Shadow & Claw, Vol. 2: The Claw of the
Conciliator – Gene Wolfe (1981)
After a hiatus of quite a few
months, in which I have occupied my mind with books on gender-disparity and
anthropology, the horrors of Soviet-era gulags, early science fiction, modern
science fiction, and Joan Didion’s exploration of her grief following her
husband’s sudden death, among other books, I turned my attention to the second
volume of Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun tetra-logy, The Claw of the Conciliator.
Gene Wolfe passed away in the time
between my reading of The Shadow of the Torturer, and picking up this second
volume. He was 87 years old. In doing
some research about his life I read that he was a fellow alumni of the
University of Houston. He earned his
degree in Industrial Engineering, whereas I earned mine in Studio
Art-Painting. He received acclaim for
his speculative fiction works at a late age, and was very highly thought of as
a writer of wonderful prose by his fellow authors. Gene Wolfe stated in a letter that his
definition of a great story was a story, “…that can be read with pleasure by a
cultivated reader and reread with increasing pleasure.” These words describe quite well my favorite
novels and stories.
The Claw of the Conciliator
continues the story of Severian, a Guild Torturer traveling through a
deep-future Earth, or “Urth” as it is called in the books. Severian is the narrator/writer of this
story, which Gene Wolfe states in a meta-narrative way is actually a found
history that Wolfe is “translating” for us readers. Layered storytelling such as this is something
that requires a “cultivated reader,” as Gene Wolfe states in the above
quote. These novels are not for people
who are new to literature, or to the depths of the English language
itself.
Whereas many speculative
fiction/fantasy novels seek to immerse you in a new world, very few actually do
so without using the standard tropes and markers of our current existence. This helps ground the reader, keeping them feeling
as if they understand what is happening, simply because it seems familiar in
some way, but it is a detriment when one is trying to create an otherworldly universe
to set your stories in. Gene Wolfe’s
writing does not suffer from this, as every aspect of his tales, from the
characters to the setting to the myths and legends that inform his work are
deeply thought out and carefully self-consistent within themselves. This is the hardest fiction to read quickly,
or superficially. It requires attentive
reading, or what Gene Wolfe described above as a cultivated reader, someone
who has read many of the seminal touchstones of human literature, and therefore
brings within them the tools to fully grasp the story presented in these books. I can understand why so many contemporary
authors saw the greatness in Gene Wolfe right away.
I do not like to give
away plot details of the fiction books I read, as finding out these things is
part of the joy of reading them. I will
tell you that the Severian in volume 2 is a wiser, more tempered person than he
was in the first novel, having experience so much in the interim. He is beginning to untangle what are
thousands of years’ worth of ritual and dogma associated with the world of Urth
and its societal structures as he heads further away from home on his new
assignment. Severian is slowly
perceiving a world, in fact a Universe, far bigger and more complex than he
could ever have imagined. His awareness
increases our awareness, giving us a glimpse of what may come next.
A few days before
finishing this novel I received in the mail the 3rd volume of the Book
of the New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor (1st edition hardback baby!).
One of my Sonic Life peeps, named “Severian” after the main character of
these novels, has been on my butt to read these novels and finish up the Book
of the New Sun ever since he introduced me to these books. Thy will be done Severian…
(This book can be read here: THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR )
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