REVIEW: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, the first volume in The Book of the New Sun tetralogy, is a dark, dream-like fantasy novel that blurs the line between myth and memory. A densely-layered and influential novel, it laid much of the groundwork for later grimdark authors. For lovers of dark fantasy and those interested in the lineage of the genre, it is a vital piece of the grimdark puzzle.
‘It is my nature, my joy and my curse, to forget nothing. Every rattling chain and whistling wind, every sight, smell, and taste, remains changeless in my mind…’
The Sun is waning. Urth is dying. Humanity is but a decaying shadow of itself.
Gene Wolfe’s 1980 masterpiece, The Shadow of the Torturer, laid much of the foundation for what later came to be known as grimdark. It set in motion many of the tropes and expectations dark fantasy readers take for granted, and its influence on the genre cannot be overstated. It can be seen as a sort of proto-grimdark novel.
Set in the far-flung future, The Shadow of the Torturer follows Severian, an apprentice of the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence (the Torturer’s Guild) as he is exiled from his guild and sent into the wider, post-apocalyptic world. Spending his youth as an orphaned apprentice of the Torturer’s Guild, Severian is tasked early in the novel with torturing a political prisoner, Thecla. When he takes mercy on her by assisting in her suicide, he is sent into exile and ordered to travel to the far-off city of Thrax, taking with him a letter and great executioner’s blade, Terminus Est. On his journey, he meets a myriad of strange and allegorical characters. Each does their bit to turn this twisted hero’s journey from a simple wandering tale to an almost mythic pilgrimage.
‘It was in this instant of confusion that I realized for the first time that I am in some degree insane.’
Severian, who claims to have a perfect memory, is recounting much of his life. However, this is not a warts-and-all confession. It is controlled, articulate and, depending on who you ask, riddled with contradictions. All his claims, including this one, must be brought into question. Both the truthfulness of events and the nature of the man recounting them is determined by how one chooses to read and interpret Severian’s account. He can be seen as a naive, good-hearted man telling his story honestly; or a man with many sins to hide and reasons for keeping them hidden.
Gene Wolfe was known for his literary prowess. He was a writer who straddled the line between literary and genre fiction. He is your favourite writer’s favourite writer. His approach is neither conceited nor pretentious. He has faith in the reader’s intellect and wants you to work for the story. It will not work for everyone, but I greatly respect him for not pandering and holding my hand. Through twisted characters in a dying world, Wolfe explored this moral ambiguity as well as his own Catholicism.
‘But there is no such reason to mourn the destruction of a colony of cells: such a colony dies each time a loaf of bread goes into the oven. If a man is no more than such a colony, a man is nothing; but we instinctively know that man is more. What happens then to the part that is more?’
There is a strange and haunting beauty to Severian’s narration and, in turn, Wolfe’s prose. From his descriptions of the grotesque landscape to the vile acts of torture themselves, the prose is lush, poetic and haunting. It is thickly layered and with depths beyond comprehension. The Shadow of the Torturer is an endlessly re-readable narrative, and with each subsequent sojourn with this flawed and mysterious character, greater depths are plumbed.
There are some obvious influences this book had on the later development of grimdark as a genre: the depictions of violence, an unreliable narrator (and a torturer at that), a morally grey world. The Shadow of the Torturer is also a subversion of the hero’s journey, beginning with betrayal, torture, suicide and exile. I do not claim to have understood everything Wolfe packed into this, rather short, three-hundred-page novel, but there are, I think, deeper aspects of the novel that have carried over into the collective appetite of dark readers. Namely, the density with which the world’s information is doled out and the sheer lack of hands to hold. Severian, assuming the reader to be someone living in and aware of his contemporary world, does not bother to spoon-feed them. There are no dumps of exposition in The Shadow of the Torturer. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Wolfe demands quite a lot from them. He trusts them. That is a rare thing. Every line must be read between and every lie must be parsed out for the reader to truly glean the story’s deeper depths. It is a style of worldbuilding that would later be used by grimdark greats such as Anna Smith Spark and Steven Erikson.
‘We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard defining edges.’
Of course, one could read The Shadow of the Torturer at face value and come away with a perfectly enjoyable story, but there is much that would be lost. The novel requires patience, and a second or third reading is a must. The Shadow of the Torturer is not overly action-packed. There is much reflection, philosophising and introspection. There are slow moments and quiet moments. But that is all part of its beauty. Complaints of The Shadow of the Torturer often highlight that many of the events during Severian’s exile feels contrived. Characters appear once, and by chance pop-up later at convenient times. Side characters can feel like caricatures; one-dimensional foils to challenge Severian’s naive worldview. Such a complaint comes from a surface-level reading of the book. Severian is telling this tale, leaving many warts concealed. It is evasive, selective and rife with omissions. That is the point.
‘Have I said that time turns our lies into truth?’
Packed full of medieval imagery forcibly-blended with science fiction wonderment, like some kind of doomed and howling experiment, The Shadow of the Torturer is an essential book for lovers of all things dark. The prose is dense without meandering into the purple, the narration is sharp, witty and withholding much from a casual read and the world is a decaying and grotesque husk of what it once had been. The Shadow of the Torturer rests loftily in the genre’s lineage and, for the grimdark fan, is a must-read book.
Read The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene WolfeThe post REVIEW: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.
