I had been aware of the reputation of these novels for many years and as a keen reader of SF was waiting for the time when I felt ready to whole-heartedly throw myself into them, yes, these books are not light reading, they demand close attention and I found myself reading them slowly and carefully. The story is filled with riddles and puzzles and odd archaic words, in fact one essayist has said 'it could be argued that The Book of the New Sun is science fiction's Ulysses'.
Set a million years in the future in a world (Urth) where the sun is dying and humanity clings to the ruins of past societies Wolfe conjures an other-ness unlike anything else I have ever read. As the books go on it becomes clear that mankind has thousands of years in the past colonized other worlds, in fact the moon is green because it has been irrigated but these are events that are almost modern myths in our protagonist's world, a world which has been plunged back into an almost medieval like period.
Severian, our main protagonist is an apprentice to a guild of executioners and torturers. The story is presented as his autobiography and Wolfe the translator ('originally composed in a tongue which has not yet achieved existence'). Severian is a fantastic character and is also one of my favourite things in literature, 'the unreliable narrator'. In fact just three chapters in he says: 'It was in this instant of confusion that I realized for the first time that I am in some degree insane.' Severian has been raised by the guild in the towers of the citadel of the dark and decaying city of Nessus, his training is to assist unquestionably in 'excruciations' on prisoners whom judges have deemed traitorous or otherwise. This character could be portrayed as simply evil but within one or two pages in his voice we begin to realize that he possesses a strange humanity and it is this humanity, when showing a kind of mercy to a victim, that has him cast into exile. Dressed in his 'fuligin' cloak (the colour darker than black) and with his magnificently named sword, 'Terminus Est', Severian is forced into an world outside of the Citadel which he has never seen and onto a journey which will see him fulfill an ancient prophecy.
One of the most powerful things about Wolfe's writing here is that from the opening page you are in the world he has created, there are no explicit explanations about anything so you kind of piece together the world from the inside, and as a result the experience grows deeper and takes on more meaning as you progress through the story (and afterwards I have found out hence me writing this article and poring over the internet looking for articles and essays on the books.) Whereas something like 'Lord of the Rings' Tolkien in his own clever way creates a world that almost has an unshakeable clarity (as evinced by the visualization in the film adaptations where anybody who has read the books exclaimed 'This is exactly how I imagined it!') Wolfe's world is far more nebulous in what you see in your minds eye. He is a master at dropping jaw-dropping hints such as when Severian is studying a picture of a lone soldier holding a flag, this may or may not be a picture of an Apollo astronaut standing on the moon. There are many, many other incidences like this but on the slim chance that reading this article will prompt you to read the books (which you bloody well should) I shall refrain from spoiling anything, as much as I want to.
On Severian's journey we meet a travelling troupe of actors in which Severian himself acts in a play (which is written in play form in a chapter in book 2), he fights a duel in which the weapon is a deadly flower and he unwittingly comes to possess an ancient artifact (The Claw of the Conciliator) which has the power to heal the injured and resurrect the dead and may have belonged to a Christ-like figure from the earth's past. There are so many memorable chapters, the sheer breadth of Wolfe's imagination is almost impossible to take in and is dreamlike in quality.
It is difficult to describe the scope of this magnificent set of novels, sometimes characters come in which seem significant but later fall out of the narrative, and events rarely lead you to where you may think they may be going but the sheer fun in following Wolfe's story just has you gripped, not to mention all of the religious and mythical allusions which permeate the world and it's characters and leave you scratching your head and trying to figure it all out.
Neil Gaiman, a friend of Wolfe's and champion of his work says: 'There are two kinds of clever writer. The ones that point out how clever they are, and the ones who see no need to point out how clever they are. Gene Wolfe is of the second kind, and the intelligence is less important than the tale. He is not smart to make you feel stupid. He is smart to make you smart as well.'
These are books that I can't wait to re-read for the very reason Gaiman describes above and I suspect that on reading them a second time they are going to be a very different experience. For connoisseurs of all things literary I recommend 'The Book of the New Sun' without hesitation.
