This ambiguity also exists at the level of language. This narrative device is tactically used to make use uncertain as readers: Is the book a piece of political maneuvering for a new ruler? Is it a serious autobiography? Is it some self-mythologizing? Is there any way to externally verify anything that Severian tells us?ĭark Souls II screenshot courtesy Bandai-Namco He has been appointed Autarch of his civilization, a kind of supreme leader, and the novel that we are reading is for posterity.

At the same time, the novel is written in the past tense, and we come to find out that our narrator is Severian himself later in life. Like a 19th century novel, BOTNS is more a series of scenes than it is a linear plot, and we follow Severian through his life as he goes through significant changes and perilous moments. He grows up as an apprentice of the Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence, or the Torturer’s Guild, and is forced to leave that position and make his fortune in the world. We follow Severian from his childhood through to his adulthood. The sketch of The Book of the New Sun is pretty simple. The quality of the light from the lamp was not great, but the golden tone was evocative of the journey I was about to embark on.

I was sitting in my bed in my first apartment off-campus during college. I can close my eyes and tell you exactly where I was when I started reading The Shadow of the Torturer, the first book of four that make up The Book of the New Sun. I’ve been playing the Gene Wolfe game for ten years.

Shadow of the torturer gene wolfe