Rich on Wolfe

[I swear I didn't post this for the title alone.  Sometimes comments just deserve to be posts, and since Rich doesn't have a blog of his own I'm the one duty-bound to do the elevating.  What follows is the coda to his conversation with Jonathan.  I don't necessarily agree with all of it (to be specific some of Philip K. Dick's hack-work stinks to me of hack-work), but it deserves a showcase.  So on with Rich's show.]

Rather than just respond to Jonathan, I should say what I think of Wolfe directly (although I'll probably be repeating myself from earlier in the thread). It's not that he's a bad writer. He's a second-rate writer, because he sets up expectations that he does not fulfill. Certain aspects of his books are good enough so that I am jolted out of the mindset of reading yet another work of commercial fantasy, and once I am, I discover that too much of the work remains inflected by commercial fantasy. With regard to the New Sun books, commonly regarded as his best series, I've already gone into the problems that I see in it: the classic and transparent plot devices, the puzzle-box authorial fiddling, the careless use of torture fetishism as a character booster.

I think that Scott is right that Wolfe has a single tone for many of his works (I haven't read them all -- just the five New Sun books, some of the short stories, the Swords books, and the Wizard Knight books), and it's a tone that enables him to indulge himself in his weaknesses. I'm sure that he really is interested in heroes who lose their memory, who have died and come back, who aren't who they think they are, and so on, but these characteristics of his protagonists also allow him a free hand with stage management, which he really should avoid allowing himself.

A writer should be judged on his best work, I suppose, and there are certainly writers who I think are first-rate (such as PKD) who have churned out some very inferior hackwork. But when PKD did hackwork, it always seemed like he was at least trying to be worthwhile, and I can't always say that for Wolfe. Case in point: the Wizard Knight books.

These two books are a pastiche, and he attempts to get around this by saying over and over that he knows it's a pastiche, he's doing it on purpose, it's a homage! But, just like Grunge in my quote above, that doesn't really make it any more than what it is. The rest of this comment will take the Wizard Knight books as an example; I don't think there are many plot revelations that you don't encounter early in the first book, but you have been warned.

The basic conceit of the books is taken from Yves Meynard's _The Book of Knights_ (a much better book). Wolfe credits Meynard in the acknowledgements. There is, as with the New Sun books, a creepy element added to increase that reader fascination that Jonathan talks about. In this case the protagonist is changed directly from a pre-teen into an adult so that he can make love to an elf queen, an act that would too obviously turn readers away in revulsion at child molestation if the protagonist was female. The gods are pastiche Norse; the nobility are pastiche Arthurian.

The first book is a mad scramble for plot tokens, collect them all: a bowstring, armor, a sword (it's Moorcock's Sword of the Dawn), a magical dog (it's Glen Cook's Toadkiller Dog), a magical cat (Gaiman), a magical flying horse (Wagner), and a large supporting cast of servants, allies, enemies, and lots of oaths so that the whole second book can be spent fulfilling them and answering people's questions.

And the politics, as always with Wolfe, are bad. It's the boy destined for greatness, the good (though manipulative) guys from above, the celestial and mundane hierarchy.

Basically, every major author has failures. But the very attempt at the Wizard Knight books is a sign that Wolfe isn't really trying.

Comments

[Laura]

After hearing Jonathan boost this Gene Wolfe character I bought the first three of the New Sun books on ebay. After reading the first two I agree with you, Rich. Hear that, Goodwin? you owe me AUD$9.50 plus shipping.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Which specific areas struck you, Laura?

Anyways, on the off chance that you like the same kind of thing that I do, there are five authors whose work is primarily in SF/fantasy who I would recommend most highly. This excludes a much larger number of authors who I would say are very good but whose writing I think is slightly more flawed in some way (e.g. Stanislaw Lem and characterization, Lord Dunsany and plot, China Mieville and that sense that he still hasn't done his best work, etc.) as well as people who, although they have written some SF or fantasy, already are considered "literary" and need no recommendation, like Poe or Pynchon. I've arbitrarily picked out two of what I think are the best works for each and listed them in alphabetic order:

Iain Banks: The Bridge, Use of Weapons

James Branch Cabell: The Silver Stallion, Figures of Earth

John Crowley: Little, Big, Engine Summer

Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle, Martian Time-Slip

Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan, Gormenghast

[Jonathan]

I'd recommend finising the last book and reading them all slowly. You might in fact not like them, but I'm sure you could come up with more interesting reasons why than Rich has here.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Jonathan is such a perfect Platonist. Apparently, there is no criticism so crude as that which actually exists. And none so close to the Good as the unexpressed opinion which "everyone" can sense, if only they are educated in the proper fashion.

Do indeed read over those books slowly. With study, you will discover the puzzle pieces that Wolfe has hidden there for any careful and intelligent reader, such as who Severian's paternal grandparents were, or the various mysteries of Severian's tomb. If you are the kind of person who joyously finds your highest aesthetic appreciation in crossword puzzles, you will be thrilled. You may even, like Jonathan, build up an entire poorly-supported alternate version of the story, in which unreliable narrativity means that Wolfe made all of the choices that *you* would have made as author. It's just as good as a Choose Your Own Adventure tale!

[Adam Stephanides]

I agree with most of Rich's criticisms of Wolfe (apart from the "torture fetishist" bit), but not with his conclusion: to me, they show not that Wolfe is a "second-rate writer," but that he's a first-rate writer with flaws. Wolfe indeed typically makes heavy use of standard SF or fantasy components. As far as I know, he's never denied or tried to "excuse" this. The important question is whether he builds something new from these components, and he clearly does: I have a hard time seeing how someone could read The Book of the New Sun, or even The Wizard Knight, and come away thinking that it was really just a standard commercial fantasy. I loathed The Knight (the first half of The Wizard Knight; I didn’t read The Wizard, having given up out of boredom at about p. 90), but not because it was too derivative, except of Wolfe's previous works. I hated it because:

1. It's an obvious wish-fulfillment fantasy, so obvious as to be embarrassing.

2. The protagonist, Sir Able of the High Heart, is a creep, but Wolfe apparently thinks he's the bee's knees.

Still, I wouldn’t brand The Knight hackwork: it seems obvious to me that Wolfe put a great deal of effort into it, even if it was misbegotten effort.

(I go into my objections to The Knight at greater length, though perhaps not to greater point, here (scroll down to Dec. 6 if the permalink doesn't work).)

Rich’s criticisms of Wolfe’s plots are on the mark. Wolfe does indeed rely far too much on improbable coincidence, which those on the Wolfe mailing list sometimes rationalize as "divine providence." If you’re looking for original, well-crafted plots, you won’t find them in Wolfe, at least not in his novels after Peace. But what Wolfe at his best does have to offer far outweighs his plotting deficiencies.

Like Rich, I’m not particularly interested in the puzzle aspect of Wolfe’s works. If I get something without much effort I’m happy, but I don’t spend much time poring over the more difficult puzzles. But it’s perfectly possible to read Wolfe happily, ignoring all the puzzles. I also agree with Rich that Wolfe’s politics are bad; but there are better writers than Wolfe (whether you take Wolfe at Rich’s estimation or at mine) of whom one could say the same.

Laura: The Book of the New Sun may or may not be Wolfe’s best work, but it’s not the best starting-point for Wolfe. I’d recommend instead The Fifth Head of Cerberus (the first novella in particular, which can -- and originally did --stand on its own), Peace, “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” and “The Death of Doctor Island” from The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (sic, sic, and sic), or “Forlesen” from Castle of Days.

[Henry]

A bit late to this party, but I'd vigorously disagree with Rich, and to some extent with acephalous too. First: I don't think that the Claw of the Conciliator serves as a plot-coupon, or anything like it. Nor do the various articles in the Wizard-Knight (although I agree that this book is very much weaker; late Wolfe is nowhere near as good as the early stuff). Yer classic plot-coupon story goes soemthing along the lines of a Dark Lord who can only be defeated if the sword of Zod comes together with the Shield of the Norns and the mystical kneepads of Zouche, each of which has to be collected, one per fat volume. The plot weaknesses of the Wizard-Knight don't involve plot-coupons - there isn't that sense of an _ex ante_ structure that the story is shoehorned into. Instead, for me the problem was the opposite - a rather weak structure, and an overt tendency towards didacticism which is leavened in his earlier work (Severian too tries to impart morals; but in many respects he is far from an admirable individual). And the Claw of the Conciliator isn't a plot coupon at all. Nor is its randomness a simple product of the author's need to have a magic device to fix the plot at random moments. It's a reflection of a clear set of beliefs, an argument about how the universe is, as is the BOTNS more generally. Wolfe is a Catholic. He gives us a universe which is pregnant with meaning and symbolism. In which God works, but in mysterious ways. We cannot approach him, but we can know him by his works. There's an order in the universe which can be apprehended in tiny pieces (the scene where Severian descends the cliff with the murals in Sword of the Lictor sets out this argument clearly) The Claw isn't a plot-coupon; it's a manifestation of Grace, as are the workings of what appear to be coincidence. The scene by the shore where Severian comes across the rose bush, and realises that all Claws are sacred claws and that he must take off his shoes for the earth is sacred ground, is a real culmination - it still gives me goose shivers whenever I re-read it (perhaps it helps to have been raised Catholic). There's a coherent aesthetic that runs through the BOTNS - it borrows its force from a sort of transsubstantiation of SF/F cliches which are given a sense of the numinous by Wolfe's vision of the order that lies behind them. I'd argue that Wolfe is genuinely a great writer - which isn't to say that everything that he is written is great - some of his work, especially his later writing is minor-league, or even, occasionally, bad. But Book of the New Sun, Peace, The Fifth Head of Cerberus and some of the short stories are just magnificent.

acephalous - I think that you are right, but only to some degree. Much of Wolfe's work shares a common tone, magisterial, slightly aloof. But he does have different voices too - even in BOTNS. The stories in the hospital at the beginning of the Citadel of the Autarch show a considerable variety of register, viewpoint etc. His very funny minor novel "Free Live Free" too - it's the only one novel he's written in the third person that is entirely successful imo, and doesn't have any sense of an overbearing narrator at all.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Henry, thanks for giving me something with substance to disagree with (Adam, I've read your blog post and will comment on it too). The basic problem, as I see it, with "The Claw isn't a plot-coupon; it's a manifestation of Grace, as are the workings of what appear to be coincidence" is that it makes Wolfe out to be God. If I am walking through the real world, and some improbable sequence of events causes the exact right thing to happen at the right moment -- the story to move along in some surprising way -- then I may consider it to be a religious experience, or I may dismiss it as coincidence. However, if the same thing happens in a book, neither avenue is available: God didn't do it, chance didn't do it, the author did it. If in the world, I picked up a strange artifact that just happened to glow and produce miracles whenever required -- miracles which I found out later were claimed to be predestined -- then either God or super-technological time travelers would sound quite reasonable. However, when Wolfe does it, I don't think that it's all that mysterious or awe-inspiring; it's just visible puppet strings.

Yes, there is a coherent aesthetic to BOTNS. That's why I don't call it commercial fantasy (Adam, if you had the impression that I did, please re-read the post above), I call it something which attempts to be more than commercial fantasy, but which is in the end a failure. A sense of the numinous is not compatible with a crossword puzzle; in the rose-bush scene, you know that Wolfe is going to have to come up with an origin for the Claw eventually, and if you've been paying attention to the time-looping, you suspect that Severian is going to see it. Well, all Claws are sacred claws, but at the same time, there is a sense of "See? There is the missing piece." That's why I am mystified by the suggestion that people who don't like BOTNS should read it more carefully; if anything, a quick and shallow reading preserves the sense of the numinous that Wolfe attempts in some scenes better than a close reading. The Claw is not a plot coupon, but it is a plot device, and the deus ex machina can not convincingly stand in for God.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Adam, I'm not going to address most of your points about The Wizard Knight, out of the sense that I've probably written too much already about a minor work. I was very interested in the following from your blog post: "Some people have argued that Able is an unreliable narrator, but to me this is wishful thinking (like the idea that 'The Ziggurat' is a critique of patriarchy) born of disbelief that Wolfe actually wants us to see a dull lout like Able as a hero."

I think that there is a certain dare I say Straussian overtone to this aspect of the response to Wolfe's use of unreliable narration. The sense that for a Wolfe book, there is an overt meaning, suitable for the hoi polloi, and an esoteric one, which the enlightened can understand and which conveniently is generally diametrically opposed to the overt meaning.

One more try with the "torture fetishism" idea: Wolfe wrote a series in which the protagonist wears a torturing costume consisting of a blacker-than-black cloak, a black mask, and a huge sword. That is a textual fact. I think that we can generally admit that the protagonist will be perceived by most people as admirable and sympathetic, and that most people are disturbed/repelled by torture, as additional facts, although they are perhaps arguable.

Additional arguable facts: this costume would not appear at all out of place at an S&M event, as defined in the current Western culture that constitutes the audience for Wolfe's books; Wolfe intended the costume to be emulateable -- "easy to dress up in" -- according to report.

The simplest explanation: Wolfe is doing a common authorial trick: giving the reader a fantasy that is both at some level attractive and at some level disreputable, so that the very discomfort that the reader feels tends to repress overt knowledge of the fantasy and make it less detectable, as well as adding to its strength. I already drew the connection between this and the child molestation in _The Wizard Knight_. Moorcock, for instance, explicitly and purposefully used this strategy, according to his later remarks, in all of the cheap Freudian imagery of the Black Sword in the hands of Elric.

But Moorcock's early books are acknowledged pulp, while Wolfe must be a sophisticated author. So when the esotericists confront these various facts, it appears that they simply must not see them. They are too crude. They are the message that is a mirage, seen only by the hoi polloi: surely Wolfe could not simply be ginning up fantasy material for his readers with Severian's costume. It must be a complex *comment* on this form of reader response. And hey, if it adds to sales, what the hoi polloi think is not after all very important.

[Adam Stephanides]

It's been several years since I last read The Book of the New Sun, so my memory may be inaccurate; but here's why I don't think Wolfe is indulging in, or exploiting, torture fetishism.

In the first place, apart from the color Severian's costume isn't really that similar to S&M gear. S&M aficionados usually go for tight-fitting uniforms, not loose cloaks (though no doubt there are exceptions), nor are swords common S&M accessories.

Given this, the fact that Wolfe chose a torturer as protagonist and gave him a striking costume doesn't in itself seem to me to be grounds for accusing the book of "torture fetishism." And there's little corroborating evidence, especially not of the sorts one would expect. If Wolfe were exploiting torture fetishism, one would expect to see frequent scenes of torture. Though my memory may be faulty, as I said, in the only torture scene I recall -- Thecla on the revolutionary -- Severian isn't principal actor, nor is the torture involved one that the typical "fetishist" would get off on. And if Severian's uniform played a key role in the "torture fetishism" as you argue, one would expect more descriptions of this uniform, either on Severian or on other torturers. Maybe it's just me, but when I read the books, I never pictured Severian as wearing his uniform.

Of course, you could argue that these absences are just part of Wolfe's scheme to disguise the torture fetishism. This is one of those arguments that can never be disproved. But before I accepted it, I'd have to see some external evidence at least, like evidence in Wolfe's other works of a fascination with torture, which again isn't there that I recall.

[Adam Roberts]

Different Adam here.

It's Wolfe 101, surely, that the torturer trope is Wolfe's stragey for needling hippy peace-and-love Christians. Or perhaps that makes it sound like the book is a petty point-scoring exercise, which it clearly isn't, any more than Oliver Twist is a point scoring exercise against the Poor Laws. Say, rather, that Wolfe works dialectically from the conventional tropes of peace-and-love Christ to interpellate a torturous Christ because it pleases him to shake-up the common assumptions about this figure. This takes off from interviews I've read in which Wolfe says things like 'in some of the gnostic gospels, Christ is represented as owning a whip ...' He is in effect repudiating the common contemporary representation of Christ, the non-violence, lovey-dovey Gandhi sort of Christ. I'd say that, informed by his own hard-right-wing ideology (or theology: same thing in my book) Wolfe wants to play around with ideas of another model of Christ, the Christ who claimed to come to destroy ('I come not to bring peace but a sword' how does that quotation go on? 'I shall set man against his father, daughter against her mother' etc), who made impossible and cruel demands of his followers (cut off their hands if they offended, never so much as think lustfully etc). A cruel Christ. This aspect of the books doesn't bother me -- quite the reverse in fact, although my own personal beliefs are left-wing and atheist, because it seems to me that one of the thing a great artist does is play around with the myths of the age in striking and thought-provoking and sometimes unsettling ways. It seems to me as being in the same tradition as Donne's troping Christ not as a bridgegroom but a rapist in his 'batter my heart' sonnet. Surely Severian makes much more sense as a figuring of the severity of the messiah than it does as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for hetero male readers. Not that such a reader couldn't read Sev. that way, but that the book is a much more interesting and fertile text if that's not the reading that dominates. Do we really identify with Severian in BOTNS? In the way we, say, identify with Frodo in LOTR?

Not to say that the sexual fetish reading of Sev. is incompatible with any of this, except that 'Christ the Sexual Fetishist' seems to me a step too far for Wolfe, in a way that 'Christ the Torturer' isn't.

Typologically, and indeed more generally on the level of symbology, I do think it's hard to fault Wolfe. But style, where this whole thread started, is another matter.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Adam, the technique clearly doesn't work if Wolfe depicts Severian enjoying torture (or liking Hethor's attention). Severian is supposed to be someone we can identify with -- someone who coincidentally has the power to torture people. The fantasy doesn't work if readers are just revolted.

And you want textual evidence for frequent mentions of the uniform, or of torture scenes? OK.

From a quick skim of the paperback version of _The Shadow of the Torturer_: first torture scene 18 pages in. First mention of the "carnificial" sword and fuligin cloak, which perhaps significantly Severian as apprentice is not supposed to touch, pg. 27. Masks, pg. 34. First "fuligin, the color that is darker than black", pg. 42. Second torture (well, bandaging someone driven to suicide), pg. 52. Second mention of masks, pg. 53. Masks again, pg. 57.

First glorification of torturer as delicate soul in a stressful but honorable business, pg. 60: "[...] Master Gurloes had shaped himself to be the dull creature a pursuivant or bailiff expected to see when he summoned the head of our guild, and that is the only thing a real torturer cannot be." Oh really?

First power fantasy scene, pg. 64. "She was a great, great chatelaine, and I was something worse than a slave [...]. Yet when the time had passed, [...] it was I who rose and left the cell and climbed into the clear air of evening, and Thecla who stayed behind to listen to the moans and screams of the others."

Much more about clothes and status, pg. 65. Can Severian wear the journeyman's black boots? Now that he's going to lose his virginity, sure he can.

Do I need to keep skimming, or is that enough? These are the scenes that establish the character.

By the end of the first book, pg. 225-226, Severian as carnifex is standing there: "It is part of our office to stand uncloaked, masked, sword bared [...]" and describing "one feels only a slight hesitation as the spinal column parts".

By the end of the last book (_The Citadel of the Autarch_, pg. 274, Severian, having been through everything, is still dispensing homilies about how it hurts him more than it hurts his clients: "By our mercy we will grant them a quick death. Not because we pity them, but because it is intolerable that good men should spend a lifetime dispensing pain." Oh really? And his old guild is going to preserve his cloak, which he still has kept throughout all the events of the books, and the remnants of his blade, because they were his.

Seriously, is that enough textual evidence? I don't really understand how people *don't* see this kind of thing.

And lastly, no I'm not saying that Wolfe is fascinated with torture; that criticism was about BOTNS specifically. I do think that Wolfe likes this kind of cheap authorial stunt in general; that's why I brought up the fact that the hero in Wizard Knight is changed from child to adult so that he can go straight into a sex scene. The point is to choose something that will cause enough discomfort to the reader to produce the effect that I described above.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Oops, last comment was directed at Adam Stephanides, not Adam Roberts, if that wasn't clear.

[Henry]

Rich - I don't think that your reading of the scene with the rosebush gets at what Wolfe is trying to get at. It isn't the solving of a puzzle or the presentation of a puzzle to be solved. It's a mystery. The point is that any thorn on any rosebush could be and is the Claw - it has fallen from the hand of the Increate. Wolfe's argument here is explicitly metaphysical. The key moment in Wolfe's argument, I think, is when the tent of the Pelerines goes up into the sky and Severian and Dorcas discuss the three meanings that such an event might have. There is a very interesting layer of argument here - one day if I get the time, I'll try to get together an essay on this. Also, the question of the identification between Wolfe as creator and God is something that goes through Wolfe's work at a pretty fundamental level. Several short stories (The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories; War Beneath the Tree; the one with the party and the tulpas) all play with the idea that we don't have any more ontological solidity than a character in a story - that we may disappear when the reader turns the page or the author gets bored.

Also don't agree with the argument about fetishization of torture. The Gurloes bit in particular - it's fairly clear from the story (a) that Gurloes is a complicated but fundamentally corrupt character, and (b) that Severian has more in common with Gurloes in some ways than with Palaemon. Whenever Severian describes torture it's in a clinical fashion. What Adam Roberts says - Severian is a Christ-like figure with a whip (or, more accurately, a man from a corrupt and evil background approaching something like Christhood). De gustibus and all that - but there is something interesting and important to the books that I think you're missing. But as I say - I really need to write something proper on this and get my argument in order, so that you can respond in kind. Won't be happening for a while though (other obligations).

[Rich Puchalsky]

Henry, I'm fairly sure that I understand what you've written, and I'm fairly sure that I understand what Wolfe was trying to get at with the rose bush scene. What I disagree with is whether the scene actually succeeds.

You say that it isn't the solving of a puzzle. Well, that's how you choose to look at it, but by looking at it in that way, you are not fully reading the text. Wolfe unfortunately supplied enough information to make it fundamentally not a mystery. Any thorn of the rosebush could be the Claw. But only one of them was actually picked up by Severian, taken back with him through time, encased by the Pelerines within a gem, planted as a gem on Severian's younger self, shattered from its casing by Baldanders, placed under the altar stone ... and the source of its power may well be the Increate, but it's also the connection to the white hole, which is established with Severian in _The Urth of the New Sun_. There is a fundamental disharmony between Wolfe's impulse to tidy his fantasy into SF and his impulse to mystify. The puzzle pieces do not go away simply because you choose not to look at them.

As for Severian describing torture clinically, well, yes. I don't know why I can't seem to communicate this concept, but I'm not saying that Severian, much less Wolfe, is supposed to be thrilled or excited by torture. He is not "Christ the Sexual Fetishist", as Adam Roberts puts it. The reader is invited to admire a Christlike figure, or at least a person from an evil background struggling towards goodness. This person also has a fetishistic costume, which Wolfe (see the brief quotes above for examples) explicitly connects to sexuality and power fantasy, and there are ever-present reminders that he tortures people. The effect of this combination is supposed to take place within the mind of the reader, not within the world of the book.

Lastly, Master Gurloes. The narrative states that in Severian's opinion, a real torturer can not be a dull creature. Do you think that this is actually true? I will assume not, because if so, this really would be glorifying torture. So why does Wolfe write it? I can imagine the chorus of objections at this point: Severian's opinion is not necessarily true, Severian is an unreliable narrator, Severian could have depicted Gurloes in this way for his own purposes, perhaps Wolfe wants to clue us in to distrust Severian as narrator, etc. But of course Wolfe has put Severian in a privileged position. If we want to experience Urth, we must do so through Severian; unlike imagined readers of Severian's tale in the world of Urth, we have no other standard of comparison. How many readers really will maintain scepticism about Severian throughout four books' worth of narration? This is what I was getting at when I said that for the esoteric readers of Wolfe, the message taken away by the general readership doesn't matter, even if that message is really rather objectionable.

[Henry Farrell]

Hi Rich

As I say, I'll try to make a more substantive case for the books in an essay one of these days. But to respond to your points ... I do think that the key to the books is the dialogue between Severian and Dorcas about the ascent of the Pelerines' tent (at the end of SoTT if my memory serves me correctly), where Severian argues that the physical explanation (that the tent ascended because of the heat from the flames is an entirely different level and kind of explanation from the mystical one. The 'mystery' of the thorn is by no means the same thing as the Mystery - and it's the latter that still gives goosebumps to this lapsed Catholic. I can understand what you are saying, I think, that the one kind of detective-mystery gets in the way of the other more metaphysical one - but I think that this is a simple disagreement of tastes between us. In this, (and this is the value of an argument like this - it makes you think about your own positions) I think that Wolfe is really very like Chesterton, and in particular his Father Brown stories, where mysteries and Mysteries regularly collide.

On Gurloes - I think you are wrong. The statement that Gurloes is a complicated character, who drinks to excess, talks to the computers in the top of the tower etc isn't intended I think as anything like a glorification of the torturer. It's pretty clear that being a torturer in Severian's world is a complicated, political job. That doesn't serve as a justification. By synchronicity, there's a relevant post at Lawyers, Guns and Money on the Battle of Algiers here - think of Master Gurloes as Colonel Mathieu and I suspect you won't go far wrong. Where I think that there is some subtlish unreliable narrator stuff going on is that Severian's evident dislike for Gurloes, and liking for Palaemon disguises the fact that he has more in common with the former than the latter. In Urth of the New Sun, one of the characters who doesn't know Severian remarks that he looks like he'd cut your throat whistling. But the underlying point is that I don't think Wolfe is glorifying torture here, in Gurloes or otherwise.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Thanks, Henry, I do think that this has been a productive exchange. I'll re-read the Severian and Dorcas scene. About Chesterton, though: I think that his best single work is _The Man Who Was Thursday_ -- in my opinion, better than any of Wolfe's books or short stories that I've read. That's a detective story with a metaphysical resolution. So why would I think that it works, while BOTNS does not?

Well, leaving aside factors such as Chesterton being a better writer in some senses, whatever that means, I think that a good deal has to do with genre. _The Man Who Was Thursday_ is set in the real world; its coincidences, surreal moments, unreasonably all-encompassing justifications for paranoia, and flights of mysticism can be seen as just that. Wolfe, in contrast, by the end of _The Urth of the New Sun_, has carefully provided the characters in his book with the physical capability to make all of these things happen, as physical events. That being so, rejoicing in the hand of the Increate appears to be somewhat like looking at an animal and rejoicing in the hand of Intelligent Design, or looking at a comet through a space-borne telescope and then treating it as an astrological portent. I understand what you write about multiple levels and kinds of mystery -- but in cases where there is no mystery, ought we really to create it? I've already said that I can't admire Wolfe's authorial deus ex machina as a proxy for God, but this would effectively be admiring the deus ex machina of the Heirodules/Heirogrammates (manipulative characters in Wolfe's books) as proxies for God.

About Master Gurloes, remember that Severian makes a categorial statement, not one merely about him as a particular person:
"Master Gurloes had shaped himself to be the dull creature a pursuivant or bailiff expected to see when he summoned the head of our guild, and that is the only thing a real torturer cannot be." Severian doesn't say that the head of a guild can not be a dull creature, he says that a real torturer can not be a dull creature. The members of Severian's guild are children obtained without regard to their adult qualities; surely there must be dull creatures among them, who are put to work within the guild and do not come into much contact with the political leaders outside -- unless the work of torture is inherently complexifying to those who do it, as if their consciences must be troubled by the continual need for justifications. I think that this shows every sign of being a "tormented soul" Romantic fantasy for readers, a highly objectionable one given that real-world torture is not passed and gone.

[Adam Stephanides]

Responding to Rich's Sept. 27, 2:27 P.M. comment:

"Is that enough textual evidence?" Sorry, but no. If a book has a torturer as a protagonist, then it's almost inevitable that it will have scenes of torture, or at least of the aftermath of torture. (If BotNS didn't you'd accuse Wolfe of whitewashing Severian's occupation.) Likewise, if the protagonist has a striking costume, the costume will necessarily be described at some point. The question is whether there's an excessive emphasis on torture and uniforms beyond what the narrative calls for. (Unless you want to argue that making one's protagonist a sympathetic torturer is ipso facto pandering to torture fetishism, in which case your textual citations are superfluous.)

The first “torture” scene you cite is actually the aftermath of torture, and Severian, supposedly the focal point for the torture fetishism, had nothing to do with the torture. And the torture itself is gruesome enough that readers are likely to be revolted rather than aroused, unless they are extreme sadists. (Such sadists exist, but if Wolfe were being as commercially calculating as you seem to imply, it would seem an unwise move to appeal primarily to them.) Your second “torture” scene you cite doesn’t mention torture explicitly at all, and only implies torture in a generalized fashion; and again, the torture had no connection with Severian. I’ve looked at the various mentions of uniforms you cite (you missed a reference to “fuligin ... darker than black” on p. 27), and none of them strike me as being fetishistic; and you don’t reply at all to my point that Severian’s uniform isn’t that much like a S&M costume. As for your “power fantasy scene,” I’m not completely sure what your point is, but in fact Severian has very little power here: he can’t torture her, or have her tortured, on his own initiative. And again, I don’t see that Wolfe is doing more here than characterizing Severian.

If you had simply argued that Wolfe’s portrayal of torturers is insufficiently harsh, that would be a reasonable criticism. But to accuse him of pandering to “torture fetishism” is unjustified.

[Jonathan]

Another point here is the recognizably South American setting, where torture was much in the news when Wolfe wrote this book.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Adam Stephanides, I'm not sure what level of citational evidence would convince you. You appear to be asking for something different than what you first asked for, when you expressed scepticism that there were frequent torture scenes, and said that you never pictured Severian wearing his uniform.

I think that the basic problem is that you still aren't understanding what I meant. If Severian were depicted as being focally involved in, and enjoying, torture scenes that were directly like S&M fantasies, the books would simply be trash. No one is saying that the books are trash.

Instead, I'll try to use a Moorcock analogy, as being closer to the Wolfe case, but in some ways intermediate. When Elric's blade irresistably pulls him to kill one of the women that he's in love with, he isn't depicted as being sexually thrilled. That would be disgusting, no one would read the books. On the contrary, he is properly horrified. Does that mean that there is no sexual/power imagery involved? Moorcock says that there is, and I believe him. And legions of fanboys would deny it, thinking that they just think that Elric is really cool, just as so many who otherwise inexplicably think that Steven Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series is so great would be shocked at the thought that they are attracted to masochistic fantasies. It doesn't work without the repression.

That doesn't mean that I am writing about something unfalsifiable, something which only works when hidden and therefore can never be shown to exist. On the contrary. Re-read the page where Severian is going to be taken to lose his virginity, and look at the focus on his concern over whether he can wear the black journeyman boots. Look at the many cases through the books where costume is connected to status/power, often Severian's power over women. You say that you don't see my point in the scene that I labelled a power fantasy, since you say that Severian doesn't have much power there, since he can't have Thecla tortured. Let me re-quote that scene:

"She was a great, great chatelaine, and I was something worse than a slave [...]. Yet when the time had passed, [...] it was I who rose and left the cell and climbed into the clear air of evening, and Thecla who stayed behind to listen to the moans and screams of the others."

You really don't see this? Severian has the power to leave. The woman that he's going to end up sleeping with does not. There is an explicit mention of power reversal, that's what all the she was a great noble, I was a slave bit is about. Thecla would never end up sleeping with Severian if he didn't have the power to leave -- which he gains through his status as a torturer -- and she did not.

And all through the books, it's reinforced with the visual image of costume, costume, costume. I'm glad that you found that extra reference that I missed on page 27. You may not think that is a lot of references within that number of pages, but I do. You say that his costume isn't tight-fitting enough -- well, whoever did the art for the covers (something not under Wolfe's control, but still as far as I can tell an accurate depiction of the book) disagrees.

As for frequency of torture? Wolfe puts in a bloody, clinical image at the start, reinforces it with the bandage scene, then there is Thecla's torture itself, followed by the various scenes where Severian acts as wandering torturer. At that point Severian adds, supposedly to explain how he isn't going to please people who are fascinated by blood, that he isn't going to say any more about it but that we should know that as he goes about the events that he's telling us about, he's also continuing the job of torturing people. That's perfect placement: the idea is in the reader's imagination, where it should be, and is reinforced by every succeeding mention of Severian's costume. If it was treated explicitly, people really would get tired and disgusted by it. The readers aren't Hethor, after all. In fact, they can safely be made to feel superior to Hethor -- a good touch.

Jonathan, your last comment exemplifies the esotericism that I've referred to. The setting is in no way "recognizeably South American". Only very careful readers of the books would make this identification and connect it with events in South America contemporary with Wolfe writing the book. The fact that this connection is possible for a tiny minority of readers does not mean that it is important to the way in which the book is designed to be received.

[Jonathan]

Only in rivers, pampas, the Ascians (without equatorial shadows) of the North, fauna, librarians, culture, and words. I've wondered if Wolfe was aware of plate tectonics and what that might mean, if so.

Quiz: A theory book published right around the same time exclaimed that you must "always" what?