The Shadow of the Torturer: Urth: Book of the New Sun Book 1 (Gateway Essentials 174)

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In terms of plot, The Shadow of the Torturer isn't a complex novel. The protagonist grows up under the protection of a strange, cloistered society, learns a few things about the outside world, betrays his guardians, and is thrown out to seek his own fortune -- familiar fantasy stuff. But what sets the book apart from standard swords-and-sorcery fare is the richness of its language and the great imagination in its details; the difference is like comparing a fine oil painting to a crude computer graphic rendering. It has subtlety that forces the reader to pay attention. Wolfe messes with time and space, contemplates philosophical ideas, writes long exchanges whose import isn't immediately clear, and relies on the audience to make sense of the strange, slightly dreamlike events that unfold in the story, rather than spelling out how they're connected. I looked down the street. Lanterns swung there among the fog-muffled sounds of feet and voices. I would have hidden, but Roche held me, saying, "Wait, I see pikes."

The narrator Severian recalls that when he was younger, he only desired “high things” like justice and for the Torturers guild to regain the high regard it once had. He then writes, “I am wise now, if not much older, and I know it is better to have all things, high and low, than to have the high only.” This book is the first part in a five part series, and only the first four books are available on Audible. I would say that this series is the story of the torturer's apprentice Severian, and his journey from lowest and most despised member of society to the throne, set in a far future Earth in which civilization and society are on a slow decline. I would say that, except that this is less a story and more a multi-dimensional mental jigsaw puzzle. The series requires that you, the listener, pay a great deal of attention to the plot, characters and vocabulary, and then listen to the whole thing all over again, possibly a few times, to get the richness, complexity and beauty of Gene Wolfe's vision. If you are prepared to make that kind of commitment, this is a great bargain as it will repay you in many hours of listening pleasure, getting better each time you listen again. We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life—they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.

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Concerning the tone of the story, the audience is reminded from time to time that these are essentially memoirs of the main character, which does take away from the narrative tension. In effect, you are reading a story knowing the ending beforehand, which I think is an admirable decision on the part of the author. By placing the ending of the story in the beginning, Wolfe has essentially challenged his audience to come along for the ride just to see how the lead character gets to where he is. Severian claims to possess not just an eidetic memory but a perfect memory and as such any contradictions on his part as the narrator are deliberate obfuscations.

Shortly before Severian is elevated to journeyman he encounters and falls in love with Thecla, a beautiful aristocratic prisoner. Thecla's crime is never made clear, though it is implied that she is imprisoned for political reasons since Thecla's half-sister is Thea, Vodalus's lover. The Autarch (ruler of the Commonwealth) wishes to use Thecla to capture Vodalus. When finally Thecla is put to torture, Severian takes pity on her and helps her commit suicide by smuggling a knife into her cell, thus breaking his oath to the guild.The Shadow of the Torturer is a fantasy novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, published by Simon & Schuster in May 1980. [2] It is the first of four volumes in The Book of the New Sun [1] which Wolfe had completed in draft before The Shadow of the Torturer was published. It relates the story of Severian, an apprentice Seeker for Truth and Penitence (the guild of torturers), from his youth through his expulsion from the guild and subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.

Drotte was our captain, and Eata put an arm and a leg through the iron palings, but it was immediately clear that there was no hope of his getting his body to follow. What does Jonathan Davis bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?Severian the future narrator pauses in his recitation to wonder aloud if he is providing too much detail for these scenes. But he has “spent weary days in reading the histories of my predecessors” (prior Autarchs) and they consist of abridged accounts which are open to multiple interpretations of motivations and causes. He philosophizes that one’s actions are influenced by both external and internal forces. The external is embodied in “those figures who wait beyond the void of death…Rightly we feel our lives guided by them, and rightly too we feel how little we matter to them, the builders of the unimaginable, the fighters of wars beyond the totality of existence.” However there are forces within us equally great – like Severian’s unexplainable desire for the shopkeeper’s daughter. Those forces “waken within us and we are ridden like beasts, though the rider is but some hitherto unguessed part of ourselves.” Master Palaemon notes that Severian will have to walk the long distance to Thrax since he has no funds. The mention of money causes Severian to remember the coin that Vodalus gave him and he reflects, “If I had not glimpsed the woman with the heart-shaped face and earned that small gold coin, it is more than possible I would never have carried the knife to Thecla and forfeited my place in the guild. In a sense, that coin had bought my life.” Imagine someone writing two dozen prompts in different universes with different tones, different characters and in divergent styles. Then imagine someone trying to piece together these half-stories into a narrative and this is what you end up with. The story is a set of disconnected impressions which meander without purpose. The author is EXTREMELY free in introducing imaginary words, and has a habit of reeling them off. An example: "This reminded me of the flargulburt, and the whoopy-di, and the crested hooplesnap. On the flinning of Voling, I often found myself gazing at the flargulburts before the hour of the Ydwan. " Each 'scene' of the story just vomits inconsequential characters burbling about nothing at all. Neil Gaiman, in his list of the three greatest science fiction novels, ranked The Shadow of the Torturer first, ahead of Neuromancer and The Left Hand of Darkness. [5] Awards [ edit ] PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Complete_Book_of_the_New_Sun__The_Sha_-_Gene_Wolfe.pdf, The_Complete_Book_of_the_New_Sun__The_Sha_-_Gene_Wolfe.epub