On Paths Unknown discussion

Hello everyone, time has flown! Apologies for the short notice, but we finally have a thread for starting a discussion of The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe.

Since this book is jam-packed with strangeness, there is already food for thought in the very first chapter or two, so we'll officially start off our discussion with first impressions of the strangeness we find in the first two chapters of the book on October 17.

If you're really impatient to get going, you can already start posting your hello's and whether you've managed to find the book, whether you're doing a re-read and that kind of thing, but please, nothing beyond the first chapter until those who want to join have managed to obtain their copies and are ready to move on. If a substantial amount of people have already started by October 7-ish, we can start to discuss the actual content of the weirdness in Chapters 1 and 2.

Looking forward! :)

If you have your copy and have already been reading a bit, we have a spoiler thread up for Chapter 3 and onwards here, https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..., but I must warn you that there are unfortunately "background" spoilers on this thread from post 13 onwards. Up to that point we just discuss the storyworld in general, and nothing about the plot itself is discussed in this thread, though there might be 'world' spoilers in the last two posts.

I have my copy. I actually started reading a couple weeks ago, I am not terribly far in to be honest. Like to the 4th chapter or so. So not saying much, except that I have had to look up several words, and upon so, when I reread that sentence, it really changes everything. My mind is blown.

This is technically a reread, I read this when I was in my early 20s. I am going to say that I had no idea what I was reading back then, but it did linger and I have thought about this for years and bought copies so I could read the series again, because I am supposed to be older and wiser and my brain ready for this story.

I'm about one and a half chapters in. I first read it as a teen, and then re-read it sometime I can't remember when, but I'm definitely finding myself looking at it with new and more mature eyes, and feeling a newness and strangeness despite the fact that I had in the meantime read some other Wolfe fiction and had read some commentary on the "New Sun" cycle itself.

So I'm kinda glad that you guys prodded me into action, because it's going to be absolutely fantastic to be able to discuss this stuff with someone!

I'm not really going to give away any spoilers, nothing about what actually happens, so don't worry - but just a few words on the nature of Wolfe's writing: Firstly, it's complex and labyrinthine in a Borgian sense, so if you enjoy Borges, you'd probably enjoy this, and secondly:
I don't know who of you have also read any Proust, but if you thought Proust is all about musing over memory, the nature of time and the nature of reality, Wolfe is even more so.
At the very outset already, the narrator is musing about memory and starts to put time into perspective. The book opens with :

"It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile."

(Oh, did I mention that this book has some postmodern qualities? ) It's that type of work that if you read it for the second and third times, new details jump out at you. He's sort of encapsulating one of the main themes in the first sentence already, which you will see once you've read the book.

Another passage where he touches on the passage of time, the nature of time, and the relativity of time:

"Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them infinitely precious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself would stop . . . the colored days that had so long been drawn forth like a chain of conjuror's scarves come to an end, the sullen sun wink out at last."

...for what is time after all, but a human measurement centered around the movement of the earth around the sun: We measure time in both days and in seasons - if the rhythmic trajectories of sun and earth were to stop, "time" as we know it, would cease to be. It also touches upon mortality and the finite nature of our world. Only the static can be timeless.

Thanks Traveller. Count me in for this read. Looking forward to it.

Cordelia wrote: "Thanks Traveller. Count me in for this read. Looking forward to it."

Oh goodie! I don't know if you've read it before, but if you haven't, don't be put off by how strange it seems at the start - Wolfe definitely pulls one out of your comfort zone.

Traveller wrote: "I'm about one and a half chapters in. I first read it as a teen, and then re-read it sometime I can't remember when, but I'm definitely finding myself looking at it with new and more mature eyes, a..."

This is identical to my history with the books. Read as a teenager, reread about 20 years ago. They are the kind of book that reveals more with rereading (and a a little work).

I read Peace with an IRL book club a few years ago. I loved it, everyone else ranged from appreciating his convoluted puzzling, to wondering why anyone should have to put that much work into deciphering a book. I think the New Sun books are different in that there is a good story on top of the mystery that can be appreciated without fully 'deciphering' all the underlying implications; as my teenage reading can attest.

Are you going to be joining us, Whitney? Even if you don't completely re-read the books, we are going to be going at a slow pace, so I do hope you will be popping in on the thread regularly. I'm already seeing a million things in the text that I would not have thought of on my first read, which comes partly from my greater general reading experience, but also from my previous acquaintance with this specific text.

When you start off, for example, you wonder: "What's with all this thematic material around death?" - I mean, it starts off with some rather unusual goings-on in a graveyard, and then there is some exposition of the story going on in a necropolis, and then when you think about it in context of the greater story, you realize that there's a constant theme of death and rebirth, of dying and coming to life, of taking life and giving life, which, if you have a philosophic bent, makes you start to wonder about the nature of life and death itself, and so on.

I have words that I want to mention. I will report back with them.

Traveller, thats simply the Meaning of Life isn't it ?

I am finding the Citadel itself to be just this interesting space. A very large massive, decaying, interconnected space. Like a maze. Where will we go next ? Its like openinng up more apects of the story, Like Whitney mentions, in spite of the serious literary nature of the books there is also a good story, so it helps one to better absorb the deeper more meaningful bits.

Argh no! Goodreads just swallowed my rather long reply! (...and I made sure to refresh the page before I commented). I'll rewrite the comment sometime later. This is something that seems to be getting worse and worse here on GR.

Jennifer wrote: "I am finding the Citadel itself to be just this interesting space. A very large massive, decaying, interconnected space. Like a maze."

Definitely. The opening chapters and the odd space of the citadel are the parts of the book that most stuck with me from previous reads.

I find myself with too many reading commitments, but will be into my reread by the official start date.

I am reading slow, but I also feel that this is not a "fast" read. I have been busy with work and then our local elections, I work the polls. So now that things are getting back to kinda normal, I get my reading routine back and don't simply pass out when I hit the bed.

But I have been thinking about what I have read , snippets here and there. I want to get back to the story.

Definitely not a fast read, dense prose with archaic words. I'm only up to chapter 4, but enjoying the slow journey.

The first time I read it, I didn't catch that the citadel was a spaceship. This time, I can see that Wolfe is pretty straightforward about it; far more than some of his typical, more cryptic references. He mentions areas that are bulkheads, and of says the examination room used to be the propulsion chamber. Which not only tells us that this is a run-down future earth, but also that Severian is aware of the past and past technologies.

Jennifer wrote: "I am reading slow, but I also feel that this is not a "fast" read. I have been busy with work and then our local elections, I work the polls. So now that things are getting back to kinda normal, I ..."

Whitney wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "I am finding the Citadel itself to be just this interesting space. A very large massive, decaying, interconnected space. Like a maze."
..."

Apologies, people, got sidetracked again. Indeed, guys, glad you're seeing more in the work on your subsequent read. Will comment more specifically soon, I think we should do the spoiler thread thing even though we're not many.

Well, I guess time is up, and our discussion is officially starting. I had hoped that by giving more time, more people will join. Nevertheless, I will shortly make a spoiler thread, so that the little surprises are only gradually revealed to those who might still wish to join.

Hi everyone, since this book has a high spoiler potential, let's keep our discussion of the contents of Chapters 3 through to the end of Chapter 10 to this next thread here : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Your cooperation is much appreciated. :)

Anyway, since this thread is for discussion of the first two chapters, I want to add to what Whitney and Jennifer mentioned about the story world. I find the social structures he exposes during his exposition pretty interesting.
I was hoping to screen brand-new readers for a while from the fact that we are talking about a future earth here, since Wolfe so deftly disguises this fact by making it seem rather more like some kind of ancient medieval society. I think it's more fun if you discover the actual background of the world more gradually, so perhaps we should cover things like that under spoiler tags?

In any case, the first time I read it, nothing really alerted me, and I read happily under the assumption that this was some kind of parallel but ancient world that I was reading about, and I was in my second read-through, far more focused on all of the symbolism and on the idea of a society of torturers and how Severian himself as an individual copes with the idea of having to do things that go completely against the grain of his nature, but I’ll say more about that on the first spoiler thread.

So the society we are dealing with in the story, is far from being an egalitarian society as we might have expected the future to be 40 years ago when the book was written; - it seems as if Wolfe foresaw that this might never be the case - or in any case, that such a social structure wouldn’t last long – not over the entire world, in any case.
I'd be very interested to hear from the rest of you, if you think that an equal class-free, racist-free, sexist-free society could exist for a long time; seeing that we've had so much right-wing backlash in the West against "wokeness" in our current world. (And let's not even mention the existence of democracy - so far in the story, we see signs of autocratic repression just from the fact that a torturer's guild exists and that there are soldiers to be found everywhere.)
Perhaps we should continue the discussion of that here.

I think your question belongs in the next thread you set up to avoid spoilers? It can't really be addressed without digging in to the book more. So I will post over there.

I've read the first 3 chapters. Society appears to be pretty medieval - broken into different guilds, each with a different role in society. But there are symbols of flying machine in the mausaleum and comments about white skinned people coming from stars. No women in their guild as women proved to be too violent. The role of a torturer appears to be puzzling and quite disturbing.

I will keep reading and come back in the next thread.

Just a quick note - a nénuphar is the French word for water lily, so I'm trying to picture the swimming situation that Severian mentions: "At the place where we swam, Gyoll had lost its natural banks hundreds of years ago. Here it was a two-chain-wide expanse of blue nenuphars penned between walls of stone." A bit after that, he mentions that it was because of the nenuphars that he never returned to their old swimming place. This has me puzzling a bit. I'll look it up among the plethora of "New Sun" commentary out there.
EDIT: Oh, that's how he almost drowned- he got stuck in the water lilies. Perhaps symbolic of his situation in life at this point? (That he is powerless and "stuck").

SECOND EDIT: Apologies for not seeing your reply in time, Whitney! Whitney pointed out what I mentioned in my edit above, and mentioned that this is part of a bigger theme or mystery. Thanks for that, Whitney, I do hope you'll be around later when this theme surfaces again! :) ...as Whitney pointed out, who is the woman who is crying (while Severian was underwater), and which woman's face did he see? ...and who threw him out of the water?

Whitney wrote: "I think your question belongs in the next thread you set up to avoid spoilers? It can't really be addressed without digging in to the book more. So I will post over there."

Indeed, thanks, Whitney.

Traveller wrote: "A bit after that, he mentions that it was because of the nenuphars that he never returned to their old swimming place. this has me puzzling a bit. "

I got that this was just because Severian had almost drowned after getting tangled up in the roots. There is still the mystery of how he was saved, however, with his vision of the dead Master, and witnesses saying he shot up out of the water.

Cordelia wrote: "I've read the first 3 chapters. Society appears to be pretty medieval - broken into different guilds, each with a different role in society. But there are symbols of flying machine in the mausaleum..."

Nice to see you reading along with us, Cordelia, thanks for contributing! This far in the story, since there is mention of an Autarch - which sounds a heck of a lot like an autocrat, I was guessing that the torturers are probably there to quell dissent among the populace, and lets face it, they sound pretty intimidating, so just the thing a dictator would use to "keep the peace"!

Whitney wrote: "I got that this was just because Severian had almost drowned after getting tangled up in the roots. There is still the mystery of how he was saved, however, with his vision of the dead Master, and witnesses saying he shot up out of the water..."

Yes, I remembered the very beginning and edited that post - and as I said in my edit, I wouldn't put it past Wolfe for it being a metaphor for Severian's general situation. Ok, let's discuss that part later again! It's as if Wolfe leaves this trail of breadcrumbs that one picks up on with a subsequent reading...

I'm going to start again. Read one chapter at a time. Will look up strange words and puzzling stuff. Before I was relying on my knowlede of Medieval history, but some things dont quite fit.

Edited comment.

Posts have been changed and deleted so much that my original comment here appeared to have been replying to something very different than it was. I made this note rather than just deleting and leaving a void. It's a great book, enjoy y'all.

Whitney wrote: "Um, editing your post to make it look like you made a point before the person who actually made it, is not cool. Somewhat short of a dirty delete, but still, not cool. I think we have different opinions about what constitutes a discussion. I will bow out since this is your pond.d..."

Whitney, as I explained, if you are talking about the Nenephars, I made the edit BEFORE I saw your post, or even Cordelia's, for that matter. I was busy looking it up as you posted. Not sure how to deal with that since my edit had nothing to do with the fact that you posted. In fact, you definitely gave some food for thought on the situation when you mentioned the mystery of how he was saved. This is something I just vaguely remember from my previous read, and so not sure if this mystery is ever solved, so thank you very much for mentioning that! Not sure what to do now to make you feel better about this -I can mention you before my edit, but like I said, the edit was done before I had refreshed the page to see any other posts. As my other members know, I'm a very fair person and would always acknowledge any person's input. Your input so far has been very valuable, so I do hope you'll be back.

Cordelia wrote: "I'm going to start again. Read one chapter at a time. Will look up strange words and puzzling stuff. Before I was relying on my knowlede of Medieval history, but some things dont quite fit."

Cordelia, you can do that, but there's so much to take in at once, isn't there! This book kinda has layers, like an onion, but you can't see all of the layers right from the start, so maybe you should go with your gut and focus on enjoying the story itself. There's actually a quite cool storyline in which Severian as a person's character develops, from being a naive boy, to something a lot more sophisticated.
There's almost too many themes in the story for a person to notice and follow every single one, -it can be quite exhausting, which is why it's nice to have these threads where we can point things we find out to one another. :)

Whitney wrote: "
Posts have been changed and deleted so much that my original comment here appeared to have been replying to something very different than it was. I made this note rather than just deleting and leaving a void. It's a great book, enjoy y'all.
..."

Absolutely nothing has been deleted. I don't play that way. I added two edits to message 19, the first edit before I saw Whitney's comment and the second after I read Whitney's comment.
To me this is a trifling issue, and I don't mind bending backwards to make a valued member feel welcome and appreciated, but I do draw the line when insinuations and accusations of underhandedness are made.

There is no need to be underhanded about anything. We are not here to compete, we are here to enjoy exploring literature. As the members of this group well know, nobody is "the boss"; we are all equals and we are here to help one another in our appreciation of and our understanding of the richness that literature has to offer to all of us, no matter what the specific person's point of view.

I do indeed edit my comments to fix typo's without explicitly drawing attention to it- I am a huge typo-maker, but when I significantly edit the content of the message, I usually mark it as such, and I, for one, don't delete my comments if they have been up for more than an hour and definitely not once people had seen them.

Like everyone else, I sometimes make mistakes, but when called out on them, I will always accede rather than come across as a pompous ass who cannot even acknowledge their own mistakes.
So I especially do not appreciate over-competitive attitudes in our threads here where the whole thing is turned into a contest and accusations are flung around. We need to have respect for all our members unless they are misbehaving and EVERY opinion, no matter how big or small is valued and should be respected if expressed in good faith.

Though I had read this previously it was in 2010, which sometimes feels like another lifetime, so I'm practically approaching it de novo.

What struck me almost immediately is that there are many structural and thematic similarities with Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem. First-person narratives using many words which are either obscure or invented (though not indecipherable if one is sufficiently widely read), with the protagonist living in a closed society in a world whose best days have already passed.

At the outset the Urth of Severian's day seems not to have achieved anything we might consider to be lasting progress, be it social or technological, and there is indeed a sense that everything is cyclical at sufficient time scale. Theocracy, aristocracy, prejudice, pollution, and of course torture are all depressingly familiar facets of this far-future society.

I'm uncertain in my mind if the citadel is old and decaying or merely old. The first-person nature of the narrative, with Severian writing for those who would already understand much of what he leaves unsaid, is so far leaving me with the occasional mental whiplash. I'm looking forward to diving deeper so everything gels a bit more in the noggin.

Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "Though I had read this previously it was in 2010, which sometimes feels like another lifetime, so I'm practically approaching it de novo.

What struck me almost immediately is that there are many ..."

Puddin Pointy-Toes! My word, what a long time it's been since seeing you around these parts, and it's a welcome surprise, so, very welcome to you! Ah, Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem... I have that book on my shelf, and I do remember reading a bit of it, and indeed, IIRC it does have some obscure terminology. I must really get to reading it properly.

As far as Wolfe's obscure terminology is concerned, I'm not sure how much I love it and how much I hate it. It does contribute to the general strangeness of the story world, which is of course what Wolfe was going for, but it can also be a bit of a pain that he uses so much of it, though I must say, now that I have been looking the words up, it kind of opens an extra dimension of the story world for me.

I first read this book so long ago that it was before I had started using the internet; - I might not even have had my own PC back then, so I didn't have an opportunity to look it all up. Consequently all the French and Latin terms and the references to extinct animals and so on, went right over my head. On my current re-read I'm seeing how multi-layered this book is, and that aspect certainly adds a layer.

..and let me try to kick my bad habit of editing my own posts by adding a new comment separately: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned the first-person narrator. Especially in postm0dern literature, which in my personal opinion this work is an example of, first-person narrators are pretty much usually what is termed an "unreliable narrator" not really because the person intentionally lies in their narration, but because it is per se a subjective view of the world and events that the narrator is telling us about, and for various reasons which we should discuss later on in the book, Severian is as unreliable as they come, but not because he is insane, as in the case of Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, or the governess (there is a possible interpretation that she doesn't quite have all her marbles together) in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw but er... for different reasons which would be a spoiler at this point in time. Interesting discussion point for later!

Next thread is here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...