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language: English
country: USA
year: 1981
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
series: The Book of the New Sun, #2
dates read: 27.7.25-8.8.25
Gene Wolfe’s The Claw of the Conciliator is the second volume of The Book of the New Sun. I think I probably “should” have read it in closer proximity to The Shadow of the Torturer, but as I enjoyed it regardless (and since the four volumes were originally published staggered, in any case) it worked out fine. I was initially a little thrown by the time and space jump between the end of Shadow and the beginning of Claw, but then I shrugged and moved on.
reading it has strengthened my sense that Wolfe is heavily inspired by Delany — here not only Tales of Nevèrÿon and Trouble on Triton but also some of Delany’s earlier works, particularly The Fall of the Towers. the book picks up shortly after Shadow left off, with Severian and his traveling companion Jonas seeking both their lost loves (the ingénue Dorcas in Severian’s case and the star actress Jolenta in Jonas’s) and also, perhaps, the fabled outlaw Vodalus. Severian carries with him a mysterious artifact — the titular Claw — with strange powers he does not understand but which he suspects he should return to its guardians, if he can find them.
Severian eventually finds not only Vodalus but also Dorcas and Jolenta (and the other members of the acting troupe he traveled through Nessus with), though he and Jonas part ways while escaping from the Autarch’s prison. the novel is episodic in structure, punctuated by travel sequences: an execution, a search, an encounter with Vodalus in the woods, a journey, imprisoned in the Autarch’s House Absolute, an escape, a play (the text of which is presented within the novel), an escape, a reunion, another travel sequence seeking medical assistance for the dying Jolenta, and finally a fascinating ritual involving a Fall of the Towers-esque projection into an alien mind and an Empire Star bit of unsettling multiplex perception.
again the novel’s big flaw is its handling of gender. Severian will not shut up about Love and Women and whatever else, always in the most tediously heterosexual way where he’s offering what he takes to be Universal Truths About Men And Women but feel rather like historically contingent perspectives drawn from 1980s white, heterosexual masculinity. and, of course, Severian gets to fuck both Dorcas and Jolenta, though he insists — rather unconvincingly, I must say — that his feelings about both of them are about more than sex. I am less convinced now that this is an intentional construction on Wolfe’s part and more inclined to suspect that Wolfe just…didn’t fully see most women as people.
the exception is Thecla, the torturee Severian (believes he) fell in love with in Shadow, who is a ghostly presence throughout Claw — first figuratively and then, after a cannibalistic ritual overseen by Vodalus, literally, as Severian has absorbed most (all?) of her memories. this is one of the most interesting aspects of the novel — it means that Severian’s perceptions are from that point on periodically interrupted or inflected by Thecla’s memories or, indeed, by Thecla’s perceptions, as there is an extent to which she is alive again in and through Severian (I don’t just mean that figuratively, either — it’s explicitly presented that way at points in the text). unfortunately, Wolfe doesn’t explore this doubled perspective at times straying into possession to the extent that I’d like — it comes up occasionally but more often he seems to forget it or not to regard it as relevant, which feels odd considering how much weight Severian initially gave it.
in spite of the gender politics and its insufficient follow-through, however, I still enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed The Shadow of the Torturer, and now I know I shouldn’t let nine months pass before I read The Sword of the Lictor.
moods: adventurous, mysterious, tense