Just finished "Shadow of the Torturer"...confused as hell.

Coyu · 06 Apr 1998, 15:20 · from sf-lovers.1998.mbox

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From: coyu at aol.com (Coyu)
Subject: Re: Just finished "Shadow of the Torturer"...confused as hell.
Date: 6 Apr 1998 15:20:40 GMT
Message-ID: <sflovers-v23-63-2 at digest.sf-lovers>
X-Digest-Issue: SF-LOVERS Digest V23 #63
X-Urthmirror-Source: https://archive.org/details/sf-lovers-digest-vol-23

>I just find myself rereading passages (and entire chapters sometimes)
>because the language makes my head hurt.

Is it the words, or the sentence structure? Wolfe has a partial glossary in
_Castle of the Otter_, which is included in _Castle of Days_. There's also
a _Lexicon Urthus_, by Michel Andre-Driussi, but there's a lot of
extraneous cabalistic stuff in it, which the text does not support. It's
also filled with spoilers.

>Also I find myself looking for any and all symbolism (which I admit freely
>that I'm terrible at...for me a banana is almost always a banana) in the
>plot points of the book.

You don't have to read it for symbols. The coin is a coin, the sword is a
sword, the roses are roses are roses. They have other functions,
sure. Wolfe designed these books to be re-read, so don't worry about
getting everything straight on the first sweep.

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