When I first read this text a few years ago early into my time as someone who enjoyed reading I hated it, for years afterward it was rock bottom in terms of the books I’d read. When, either on a whim or some subconscious desire, I picked it up again a couple years ago, the text had truly changed and gave me a great deal of pleasure. This is now my third time reading Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer, and there is little truer than the phrase ‘you can never read a Gene Wolfe story, you can only re-read a Gene Wolfe story’
The main difference for me this time round was just how much I enjoyed the basic, layer one, level of the story. What the first time was incomprehensible, non-sensical and boring to me the first time, and what I felt like wasn’t important compared to everything that is happening out of sight behind the words on my second read became simply a marvellously imaginative adventure this time round, and every time I picked up some new connection to the larger things at play, of course often written in the most off-hand and indifferent way possible, was a pure hit of dopamine.
Similarly with Severian himself, first time round I couldn’t imagine a character who I disliked more, second time I came to believe that Severian himself was almost unimportant compared to everything and everyone around him, and this time I took the time to focus on understanding the man narrating his life, how his future affects his past, looking for reasons why he writes about certain things one way and others differently, and trying to get at the heart of Wolfe’s creation.
I think it must be said that when a text asks so much of the individual reading it, that it can easily lead to favouring understanding and explanation rather than emotion, even more so once you do gain some deeper understanding than the simple surface level, the connections and possibilities seem endless and in seeking the text’s essence we lose sight of its soul. I hope to read the entire Solar Cycle this year one book at a time, and have only read up to The Citadel of the Autarch so I’m very interested in seeing how I interact with the later volumes as my understanding of the ‘true story’ plummets will I come to dislike those as intensely as the first time I read Shadow or now that Wolfe has in some ways trained and taught me how to read him, will I be able to peer behind the curtain just enough to get the full impact of everything that lies outside of pure understanding.
4/5
by marqueemoonchild
2 Comments
Just to end, here are some questions I thought of that might be fun to ask and see what kind of theories people have:
How many times do you think Father Inire appears in this book? Once? Twice? More? Or maybe we never see him.
How did Dorcas really come to be in the waters of the Lake of Birds? Do you think it is as its told by the old boatman, or could there possibly be another way?
Whose corpse do you think is getting dug up at the beginning of the novel?
What are some of your favourite instances of reveals being given in the same manner someone would remark on the weather and passed over in the text immediately?
I’ve tried several times to get into Wolfe’s novels, having his books highly recommended by authors I respect, but to no avail. I am no novice at long, dense works, but his just eluded me.