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here's another fiction book for you: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. a professional torturer is exiled for showing mercy to a client. what it's really ab

here's another fiction book for you: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. a professional torturer is exiled for showing mercy to a client. what it's really about is love, self, and how self relates to other. if you'd think this covers the whole spectrum of what it means to be human, you wouldn't be far off. i have read and re-read this book in great lengths of leisure, frequently leaving my paperback copies with friends wherever i travel before finding another in some dusty second-hand store. i have grown up with its main character, Severian, and can no longer tell you how much of me is him. my ethics, my perspectives, how i ruminate and how i love someone can all find some trace of impression in this masterwork.

taohansen 9y ago
and if that hasn’t convinced you, i’ll leave it to a passage from the thing itself, a conversation between a courtesan and the protagonist: > Aren't you strong enough to master reality, even for a little while?" > "What do you mean?" > "Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real. What is the Autarch but a man who believes himself Autarch and makes others believe by the strength of it?" > "You are not the Chatelaine Thecla," I told her. "But don't you see, neither is she. The Chatelaine Thecla, whom I doubt you've ever laid eyes on-No, I see I'm wrong. Have you been to the House Absolute?" > Her hands, small and warm, were on my own right hand, pressing. I shook my head. "Sometimes clients say they have. I always find pleasure in hearing them." > "Have they been? Really?" > She shrugged. "I was saying that the Chatelaine Thecla is not the Chatelaine Thecla. Not the Chatelaine Thecla of your mind, which is the only Chatelaine Thecla you care about. Neither am I. What, then, is the difference between us?" > "None, I suppose." > While I was undressing I said, "Nevertheless, we all seek to discover what is real. Why is it?”

taohansen 9y ago

and if that hasn’t convinced you, i’ll leave it to a passage from the thing itself, a conversation between a courtesan and the protagonist: > Aren't you strong enough to master reality, even for a little while?" > "What do you mean?" > "Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real. What is the Autarch but a man who believes himself Autarch and makes others believe by the strength of it?" > "You are not the Chatelaine Thecla," I told her. "But don't you see, neither is she. The Chatelaine Thecla, whom I doubt you've ever laid eyes on-No, I see I'm wrong. Have you been to the House Absolute?" > Her hands, small and warm, were on my own right hand, pressing. I shook my head. "Sometimes clients say they have. I always find pleasure in hearing them." > "Have they been? Really?" > She shrugged. "I was saying that the Chatelaine Thecla is not the Chatelaine Thecla. Not the Chatelaine Thecla of your mind, which is the only Chatelaine Thecla you care about. Neither am I. What, then, is the difference between us?" > "None, I suppose." > While I was undressing I said, "Nevertheless, we all seek to discover what is real. Why is it?”