder, does that mean Severian didn't bring the new sun in this world? If so, how can Green be Urth? I gotta read that whole Aramini thing again.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:50
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The Alzabo guys do the virgin/whore thing as "this is how Severian sees women due to his upbringing." When they talk about Dorcas, they specifically mention stuff like "This challenges Severian's ability to keep her in the 'virgin' category when she puts his hand onto her breasts, but he can write it off because..." They mention several times that this is how Severian sees things, not Wolfe and not them.
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Jan 8, 2018 22:34
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angel opportunity posted:The Alzabo guys do the virgin/whore thing as "this is how Severian sees women due to his upbringing." iirc, when Dorcas meets up with him again she does give him a speech about how putting people into abstract categories can be very harmful in response to Dr. Talos identifying him as Death
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Jan 8, 2018 23:20
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Wait. Are you telling me Severian is kind of a poo poo head who doesn't have healthy or respectful relationships with or to women?
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Jan 9, 2018 02:31
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my bony fealty posted:
drat that does put a hole in the possibility. Is it definitely the case that Severian failed to bring the New Sun before? If not, it could be the importance of Severian in the BotNS universe is not only to bring the sun but to influence the remnant culture on Ushas so humans don't vanish or devolve. Not that it ultimately matters that much I suppose since I'm still not sold on Blue being Earth.
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Jan 9, 2018 03:12
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NecroMonster posted:Wait. Are you telling me Severian is kind of a poo poo head who doesn't have healthy or respectful relationships with or to women? The Torturer?!
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Jan 9, 2018 03:35
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sebmojo posted:The Torturer?! Bad news everyone: Severian, an apprentice Seeker for Truth and Penitence (also commonly known as the Guild of Torturers) is problematic
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Jan 9, 2018 18:35
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Flawed characters? In MY literature?!
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Jan 9, 2018 22:55
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Ccs posted:Flawed characters? In MY literature?! Being flawed just makes it more satisfying when he gets killed
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Jan 10, 2018 01:47
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You're going to be more specific about which time.
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Jan 10, 2018 16:49
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Writing first-person narrators who are shitheads is cool and Wolfe is great at it Wanna empathize with that torturer
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Jan 10, 2018 17:17
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I'm finally reading Book of the New Sun. It's not too much of a stretch for me to enjoy, having read Joe Abercrombie's books where the torturer is one of the most sympathetic characters. I don't buy for a second that Severian's memory is 100% accurate as he claims. Especially with the one digression early on that he might be insane and worries that he invented the whole incident with Vodalus.
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Jan 11, 2018 05:02
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my bony fealty posted:Writing first-person narrators who are shitheads is cool and Wolfe is great at it i'm rereading the wizard knight; the protagonist of that is one of wolfe's more sympathetic characters, all-in-all, but for the the first book he acts like an rear end in a top hat. many other characters are themselves assholes or it would be really offputting.
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Jan 11, 2018 11:09
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I read the whole BOTNS series like 3 years ago, and I just finished book 2 of my re-read. On my first read I really liked the atmosphere and the writing, and it was just enough to hold me and keep me reading...but it was just so confusing and overwhelming that I couldn't have said I super enjoyed it. The way the plot was structured, and especially the random stories and plays thrown in were just so disorienting that I rarely felt I had any real clue what was happening. Even if I did know what was happening I didn't really know why. For my re-read so far, book 1 felt almost crystal clear to me. I could tell exactly what was happening and the plot didn't really feel so odd to me anymore. I started to pick up on stuff and really enjoy the story this time around. The play at the end didn't feel so bad this time, as it was from Severian's perspective rather than just the script thrown onto a page. Book 2 started to get harder though. I had to look up online to see if I "missed" what happened after the gate. Googling confirmed that I missed nothing, he just skipped a big chunk of narrative. Severian's whole attitude toward Vodalus doesn't really make sense to me either. He spends all of book 1 and half of book 2 trying so hard to find anyone even remotely related to Vodalus so he can serve him, and then the moment he actually finds him he changes his mind with no real explanation. You could say that the whole alzabo thing puts him off, but still it just strikes me as something where you'd expect he'd dedicate some number of words to saying how he changed his mind on this. Yes, I can infer and guess at an explanation, but this is the type of thing that is making the series into a "hard read" again even on my re-read. The ape thing attack and the House Absolute scenes were much less confusing this time around. I pretty clearly followed what was happening, though I still have no real conception of what the House Absolute is beyond "a bunch of underground rooms under gardens." I at least understood the Antechamber pretty well this time, which I did not at all on the first read. I sort of followed what Jonas was, and his disappearing made sense to me this time around. On my first read my impression was they were talking and then he just disappeared out of nowhere with zero explanation. The second play though completely lost me. I'm listening to the audiobook this time, and there was no way for me to follow it. It's a script format which makes for pretty poor reading. I lost track of every single character and had basically no idea what was happening. It feels like I'd have to get the book out and re-read the play several times just to figure out what is going on. As much as I like the book I'm not going to do that right now. The ogre story he reads to Jonas was more comprehensible this time, but it also just didn't feel worth the break in narrative. These kind of thing are why I'd find it really hard to recommend this series to other people. The end scene with the witches and the weird time travel restoring the city thing was pretty hard to get around. It was kind of cool and made a lot more sense than last time, but it also kind of lost me either way, and I feel like I need to re-read that whole part again before I start book 3, especially if he's going to time jump again to add to the confusion. I think my overall issue with Wolfe in general is still what it has always been. It's not really an objective fault of Wolfe, but the fact that I just cannot get my head around how anyone would ever write this. Almost any other author I read, I can put myself in their shoes and understand why or how they wrote the book. This includes classic literature, literary fiction, and other "dense" reading. I guess it's similar to something like Ulysses where there is just no way I can fathom sitting down and writing it. With Wolfe though I can actually get close to parsing what is going on, but I can never figure out how he possibly decides to structure his plots the way he does, or decides to intentionally obfuscate certain basic elements of what is happening. It's the kind of thing where I feel like if you could somehow submit one of his books to a publisher who didn't know it was Wolfe, they would just dismiss you out of hand because they have no idea what is going on. This is all a big part of the appeal of Wolfe though. Even when I read books and short stories of his that didn't really get most of their meanings through to me, I could tell it was good somehow, and that it was somehow my fault for not getting it. I don't know if this is just part of Wolfe's reputation, or if I intuitively felt that. Whenever I get tempted to read a new book though, I get tempted to read Wolfe again, which is what got me re-reading BOTNS.
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Jan 11, 2018 17:29
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Neurosis posted:i'm rereading the wizard knight; the protagonist of that is one of wolfe's more sympathetic characters, all-in-all, but for the the first book he acts like an rear end in a top hat. many other characters are themselves assholes or it would be really offputting. I didn't like The Knight and was left feeling really dissatisfied at the end because Able REALLY SUCKS. Then some pages into The Wizard when dead Able comes back from chillin' with Odin it instantly clicked into place for me and I went "oooooooh." That was a neat trick: 20 years of character development happens completely off-screen and is only occasionally referenced later by Able. Now I love TWK, it's grand. angel opportunity posted:I read the whole BOTNS series like 3 years ago, and I just finished book 2 of my re-read. On my first read I really liked the atmosphere and the writing, and it was just enough to hold me and keep me reading...but it was just so confusing and overwhelming that I couldn't have said I super enjoyed it. The way the plot was structured, and especially the random stories and plays thrown in were just so disorienting that I rarely felt I had any real clue what was happening. Even if I did know what was happening I didn't really know why. Have you read Urth of the New Sun? It'll make some of this make a lot more sense, e.g. Apu-Punchau and wtf happened with the Witches at the end of Claw. Talos's play still befuddles me. I think I get the idea: it's a stylized version of a religious myth, stuck in the middle of the events that said myth is based on. Talos says he based it on the "lost" Book of the New Sun, which itself came from Concilliator-Severian telling Canog his story in Urth of the New Sun. The stories in the Brown Book are meant to get us in this mindset: They're mostly a mishmash of actual Earth myths and historical events; Talos's play is the same, but in the entirely fictional world of Urth. But as to what exactly in the play is supposed to map to what in the narrative, if it is, I've never given that much thought. I don't have any clue how Wolfe's creative process works or what's going on in his head when he writes, but I think Wolfe's biggest strength as a SF author is his ability to separate author from narrator: he really, truly makes an effort to write in the words of the characters he's invented. It's the opposite of that "what if all stories were written like science fiction" thing - typical SF explains way too much and feels like it's fiction written by someone coming up with spaceships and lasers in their heads, communicated to readers in the year 2018, not narrated by people who actually live in that world. Wolfe stories are cool because even on a surface level they're highly entertaining and well-written. If the reader wants to try and "unlock" the secret of what's actually going on, they're welcome to, but I don't think they have to to get a lot out of a Wolfe book. Short Sun, for example - I have no clue what the "real story" is and any one of the interpretations I've read online might be right, but I still found it one of the most moving and emotional works I've ever read.
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Jan 11, 2018 20:25
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ManlyGrunting posted:You're going to be more specific about which time. The one in the coda where I think he falls down a shaft? I definitely enjoyed that one.
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Jan 12, 2018 02:05
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life of lemons posted:Here's Aramini's write-up in full https://pastebin.com/3Rz644i0 in case anyone else wants to read. It's long but pretty easy to follow. This is down now. Is it anywhere else?
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Jan 12, 2018 17:45
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The Vosgian Beast posted:This is down now. Is it anywhere else? I've reuploaded https://pastebin.com/DL0dexBc
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Jan 13, 2018 01:10
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Danke schoen
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Jan 15, 2018 18:51
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I'm 90% of the way through Claw. I'm really enjoying the experience, but there are three little "episodes" I've read that left me completely baffled. I've never read any Wolfe before, I know nothing about Christian/Catholic lore, and it's been ages since I've read anything remotely challenging. 1. The scene at the jungle hut in the Botanical Gardens. 2. The story about the island of Corn Maidens. 3. Dr. Talos' play For the most part, I understand what is literally happening in each of these sections, but I can't understand their significance at all. Should I be able to at this point in the story? I don't want everything spelled out, but are any important ideas I should keep in mind as I continue the series re: these stories?
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Jan 21, 2018 22:27
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I'm on my second read of everything, and my re-read made me understand 1 on my own, but 2 and 3 were not really more comprehensible on my re-read. I understood the first Talos play in book 1 on my re-read, but the second one was just too confusing. I feel like both of them are just too removed from the actual flow of the story for me to figure out. I'd have to re-read both of them and think really hard about it, and I just don't feel like doing it even though it's my re-read...
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Jan 21, 2018 23:54
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my bony fealty posted:Writing first-person narrators who are shitheads is cool and Wolfe is great at it I love that maybe his all-time shittiest protagonist is the guy from the boys' adventure pirate book. Crisoforo is a dick, even moreso in his second timeline
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Jan 22, 2018 00:12
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More jerk protagonist chat: Able in the Wizard Knight is a loving jerk in the first book but he's actually trying to follow some basic virtues and has enough capacity for self reflection that it's fairly clear he is learning to not be a huge oval office. It's just painful and slow because he's a 13 year old boy put in the body of a 6 foot 3 250 pound mega athlete and wants to prove himself in immature ways at every opportunity. As a reflection of his laudable attitude he doesn't really try to obfuscate his past immaturity and shameful conduct. They're actually really optimistic books because they are a parable where following moral ideals or role models can be wonderfully transformative. Severian is often a jerk but he is waaaay better at obfuscating and rationalising it.
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Jan 22, 2018 04:33
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Lester Shy posted:I'm 90% of the way through Claw. I'm really enjoying the experience, but there are three little "episodes" I've read that left me completely baffled. I've never read any Wolfe before, I know nothing about Christian/Catholic lore, and it's been ages since I've read anything remotely challenging. I thought the Corn Maidens was there to show hows stories have changed over the millions of years since our time. Jonas knows that story but as a greek myth, as opposed to how it is in Severian's time. There's probably more of an explanation for it concerning what the actual plot of that story is but I'm not sure. Severian keeps having dreams about giant creatures in the sea, which also come up in that story. Ccs fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jan 22, 2018 |
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Jan 22, 2018 05:41
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The gardens are there to show you that: death isn't all that permanent and time doesn't have to move in a single direction and shockingly those two are the big reveal when you put it all together.
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Jan 22, 2018 09:04
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Pretty much. I always took that scene as an early confirmation that there is time travel.
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Jan 22, 2018 14:56
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Ccs posted:I thought the Corn Maidens was there to show hows stories have changed over the millions of years since our time. Jonas knows that story but as a greek myth, as opposed to how it is in Severian's time. I take it as mostly the former, the story is a mashup of the Thesus (student's son = "Thesis") myth with the Battle of Hampton Roads. The joke being that "minotaur" and "monitor" got confused over the ages. We also learn that Jonas is really, really old. Regarding plot relevance, it might have something to do with the Megatherians and the thing Severian sees in the 4th book swimming up the river near the end. Would have to read that part again to remember why I think this, though. vv its great. Their ship is even called "Land of Virgins," Wolfe is a sly one. my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jan 22, 2018 |
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Jan 22, 2018 19:42
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my bony fealty posted:Battle of Hampton Roads. The joke being that "minotaur" and "monitor" got confused over the ages.
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Jan 22, 2018 19:45
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my bony fealty posted:I take it as mostly the former, the story is a mashup of the Thesus (student's son = "Thesis") myth with the Battle of Hampton Roads. The joke being that "minotaur" and "monitor" got confused over the ages. We also learn that Jonas is really, really old. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK It's crazy how this was floating around in my head, like a puzzle I solved in a dream and can't remember now Wolfe makes feel all sorts of funny
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Jan 22, 2018 20:31
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my bony fealty posted:I take it as mostly the former, the story is a mashup of the Thesus (student's son = "Thesis") myth with the Battle of Hampton Roads. The joke being that "minotaur" and "monitor" got confused over the ages. We also learn that Jonas is really, really old. Hell yeah. I never put together the Hampton Roads part but that puts a smile on my face.
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Jan 23, 2018 14:56
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