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/lit/ - Literature

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23764010 No.23764010 [Reply] [Original]

What did you learn from this book? Include Urth of the New Sun as well

>> No.23764028

>>23764010
Stories are... le powerful. (I don't understand it well enough yet after one readthrough to give a serious answer I'd be happy with I think)

>> No.23764073

>>23764028
Read again friend

>> No.23764106

>>23764073
I definitely will, but want to read the rest of the Solar Cycle first.

>> No.23764142

>>23764010
i just finished urth this morning
There seems to be something Severian's perfect memory, along with a sort of mysteriousness interconnectedness and looseness to things?
Dreams, stories, and visions end up relating to real things, things he stumbles upon and seem mundane have a huge impact for the rest of the story.
(At the very end he says something about how if the older kids hadn't run away he never would have encountered vodalus)
Severians memory and sort of willingness to remember and dwell on them as the bringer of the new sun might be the connective agency?
Whole idea he was already dead but was sort of being held in place as a sort of figure in the completion of the narrative of his memory?
I have no idea what to make of the whole sort of 4 god/sleeper thing at the end...

>> No.23764211

>>23764142
>There seems to be something Severian's perfect memory, along with a sort of mysteriousness interconnectedness and looseness to things?
What I understood was that our Severian comes from a long, long (possibly infinite) line of erased possible futures that interconnect with the past and shape the next one. That (again, as I understood) is the final truth of the blossoming, cyclical universe. Remember Master Malrubius said the universes are alike but never the same. This means that nothing in Severian's life is by coincidence, it happens either because it already happened before thus being the very cause of it happening again or that something in the past cycle changed and influenced the next (like the Undine saving our Severian, though the previous one wasn't saved yet somehow survived). All this so that one of them might finally bring the New Sun that will save the human race (who I suspect will turn into the Hierogrammates themselves).

>> No.23764244

is this worth reading if I dont care about the fantasy genre?

>> No.23764360

>>23764244
It's sci-fi

>> No.23764446

>sit down to read Urth for the 3rd time
>ok goddammit this time I'm really going to pay attention, I'm going to get to the bottom of the Catholic mysticism that everyone's always saying this is about
>5 pages in, realize I've been daydreaming about Burgundofara pinning me down and pegging me for 20 minutes
Learning is the coward's cope

>> No.23764464

What the fuck are Abaia, Erebus and the rest?

>> No.23764488

>>23764464
Mutations

>> No.23764509

>>23764142
>I have no idea what to make of the whole sort of 4 god/sleeper thing at the end...
I guessed that was just an epilogue. Severian (or the memory-thing that was Severian) returned to the future after the New Sun arrived, and found the survivors of the human race who were in fact the descendants of the sailors from Tzadkiel's ship, and had been taught by the three people from the raft that survived the flood, and were now veneered as gods, Severian one of them because the last they saw of him was him jumping into the sea. Eata is strangely not among them, but I suppose being a sailor, he didn't stay when they found land and returned to the sea.
What I don't get is how and why Apu-Punchau returned to life just as Severian was leaving for the corridors of time.

>> No.23764515

>>23764488
Is this ever explained?

>> No.23764547

>>23764464
>>23764488
It's all fucking cryptic and vague. They say Erebus will one day devour the continents. Isn't that what happens when the New Sun arrives? The ocean, called up by the gravitational waves of the new sun flood the whole world and kill everybody. They say he sleeps under the waves. Wasn't Severian, the New Sun, called the Sleeper by the people of Ushas? Did Wolfe mean to imply Erebus was Severian himself, his legend thrown back in time by the Hierodules or whoever can do that shit?

>> No.23764618

>>23764010
I learned our environments have a deeper effect on us than we realize. That seemingly regular or innocuous looking objects can take over our minds. That stagnant waters breed horrors. That Knowledge is power. And that We love the Giant because he grows.

>> No.23764910

>>23764010
That all women will betray you even if you are a literal god.

>> No.23764923

>>23764010
I learned a bunch of archaic words.

>> No.23765233

How did Severian come to rest in the Necropolis mausoleum?

>> No.23765239

>>23764547
Erebus is a failed "savior" and so it baldanders.

>> No.23766840
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23766840

>>23764010
I learned that hot blonde women have no soul

>> No.23766907

>>23764360
is this worth reading if I dont care about the sci-fi genre?

>> No.23767003

>>23766840
Where's Jolenta?

>> No.23767029

>>23764010
>What did you learn from this book?
That I am retarded, apparently

>> No.23767118

>>23764010
That all forms of criminal punishment involve excrutiation

>> No.23767137

>>23764010
I'll tell you what I didn't learn: why the fuck he is called Severian when doesn't have sister.

>> No.23767278

>>23767137
He does though.

>> No.23767332

>>23767278
No? His sister is never, ever mentioned.

>> No.23767378

>>23766907
The scifi bits are not important to enjoy it. They are mostly in the background
>>23767137
It's implied that he does though

>> No.23767784

>>23764360
GW himself said he found the distinction between SF and fantasy to be meaningless. It should be taken as both.

>> No.23767789

I learned that a book full of mysteries and hidden meanings isn't the same thing as a book that's satisfying to read.

>> No.23767796

>>23764464
Abaia is whatever commands the Undines, and I guess also the Ascians.
Erebus, I was never sure was an actual physical being on the Earth, or more of a Satanic figure that the people believe in.

Also, Jonas' story about a woman returning from the stars, and throwing "magic beans" into the ocean, seems to be the clue.

>> No.23767898

>>23765239
So, what is Baldanders? Is he of Earth? The first time reading, I got the impression he was created by the Hierodules, but maybe that's not correct.

There seems to be an implication that the higher born people in this world have alien admixture, since they're often described as being very tall, and having unusual features like purple eyes.

>> No.23768004

>>23767898
Baldanders is Doctor Frankenstein. He's a creation of the Hierodules as much as Severian is.
It doesn't really make a difference if he's from Earth or Mars.
>There seems to be an implication that the higher born people in this world have alien admixture, since they're often described as being very tall, and having unusual features like purple eyes.
That's not really a matter of importance. No human is ever described in the text exactly as the humans we know of. In line with the book set millions of years into the future where horses have been bred to be bigger and way faster.

>> No.23768077

>>23767796
>seems to be the clue.
To what? A cue is meaningless without an answer. I can suppose she brought some alien babies with her but that's never ever confirmed.

>> No.23768159

>>23768077
Does it need to be? There's a monstrous entity on the earth, commanding an army. It's probably from space. That's all the info you need.

>> No.23768196
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23768196

>>23764010
I'm almost done with Sword. This is /neat/ but I'm not really floored with
>omg teh worldbuilding familiar thing is alien and it really far in the future

>> No.23768200

>>23768196
>omg teh worldbuilding familiar thing is alien and it really far in the future
That was never meant to be the selling point.

>> No.23768241

>>23768196
What's fun about it is more how there's this enormous world that you come into contact with through the eyes of the main character, and much of it is vague and confusing to begin with, but piece by piece, it all comes together.
It's really like being in conversation with someone from another country, that you know nothing about, and gradually learning, through your interactions with that person.

"it's le future" is like a chapter 2 revelation. It's not the point of the series.

>> No.23768692

>>23764010
I'm not much of a plot fag and enjoy these books mostly for the mood and because I love Severian, but the other Severian twist at the end of Citadel blew me away so hard it made me want to reread the whole thing, but first I read Urth to finish the cycle, which retconned the twist for a much lamer alternative, and it left me with a bitter aftertaste, so I never bothered to reread them. Still love the first four books though.

>> No.23768707

>>23768692
But nothing was retconned. The other Severian was simply the Severian from the "previous" loop. The Severian at the end of Urth (Apu-Punchau) would go on to meet the next Severian. The eidolon would go on to do whatever, I suppose he survives just so the story doesn't end with his death.

>> No.23768717

>>23768692
>but first I read Urth to finish the cycle
It baffles me how people read 4 books of a 5 volume series and call it a day.

>> No.23768739

>>23768707
I would love if it were possible to reconcile the other Severian twist with Urth, but I don't think it's possible. Not only plot wise, but thematically as well. The other Severian twist implication is that Severian wasn't always the chosen one like the Severian we knew, but some random poor bastard who became Autarch by chance but proved to be worthy of passing the test, and by virtue of becoming able to time travel he starts changing his own timeline, making things better, less chaotic, more meaningful. This fits much better with the idea introduced in Citadel about how the universe is like a living organism evolving and each iteration it becomes slightly better, and in this case not just from one universe to the next, but each universe is also in a constant state of refinement. This is not how Urth presents thing though. In Urth the timeline is very much fixed. Severian has always been the chosen one, and traveling in time can't change anything. It only reaffirms what has always already happened. There is only one Severian who has always been traveling in time creating the conditions for his own life.

>> No.23768741

>>23768717
Because there's this narrative online that the fifth one is terrible compared to the first four.

>> No.23768790

>>23768717
probably because BotNS is one book in four parts, and UotNS is the sequel.

>> No.23768968

>>23768790
BotNS is just the name of the collected edition of the first 4 volumes.

>> No.23768978

>>23768968
UotNS wasn't written until about five years after the rest of them.
BotNS was very much written as a unit, and intended to be read as such, and then UotNS was added on later.

>> No.23768997

>>23768978
botns wasn't written as "botns". There was just Shadow of the Torturer and 3 sequels with a fourth sequel published later.
Plus, the same argument could be used to dismiss Citadel because of the filler Wolfe and consider it a trilogy instead but that doesn't make sense does it?

>> No.23769016

>>23768739
But the time-line is not immutable in Urth. Gunny for example stayed in the ship in her past, but Burgundofara did not, she returned to Urth and was only Severian's lover briefly. Also, Severian stayed a very brief time in the past, not nearly enough to raise the cult of the Conciliator, and the Perelines weren't founded. Most of all, he didn't die in the past and wasn't buried beneath the Citadel.
Time in the BotnS doesn't flow like a line or even in a cycle, I think it's more like a maze, in a way that a line from the future can influence its own past so that that line runs into a completely different direction and never encounters the future that shaped itself. A ghost paradox. I think that's why the chapter with Master Ash exists, to show that the Severian of our story was a possible future of the past when the previous Severian went back in time and became the Conciliator. That Conciliator as Severian became then an "erased" future, like Master Ash's future.

>> No.23769092

>>23764010
I learned to become Catholic

>> No.23769144

>>23768997
>because of the filler
I remember the first time I read it and feeling for the entire first third it was just filler and wondering what the fuck Wolfe was doing, and then all those characters die out of nowhere and Severian explains why he spent so much time writing about them. Such a kino moment. One of my favorites part of the entire series.

>> No.23769215
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23769215

>>23769144
>I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food (as the Ascian would have said) are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own—hard for me, at least.

>> No.23769329

>>23767332
>If I had a sister she would be a witch
Use your imagination.

>> No.23769439

>>23767332
They literally meet. And he even spells it out "if she was alive, she would be a witch". Think hard, how many witches does he meet? And how many are human?

>> No.23769537

I learned how good fiction can really be, and fantasy does not need to have childish worldbuilding and purple description to be immersive.

>> No.23769583

>>23764028
Are you an ESL? I was, I read it in English on my first read, and I just finished it in my native language. The translation wasn't very good, but at least it allowed me to appreciate the worldbuilding in more depth for the second time
.

>> No.23769678

>>23768241
Yes, that's a very roundabout way of saying 'teh worldbuilding'. It just all feels a bit like stock weird fiction to me

>> No.23769859

>>23767137
I don't think his name was originally Severian. One among the string of Severians adopted the name (likely after the boy Severian) and when his destiny played out the forces that travel the corridors of time made it so the next one was called Severian, and that propagated.

>> No.23769950

>>23769439
Merryn??

>> No.23769951

>>23769537
too bad (genre)fiction like this is incredibly hard to find

>> No.23770344

>>23768997
I think he's already calling it BotNS in Castle of the Otter, because he had started on Long Sun and wanted to differentiate them. The first 4 books are absolutely written as a unit, and good book or not, Urth is the bastard stepchild.

>> No.23770616

>>23767784
The defining characteristic of fantasy fiction is the existence of magic. There is no magic in Wolfe's novel.

>> No.23770632

>>23767898
>higher born people ... described as being very tall, and having unusual features
This is easily explained by the usual inbreeding among the upper classes.

>> No.23770636

>>23764010
Everyone can redeem themselves if they want to and see the wickedness in the world and themselves. The redemption will come at a a cost but will be ultimately worth it.

>> No.23770638

>>23768717
Because Wolfe himself regarded the 4 volumes as complete (and they are). He only wrote Urth under pressure from his publishers.

>> No.23770668

>>23764464
Read Long and Short Sun and you'll know.
>>23768717
You mean 4-5 books of a 12 book cycle minus the Shadows of the New Sun fanfic?

>> No.23770703
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23770703

>>23770668
>juts keep reading forever bro

>> No.23770755

>>23764010
Christfags can turn anything into a Chick pamphlet through the sheer power of faith

>> No.23770776

>>23770703
It took me from April to December.

>> No.23771244

>>23770776
Same i read one volume every month in 2022

>> No.23771300

>>23771244
Me too! What a good year that was.

>> No.23771442

>>23764010
I remember everything except the plot line
Apu Punchau. Why did they call his spirit? I remember it was at the end of one of the books but forgot the context.

>> No.23771486

>>23771442
Hildegrin wanted to capture him. It's implied that Vodalus wanted to use the alzabo essence to absord the sage's knowledge.

>> No.23771699

Thinking about it, Urth is a cool read but ultimately brings down the story from the first four books. I think Wolfe wrote it just so Severian could have sex with the giant butterfly woman.

>> No.23771890

>>23769583
Yes fren, English is my second language, but I'd say it's on the level of most native speakers. I read quite a bit in English (including MIlton, Shakespeare, Faulkner etc.), even though of course a translation would still be easier. It seems like the complexity and challenge of BOTNS is equally experienced by nativie English readers so I think it's just part of the course. But thank you for the advice, no idea whether the translation into my native language (German) is good.

>> No.23771896

Anyone have this book in portuguese?

>> No.23772147

>>23771699
>Urth is a cool read but ultimately brings down the story
>I think Wolfe wrote it just so Severian could have sex with the giant butterfly woman
um based much? 10/10 Wolfe does it again!

>> No.23772293

The real test was if the memories would agree to fight for Severian?