3 ms·
The conceit is that the narrator has an eidetic memory, or at least claims to. And at the same time, it is apparent that he is not always a reliable or honest n
by Finnucane 9y ago
The conceit is that the narrator has an eidetic memory, or at least claims to. And at the same time, it is apparent that he is not always a reliable or honest narrator, not does he always fully understand what is going on in front of him. The narrator is also being manipulated by alien powers beyond his control. The relationships of the characters are weird and complicated. And it is true--Wolfe deliberately constructed the books so that rereading them would make these connections apparent in different ways. (I should say that Shadow of the Torturer was published when I was 17, and over the next decade I must have gone through the series four or five times, even taking up a correspondence with Gene, who was actually pretty good about answering questions).
- observation 9y agoIf you get another opportunity to write, I'd like to ask Wolfe whether there exists an allegory with the present world Wolfe lived through e.g. The Oil Shocks in the 70s, the esotericization of Nuclear Energy, the half century unvisited moon. I want to know whether the "New Sun" is symbolic of nuclear power in the present. I wondered reading the book whether Gene Wolfe was writing of a Dark Age in the present because the very first few words out of Sevarian's record are "presentiments of the future", which I thought to be kind of telling given the historical circumstances Wolfe has lived, especially since he obviously has the mind of an engineer.