Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff

Dan Rabin · 03 Oct 1992, 16:38 · from sf-lovers.1992.mbox

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From: rabin at cs.yale.edu (Dan Rabin)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff
Date: 3 Oct 92 16:38:05 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v17-521-4 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V17 #521
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-17b

>1.  Who Severian's mother is.  I have a hunch that's she's Dorcas,
>    tortured by the Guild for some reason, so they took Severian in.

I believe that Dorcas was Severian's GRANDMOTHER, and Ouen (the servant at
the inn) his father.  Certainly Ouen's recognition of Dorcas as his `mother
come again' establishes him as her son.  At the end of _The Citadel of the
Autarch_, Severian asks Ouen if he was ever in trouble with the law.  Ouen
admits that he was involved with a woman who ran away from `some order of
monials', and that she was taken by the torturers and bore a child.  At the
beginning of _The Shadow of the Torturer_ we learn that torturers are taken
exclusively from children born to their `clients'.  Furthermore, Severian
is young at the time of his exile, and he portrays Ouen as at least
middle-aged, too big an age spread for them both to be children of the same
mother.  The old man at the lake is Dorcas's husband, Severian's
grandfather; presumably this is the man she is mourning at the end.

>2.  Who that servant that ran away after passing the warning note
>    in the inn by the Sanguinary Fields is.  Is he the one that
>    married Dorcas at the end?

See above for part of the answer.  He doesn't marry her at the end: he is
commanded by Severian (whom he knows to be Autarch, but does not know to be
his own son) to guard Dorcas, whose mourning leaves her in danger in the
abandoned parts of town.

>10. What happened during the time between Shadow, I think, and the
>    next part, at the Wall, that separated Severian and Jonas from
>    the rest?

A group of uhlans (mounted troops, apparently) start attacking travelers
outside the gate in order to keep them from continuing on the road, where
travel is prohibited in order to hobble rebellions.  In the melee, Severian
becomes separated from all his companions except Jonas.

Someone following up on this thread asks whether the green man ever returns
Severian's favor.  He does, when Severian is a captive of the Ascians in
_The Citadel of the Autarch_, and he says so explicitly.

One has to reread these books to get any idea of what's happening.  This is
highly characteristic of Gene Wolfe's writing, especially in some of his
short stories.  The story ends, you scratch your head, re-examine a few key
paragraphs, and so on.  Sometimes there are multiple contrasting
interpretations, all supported by the text.  Reading Wolfe can be very much
like playing chess.

Dan Rabin

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