The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Literature => Topic started by: Francis Buck on October 02, 2013, 02:20:10 am
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So, after having been meaning to get around to this series for years, I finally started it (and to think, I wanted a "light read" after Dune...what in God's name was I thinking?"). As of now I've just got into the first little bit of Sword & Citadel, right after Severian meets Cyracia (sp?), and I'm really craving some good discussion on it. I did a search and didn't see any previous threads.
I've never read any Wolfe before, but goddamn is this series fucking amazing. From what I've read, the prose is easily some of the best in the genre, hands down, and possibly the best I personally have ever read. The style of storytelling, the first person narration (which seems relatively uncommon for this sort of story), the utterly unique setting, Severian's amazing characterization, just everything.
And, of course, the vocabulary. Reading this on Kindle, I think, was a pretty good move on my part, since I can instantly look up any word I don't know -- and there's a shitload -- although in many cases the words don't even show up in the dictionary, in which case I can just quickly google it. But then there are cases where a word doesn't even show up anywhere on google, or if it does, I can't find its actual meaning (zoanthrope was the last one, but all I've seen it associated with is Warhammer 40K). So yeah, while it's sometimes a bit of effort trying to figure out some of the terms, I also fucking love it. It's such a cool thing to do in a SFF series like this, as in not making up any words for fantastical stuff. The names for different officials, the use of mythology, the way he uses scientific names and extinct species for the various creatures, it's just straight up brilliant. I also love stuff that's a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, so in many ways this was right up my alley. I'll have to reserve any final judgment until I complete the book, but I feel like this will become one of my all time favorites (which is ironic, considering I just finished all six Dune books, and the same exact thing happened).
So yeah, I'd really like to hear some people's thoughts on the series as whole (please feel free to discuss spoilers amongst yourselves, just hide them for my sake, I should be finishing it up by Friday or Saturday). But I'm just really craving some discussion, and I definitely have a lot questions about stuff, but I'll wait until I finish to do that.
I would like to ask if anyone knows some good resources for information on the world, terminology, backstory, characters, etc. (I'd even be interested in hearing about Wolfe's process of writing the series, and what his thoughts were when creating it, especially in regards to Severian)? I found one sort of pseudo-wiki, but it was pretty crappy. Much appreciated!
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Good things have come of my reading recommendations from this forum but I've tried Gene Wolf a few times in the past.
It's unfortunate because Bakker counts him as influence, as well...
Maybe for you I'll dabble again, Francis.
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Honestly I'm not sure I'd like his other stuff, having read some random things on it. TBOTNS seems like it was just kind of a perfect storm of setting, characters, and style for me.
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I did not find the "Shadow and Claw" on kindle awhile ago,and it is almost hopeless for me to read it on paper :( It is a shame though,because I really think I would enjoy this one.
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Hm, that's odd. It's on Kindle now at least (I believe for $9.00). Perhaps it was only recently added?
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Shadow and claw is not available on kindle,but after some searching I found them separately :).Maybe it got something to do with the european version of amazon or something.I will give this a go soon,hopefully me english skills will be good enough to see this through :)
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I finished Shadow the other day,and this is some seriously weird stuff.Have lots of stuff on my mind,but I think I will read some more first
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Yeah they're definitely quite strange. I ended up taking a break in the midst of Sword & Citadel, somewhere around a quarter of the way through, just because I was getting kinda fatigued. Started it up again last night though and it seems to be picking up the pace again. I'm very interested to read all the different interpretations and such, but I want to finish S&C (at this point I'm not sure if I'll continue with the other books for a while, since even though I am enjoying the series overall, it's definitely a bit of a slog at times).
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I do not know if you have read "the castle" by Franz kafka? Somehow I thought about that book while reading this.Must be the strange characterization,and the nonsensical behaviour and dialogue between people.Might be I am wrong about this comparison,since it is a very long time since I read Kafka,but that book still popped up in my mind.
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I haven't unfortunately, and in fact I'm criminally under-read on all things Kafka, aside from The Metamorphosis, which I enjoyed the hell out of it. Definitely an author I need to catch up on. I'll check out The Castle.
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Grendel by John Gardner is a bit like Metamorphosis,since the protagonist is a beast struggling to be a part of the world of men
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Did you get through this Buck?
I am considering the next lap very soon.
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Just started reading book 1. Seems pretty interesting so far. Didn't read all the comments as I didn't want the spoil it.
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I got about half-way through the third book and took a break, but I've yet to go back (I read Wolf Hall in the interim). I don't have much desire to return to it at this particular moment, but I definitely intend to finish the series. I love the first one and a lot of the second, but it really started to drag for me in the third. It's definitely going to be one of those series I read a second time. I also consciously avoided any real spoilers, so I know that there's a metric ton of subtext I'm not getting.
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I also consciously avoided any real spoilers, so I know that there's a metric ton of subtext I'm not getting.
Yes. Yes, there is.
I wasn't too impressed with it after my first read, but will read it again, at some point. I have chosen to read some analysis and spoilers, and the amount of stuff I have missed is completely staggering. But that seems to be the way it is, nobody seems to really get it all (or even a majority of it) at the first read.
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I read the first book and stopped. Is it supposed to be scifi-y? Because I kept waiting for it but was dissapointed when nothing really came through. There were hints, but not any answers, and the second book seemed to start off terribly similar, so I stopped pretty quickly. Can't decide if it was entertaining enough to go back to or not.
I liked the characters well enough, and I feel like this was a big set-up novel, but for me there just wasn't a ton of 'wow' moments. I read it very quickly and ended up feeling more confused than anything else, so that could have something to do with it.
I started out really wanting to like this book, and ended up slightly disappointed.
I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts as to why I'm wrong :). For whatever reason I want to like it, but I feel like I'd need to read another book or two in order to find out if its worth it or not. You could say I'm very much still on the fence about this.
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Wilshire - I will say that I found book 2, Claw of the Conciliator, to be by far the most difficult of the four pieces. That is not to say that you must read on. Only that if someone found book 2 to be difficult after being intrigued by book 1, I would suggest soldiering on to book 3.
My thoughts on this are similar to what Francis shared. It's an amazing and fascinating piece of work. I've read it twice, and it was lightyears better on the 2nd read (which is allegedly a major goal of Wolfe's writing style).
The only other thing of Wolfe's I've read was Book of the Long Sun. I didn't compare. It was significantly more difficult and with much less payoff. I suspect that it would be more tolerable upon a 2nd read as Book of the New Sun was, but it was not comparable on the first read.
Severian is an amazing POV narrator. There are a few paragraphs where he simply describes stuff like the night sky and how he feels when he looks at it that felt so profound to this atheist that I had to put the book down and reflect for a moment. I don't get that too easily.
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I've read the entire series. It's well worth it, but the hidden meanings in the story are unbelievably complex. Gene Wolfe simply doesn't like to come out and hold your hand and tell you the importance of what's just happened. He wants you to figure out some of the connections yourself. For that reason, readers have produced an enormous quantity of interpretive material. See, in particular, the thorough and searchable www.urth.net (http://www.urth.net). This is the most detailed resource, but it's not well-organized. I got hold of the very helpful Lexicon Urthus book, but that was only after I finished the series. That book is great for vocabulary and it also has a summary of all the major events in the New Sun series. The author has recently come out with a similar book for the third part of the series (the Short Sun), which is good, because that might be the most mysterious part--in good and perhaps also in some frustrating ways. Urth of the New Sun is pretty tricky as well.
This series is well-known for making the extraordinary seem commonplace. The writing is indeed exceptional, but I think the series isn't as well-read as it deserves to be, because it's full of intricate puzzles. Reading the New Sun books made me want to write my fiction in the first person. Mind you, Wolfe is also well-known for using untrustworthy narrators to add yet another layer of mystery. Is Severian lying at some points? There's lots of discussion of that as well.
If you like this genre, I'd recommend Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth. That's a more amusing series. Some of the stories in Songs of the Dying Earth are also great.
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On a side note, if you're looking for a book with an unreliable and untrustworthy narrator, you should really try Wolfe's "Peace". It's his 1975 novel, rather New Wave, but yeah, never trust Dennis Weer.
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Triskele, (good reference btw) I just finished the first two books between reading and listening to the audio books.
I'm not sure if you've tried them or not but the narrator makes Severian seems extremely depressed about everything even when he's 'happy' or as happy as a torturer can be lol. That might have been what made book 2 seem like such a burden to plod through.
If book 3 really does pick up like you said I might give it a shot. :)
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And, of course, the vocabulary. Reading this on Kindle, I think, was a pretty good move on my part, since I can instantly look up any word I don't know -- and there's a shitload -- although in many cases the words don't even show up in the dictionary, in which case I can just quickly google it. But then there are cases where a word doesn't even show up anywhere on google, or if it does, I can't find its actual meaning (zoanthrope was the last one, but all I've seen it associated with is Warhammer 40K). So yeah, while it's sometimes a bit of effort trying to figure out some of the terms, I also fucking love it. It's such a cool thing to do in a SFF series like this, as in not making up any words for fantastical stuff. The names for different officials, the use of mythology, the way he uses scientific names and extinct species for the various creatures, it's just straight up brilliant. I also love stuff that's a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, so in many ways this was right up my alley. I'll have to reserve any final judgment until I complete the book, but I feel like this will become one of my all time favorites (which is ironic, considering I just finished all six Dune books, and the same exact thing happened).
I would like to ask if anyone knows some good resources for information on the world, terminology, backstory, characters, etc. (I'd even be interested in hearing about Wolfe's process of writing the series, and what his thoughts were when creating it, especially in regards to Severian)? I found one sort of pseudo-wiki, but it was pretty crappy. Much appreciated!
Every word used is an actual real word, although some are extremely obscure.
There's a few websites dedicated to Gene Wolfe, which have some information, and also a dictionary about the series called Lexicon Urthis (i haven't read it, so I don't know if its any good or not).
I read the first book and stopped. Is it supposed to be scifi-y?
It's set in the far future of Earth - allegedly in South America - when the Sun is dying.
For more accessible stuff from Gene Wolfe, people should check out the Latro series (Soldier in the Mist, Soldier of Arete, and Soldier of Sidon). It's about a soldier in Ancient Greece who has been cursed by the Gods and loses his memory every night. Very good.
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I just bought in Bookdepository the first four books. Wish me luck.
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Let us know how it goes!
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I just bought in Bookdepository the first four books. Wish me luck.
No such thing as luck, just skill.
It's really good, just have a dictionary handy. Also, realize that some stuff will only make sense after you read the whole series, so stick with it and you'll be rewarded in the end.
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Thanks, I will post my impressions as soon I start.
;)
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I have just received the books, I'm eager to start.
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I've read fifty pages or so and I'm captivated. Amazing style, amazing story.
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Last night I ended The Shadow of the Torturer. Terrific story, amazing setting and a glorious style.
In some way it reminds me the tales of Cugel in the Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance.
I've just started the second book The Claw of the Conciliator.
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You know Woden, I have heard so much good about this series. Yet, I think I got half way through 1st book and some other book caught my attention, or was waiting on it and never went back. I hear that you won't understand alot of it til the end. Huge payoff is how I've heard it put. Currently reading Forge of Darkness, by Erikson. And then, Fall of Light just because I'm really digging FoD. But, I think I'll give this a go afterwards
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It's true that Wolfe uses some weird words and invents some more. But when you have read some chapters the book has you, and with a decent dictionary (I just use some on internet, even google) it's not a problem, but a pleasure.
I specially love the greek, roman and medieval military terms in the text, and the use of names of extinct species for the flora and fauna of Urth.
I enjoy a lot the books of Lyonesse and Dying Earth of Vance, Wolfe has a certain reminiscence of them, a peculiar taste that has made me read with any pause.
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Oh, I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. I don't let things like that hinder my enjoyment of the story. I liked the characters, world, and plot. Like I said, it was a book I had been waiting on that had me out it down.
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Last night I ended The Shadow of the Torturer. Terrific story, amazing setting and a glorious style.
In some way it reminds me the tales of Cugel in the Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance.
Wolfe has said that Vance is a definite influence in him writing the series.
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Reading Vance I had some kind of involuntary memory (like Proust) and I returned in a way to my first LOTR reading. I had the same pleasure and awe in front of a piece of major art. So it happens to me again with these books of the New Sun.
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I've just finished the second, The Claw of the Conciliator.
Sword of the Lictor, here I come.
Hey, ho, let's go.
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I've finished the Citadel of the Autarch.
I can say now that the four books are amazing. Excellent saga, with a peculiar style, and a peculiar story too. Yeah, definitively Vance is here as an influence, a very good one.
I'm starting The Urth of the New Sun now to complete the story of Severian.
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Urth ended.
Terrific saga. I have no words. I need to process it. The ending is fantastic.
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Alzabo Soup (http://alzabosoup.libsyn.com/)
A redditor mentioned this in a thread I peaked in on. They're going to take a year to do Wolfe but I'm hoping I can convince them to commit to Bakker following that ;).
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Sounds great.
I plan a rereading of Soldier of the Mist in the near future. I read it twenty years ago or so in a spanish edition but I will buy a copy of an english edition to enjoy the peculiar style of Wolfe.
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I just got a copy of Latro in the Mist. I'm on board for any reading event.