Gene Wolfe Fans discussion
When does Severian lie and why?
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In order to live, something has to die, or never get the chance to live in the first place. Our daily lives are butchery. Wolfe reminds us of this by naming the chapter were Silk visits a market "The Sacrifice".Wolfe seems to be always teetering on the mechanical nature of the universe vs free will. The sun is the source of all the energy on Urth (as well as Earth), in every way we are but extensions of the sun's decaying entropy. The torturer blocking at the sun is both a symbol of cutting off life, as well as severing the connection to God.
The "conciliation" of the New Sun novels is this paradox. The mechanical nature of the universe that is also affected by human free will.
I have often wondered about the claims that Severian is an unreliable narrator and so far I have only found one occasion on which he seems to be perpetrating an outright lie. In TSotT on his way with Agia to harvest an avern for his approaching combat with "the hipparch" he indulges in a race between the fiacre they are riding in and that occupied by Sieur Racho and his companion. During the ensuing chaos, Agia's body is thrown against his and he finds this pleasant enough that he puts an arm about her and keeps it there. The key line states "I had clasped women so before - Thecla often, and hired bodies in the town." The issue of the deliberate omission of any previous mention of occasions when he had done so with Thecla aside, when exactly has he been clasping these "hired bodies"? Master Gurloes provided him with funds to visit the Echopraxia or "House Azure" so that he would not be tempted to bed Thecla. Following this visit, the very next chapter, "The Last Year", begins thus; "I think it was Master Gurloes's intention that I should be brought to that house often, so I would not become too much attracted to Thecla. In actuality I permitted Roche to pocket the money and never went there again." On that single occasion he has congress with only Thecla's (alleged) khaibit, so there are no other "hired bodies" involved. Are we to believe, then, that he did go back to the House Azure, despite his statement to the contrary, or perhaps to other such establishments? Or is he lying in mentioning these "hired bodies", claiming a worldliness he does not in fact possess? This admittedly is only a trivial instance illustrating Severian's unreliability as a narrator, but it is the only one that occurs to me.
"No one has ever accused me of being an honest man, and I’ve told lies enough when I thought they would serve my turn"
"You’re a poet too, aren’t you? And a good liar, I bet.”“I was the Autarch of Urth; that required a little lying, if you like. We called it diplomacy.”"
Famulimus’s face was almost always serious; now it seemed more serious than ever. “His memories, Severian? Have you no more than memories?” For the first time in many years, I felt the blood rise in my cheeks. “I lied,” I said. “I am he, just as I am Thecla. You three have been my friends when I had few, and I should not lie to you, though so often I must lie to myself.”
Aren’t these all from The Urth of the New Sun?
Neil: When people talk ask for examples of Severian lying, they are asking for examples of him lying *as narrator*--i.e., lying to the reader. Severian truthfully recounting for the reader a conversation in which he lied to someone else is not what is being discussed.
Mark wrote: "I have often wondered about the claims that Severian is an unreliable narrator and so far I have only found one occasion on which he seems to be perpetrating an outright lie. . . . [clip] Are we to believe, then, that he did go back to the House Azure, despite his statement to the contrary, or perhaps to other such establishments? Thank you for drawing the lines so clearly. This is a tightly articulated question, in a fixed amount of time within the text.
I offer the following as an answer of sorts.
In the same chapter "The Last Year," Severian later notes: "Drotte began to talk of an expedition he and Roche had made to a lion pit across Gyoll" (99). This is to establish the normal day-to-day of Severian's friends. On the next page is the main point I have, "[B]ut on the fourth [night] Roche took me into the city, and in a drinking den I heard someone who seemed to say that Vodalus was far to the north" (100).
This gives an example of Severian going out to "the city" on another occasion, and it was not to the House Azure. Since his friend was trying to cheer him up, and the same friend knew that House Azure was no good for Severian, it seems quite likely to me that this was the best opportunity for another hired sex worker, presumably one at the "common" level, lower than the "high class" level of the House Azure.
I'm reading Urth at the moment and quoting what I find as I find it. I think Urth is where Wolfe is at his most revealing, it's where all the secrets are unravelled."I searched my memory, which is perfect, except perhaps for a few slight lapses and distortions."
I think this shows that he is unreliable. If he admits he lies, he's a liar, and you can't trust the narrative.
Also look at the description of the battle. Almost naked ladies on the backs of beasts going into battle? Thousands of midgets on the backs of tall men? Yes this is fantasy/sci-fi, but if you think this is Wolfe giving an accurate description of the battle through his narrator's eyes, I'll have a pint of what you're drinking.
Also he describes the battle as squares in a chess like game, it's almost as if that when he's writing his account he's imagining what a game like this would look in battle. To believe he is a reliable narrator, you have to believe everything he says. Wolfe does his best to get the readrt to suspend that belief, I'm sorry if you can't see that.
Finally, Wolfe goes to great lengths to explain that this is not the original text, but a translation with word substitution. If it's a stretch to describe the narrator as unreliable, Wolfe is making sure that the reader understands that the narrative is. There are plenty of examples in the brown book where tales have been twisted out of all recognition. The Jungle Book for example. I see this as a deliberate pointer to the integrity of the narrative. Nowhere does Wolfe say "this narrative is unreliable", but he gives enough hints.
If you missed it, Mowgli, raised by wolves, is described as "frog" in Kipling's "The Jungle Book". Is the brown book actually corrupt, or has it been distorted by Severian's wonderful way with words? You could argue the case either way, but I like to think the latter.
Then again, this is a different universal cycle, are the authors of the brown book even the same? I still think it Wolfe's intention to make the reader wonder at this elaborate tale telling by Severian.
Also The Jungle Book (in the brown book) is a mash up with the story of Romulus And Remus. Is it the book that has been transcribed too many times, or again, other worlds authors, or a hint at Severian's far from perfect recall,mixing two stories from the book together?
None of that amounts to a concrete example of Severian fibbing, does it?
Ok. I'll hold my hands up. I've been looking for the lies based on a few people out there saying that the books use an unreliable narrator. After a bit of googling I've realised that I didn't know what was meant by this, so am now confessing my ignorance. The unreliable narrator is a recognised plot device, just as Deus ex machina is. It doesn't mean that the narrator is a liar. What it means is that the author has used a narrator to deliberately hide things from the reader to create suspense and surprise, such as plot twists and 'wait, what?' moments. The one that is pointed out often is the transition between books one and two. The reader is invested in the troupe and can't wait to see what happens next to Dr Talos, Baldlanders, Joleta and Dorcas.. At the start of book two, we see a different set of characters and are left wondering what has happened. A big chunk of the plot went missing as to what happened at the gate deliberately to surprise the reader. This is done by using the plot device of an unreliable narrator.
An unreliable narrator may be so in many different ways. In The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, the narrator is unreliable because he is too wrapped up in his own prejudices and neuroses to see other people clearly, and thereby fails to notice crucial, life-changing things. In Iain M. Banks’s Inversions, the narrator is unreliable because he is not privy to certain information concerning his subject, information that the reader may (or – here’s the kicker – may not) possess.
In Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the narrator has something to hide (as many readers of BoTNS believe Severian has), and while he never actually lies, he presents the truth in such a way as to mislead and confuse the reader.
An interesting example is Saul Bellow’s Herzog, which has been called that Nobel Prize-winning author’s masterpiece. The story is recounted in the third person by a conventionally omniscient author, but much of it is presented in the form of quotes from letters – unfinished, rambling, often incoherent letters – addressed by the protagonist, Moses Herzog, to other people. Even when the author is describing something directly we are always shown the action through Herzog’s eyes and are made privy to his thoughts. But Herzog, although he is a highly intelligent and educated man, has absolutely no idea why he does the things he does, or how he himself appears to others. We do, and we feel both compassion and irritation towards the poor, blessed, addled fool.
Gene Wolfe is not in that league. Severian’s unreliability is inconsistent – it manifests itself in different forms as serves the author’s turn. It is stuck on to the character rather than growing naturally out of his personality. Mostly, it is excused by the conceit that Severian’s world is very different from ours, and things in it that excite our curiosity – and may enlighten us concerning the story – are not mentioned or explained because they are, to him, so commonplace. Other aspects of his celebrated unreliability, like the narrative gap you mention that occurs between Books I and II, have no justification whatever (although you can attribute them to a fugue state in which his personality is submerged or – trying to avoid spoilers here – absent. At that point he hasn’t yet eaten the alzabo so we can’t attribute it to Thecla ‘taking over’).
It is really rather obvious that Wolfe is doing all this for his convenience and amusement rather than for the reader’s instruction and final enlightenment. The character of Severian hardly demands it. The character of Severian, in fact, demands nothing; it is very nearly a blank. He is horny, compassionate, humourless and disloyal. That is really all we gather from all those hundreds of pages about him.
Something to think about, perhaps, when discussing Gene Wolfe’s ‘greatness’.
The unreliable narrator in The Book of the New Sun is Gene Wolfe, not Severian.
Palmyrah wrote: "An unreliable narrator may be so in many different ways. In The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, the narrator is unreliable because he is too wrapped up in his own prejudices an..."Palmyrah: Very interesting and thoughtful post. Thanks!
I'm not sure I view Severian's "inconsistent" unreliability as quite as plain an authorial misstep as you do. I think taking BotNS alone (and leaving Urth out), Severian presents a strange and fascinating perspective. It's odd and inconsistent, sure. But I think it is easily read as coherently--and even tantalizingly--odd and inconsistent.
Once you bring Urth into the picture I agree more strongly with the flaws you identify.
Not really considering them as flaws: all writers have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Wolfe would have been the first to tell you that he wasn't really interested in all that psychological stuff. He was religious (obviously) and didn't see things from a psychological perspective. Characters in Gene Wolfe stories have no free will; they tend to move along predestined tracks, and any appearance of free choice is illusory. I don't know how he squared this with his Catholicism, it's rather more like Calvinism. But that's how it goes in the stories I've read, except maybe in Peace. I'm not sure about that one.
In other stories, the only characters who believe in the power of will are the bad guys -- Typhon, the father/clonemaster in ...Cerberus.
Wolfe's strength didn't lie in characterization (see my reviews of the Long Sun books) but in plotting and in manipulating the expectations of his readers. He was also very well read, and he was able to create very interesting backstories for his plots, and to pack his stories with all kinds of allusions and symbols (though the latter are mostly for decoration).
Understood, and more interesting points to consider. I suppose my off-the-cuff response would have been that BotNS Severian "works" as a psychological study notwithstanding Wolfe's personal intentions and limitations. But now that I think about it there may be something in what you say --
Again, thanks for the thoughts.
I Strongly disagree about The theme of choices and free will in New Sun, especially in the final volume, Urth of the New Sun. Severian spends much time in Urth suggesting that choice often involves choosing one master over another, as Gunnie and burgundafora did. His characters are at their most unreliable when they are denying their free will. Father Chris in Pirate Freedom blames God for something he could change by buying his young self some food instead of asking the boy, forced to steal it, to pay for it. Severian says that we cannot know the consequences of our actions until the end of time, but we have to be judged on intent and act accordingly. Choices have real consequences and often the characters refuse to make them, but Severian chooses to undergo the test.
In fifth head the moment of choice is the breaking glass all by itself right as he walks in to kill his father- a mirror hides the lab, and reflected in it he saw his father and himself with four arms like the monstrous clone when he was stealing stuff. He had the chance to be different than his father until then, but he broke the reflective surface and became him in that act of will, set off all by itself in the text- no external reflection reminds, now the essence is the same. There are many moments of key choices even beyond death- the enemies of the new sun get to awaken as Eidolons to help Severian win his trial. Because he treated them justly. One thing Wolfe does do is adhere to strict Augustinian theodicy: eventually, evil comes to good. The self-aggrandizement of Typhon preserves humanity and leads to Silk. The creatures hethor summons wind up inadvertently helping or rescuing Severian as threats cancel each other out. The choices are real but the outcomes are not subject to will. Even in the jungle hut isangoma emphasizes that Agia and Severian are the results of the choices they will make in the past.
Here is Wolfe’s take on that freedom to be what you want with f bomb being dropped: https://youtu.be/PpNbr4vupHk
Severian spends much time in Urth suggesting that choice often involves choosing one master over another... Severian says that we cannot know the consequences of our actions until the end of time, but we have to be judged on intent and act accordingly. Choices have real consequences and often the characters refuse to make them, but Severian chooses to undergo the test.Think again about what you have written above, and you will see that it actually confirms what I said earlier.
For Wolfe, deus ex machina (a phrase of which he was inordinately fond, though he chose to translate it metapohorically and therefore incorrectly) is the whole point of everything. In his writing, he himself was the deus and boy, did he never let us forget it.
In fifth head the moment of choice is the breaking glass all by itself right as he walks in to kill his father... etcI’m afraid not. This is merely your interpretation of what these scenes imply. As I have warned in my review of the New Sun books, people who think the symbolism in his novels fulfils any narrative function other than mere ornament are likely to get him very wrong. The hagiographers of urth.net are of that persuasion, I know.
And you are likely to be very wrong, too, buddy, with your interpretation. Peace! Wolfe was Catholic and Urth of the New Sun is Miltonian theodicy. You have the right to be wrong all the days of your life; I would not take that privilege from you.
Gene Wolfe Fans
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The Sense of an Ending (other topics)The Sense of an Ending (other topics)
Inversions (other topics)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (other topics)
Herzog (other topics)
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I don't think he ever relinquishes his pride as a showman, his appreciation of the theater of the execution. The cataclysmic arrival of the new sun, with all of its accompanying death and destruction, shows that the light is just as tinged with death as the shadow. (Of course, a shadow can't exist without light.)