The Book of the New Sun First Read and Re-read project [spoilers]

[Fragile Bird]

Chapter XXVIII, Carnifex

Severian wakes up next morning in a lazaret (a hospital, originally for lepers), naked and delusional.  He thinks he sees an ape with the head of a dog go running by.  He wonders how he will explain to Master Palaemon the loss of his clothes, his money and the sword.

When he wakes up again, he first thinks he's back at the Tower, still captain of the apprentices and nothing he's told us about has happened.  Then he realizes he's not in the dormitory and gets up, and sees Dorcas sleeping at the head of his bed, with his sword and his clothing.  He gets dressed and leaves Dorcas to sleep.

He goes down some steps to a courtyard, where there are destriers and a cynocephalus crawling up a wall (a mythical creature with the face of a dog).  A trooper comes out to get something out of a saddlebag, and Severian asks him where they are.  The Hall of Justice, he says, and he tells Severian to follow him to the dining room to eat.  The other soldiers are very curious about him and ask him many questions, like where his axe is.  He explains about Dorcas back in the lazaret, and the soldiers warn him she might run off with it.  They tell him to take bread back with him to feed her, since she can't come to the dining room.  They also tell him about life in the army and camp followers, and how they wintered in Nessus and were returning north, where the camp followers waited.  They explain that when they are fighting, they only travel short distances, so the camp followers can keep up, but when they return south there is no way they can keep up, and so stay in villages in the north.

The soldiers think Severian is another carnifex, and tell him one of his comrades was brought in the night before half dead in a litter.  He thanks them and returns to Dorcas.

Dorcas, in the meantime, woke to find Severian gone and his clothing missing.  She worried he was dead and was taken away to be buried.  Severian asks her what had happened to him.  She explains he had been hit with the avern almost immediately, and it stuck in his chest, drinking his blood.  When he got up and got his avern plant, the flower opened up and Dorcas said it looked like it had a face like poison would have, if poison had a face.  His opponent then ran off, and it was not so much that he struck the spectators with the avern as the avern snaked out and struck at them.  A big man knocked him down from behind, and a woman with a braquemar (a sword) cut the avern down the stem so it split and then hit the hipparch on the helmet.

Severian's avern was bending towards his face, and Dorcas picked up the sword and struck it and knocked it out of his hand.  She wrapped him in his cloak and they started walking towards the city, walking for hours.  Finally, in the city, soldiers rode up to them and asked if he was the carnifex.  They tried to put him on a horse but he fell off, so they made a litter with lances and capes.

Dorcas then asks Severian what was in the note.  She had heard his conversation with Agia, but didn't want to ask in front of her. Severian thinks Agia is much cleverer than him.   Dorcas makes the observation that Agia is the kind of woman who is good at making puzzles for other people, but not at solving ones she didn't make herself.

They work out the fact that the note must have been for her, because she had sat on the couch in the only spot where the note would have been visible, and the waiter had seen her sit there when he took the orders.  Severian says, so you reminded someone of his mother, and Dorcas has tears in her eyes.  Severian tells her she is too young to have had a child old enough to write the note, and she says she doesn't remember.

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

Comments on the chapter.  Averns are nastier than I first thought.  Again, why did it not kill Severian?  It certainly had an effect on him, making him hallucinate.

ETA:  oh well, once again, don't answer, I wasn't thinking. 

[Wilbur]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Thoughts on the chapter.  Dorcas sounds like an exhultant, but she's too short.  Could she be an exhultant's bastard?

I assume we will meet Trudo again, somewhere along the way.

I'm not sure what the part of the note means that says "you are my mother come again".  Is she really the waiter's mother, or does he only mean she looks like his mother?  The old man in the garden said nothing about children, and she must have been a child bride if she is only 16 or 17 and they were married for 4 years.  Who gets to be buried in the garden?  Surely they must have some kind of status?

Severian's comment about Thecla is chilling - he desired her and she condescended to submit.

For those who know, do we ever discover who actually wrote the note?  I always thought it was the Digger Hildegrin, following them and writing to Dorcas, but I don't have any evidence for this.

[Wilbur]

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Comments on the chapter.  Averns are nastier than I first thought.  Again, why did it not kill Severian?  It certainly had an effect on him, making him hallucinate.

I have always thought that Something Severian Has In His Sabretache keeps him alive or resurrects him.

[Fragile Bird]

2 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I have always thought that Something Severian Has In His Sabretache keeps him alive or resurrects him.

Silly me....

[BookWyrm2]

2 hours ago, Wilbur said:

For those who know, do we ever discover who actually wrote the note?  I always thought it was the Digger Hildegrin, following them and writing to Dorcas, but I don't have any evidence for this.

Yes - 

Spoiler

Ouen wrote the note. You get more on this towards the end of the fourth book I believe

 

[Jo498]

The note is only explained fully at the end of the 4th book (it's about the second to last scene there).

The duel con is so well done and described that I really had no clue that something was off. Severian DOES have reason to believe there might be some "friends in high places" trying to kill him. We have no idea how well someone like Agia who has lived in the city for all her life would be familiar with averns etc., even when we realize she is recognized at the Inn we do not suspect more than that she went there with some earlier lovers.

If averns are so dangerous when getting warm by being wielded with bare hands, the ephor should have been suspicious... this is a little strange, because he otherwise was very fair.

It's also interesting that Severian supposedly put away the idea that Dorcas could have come from the lake quite soon (if he ever entertained it).

The reflection on love/desire and on duels are also quite shrewd although I think in history even fairly martial societies often outlawed duels.

With the unreliability of Severian in that issue we will probably never get behind the truth of his relation with Thecla. I mean, how could this not have been strange in many ways:

Torturer - "client",

16-17 year old orphan boy - mid 20s? highly educated, refined, beautiful 6'6'' exultant courtier

[Iskaral Pust]

Her husband did not mention Dorcas having a child in their four years of marriage.  An oversight or something more complicated?

The start of vol. 2 is an abrupt change with insufficient explanation and a reference to dreaming. 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah the beginning of volume 2 is the most off putting, as I believed I've mentioned.

Are you guys planning on doing the coda/fifth book too? That would be fascinating, I might have to make spare time to read along for that one. (It's a weird one, even by Wolfe standards).

You know, there was a GURPS New Sun book that I have packed away somewhere I'll have to dig out. All I remember was it had some cool pictures, I don't think there were any omg super revelations.

 

[Fragile Bird]

One more comment about Severian not dying after the avern punctures him.  It seems like he has to get sick first so that the Claw can heal him.  It doesn't protect him from the avern's toxicity, though it prevents him from being killed.  But he's pretty sick first, Dorcas even worries he died while she was sleeping.

[Fragile Bird]

Chapter XXIX, Agilus

The physician at the lazaret examines Severian and finds he needs no treatment, then asks him to leave the hospital because his cloak and sword were upsetting the patients.

Severian takes Dorcas to what seems to be a tuck shop for the soldiers, where there's women's clothing available for purchase, and he buys her a robe (a 'simar').

There's a crowd outside the Hall of Justice, and a portreeve (an administrative official) approaches Severian and Dorcas and says to Severian he understands he's well enough to perform his duties.  Severian says they must be pretty certain there will be guilt found, and the portreeve explains nine people were killed, the man was apprehended on the spot, and he's of no consequence.  Severian is so excited at the thought of finally executing someone he offers to do his job that same day, but is told that the trial won't be over until the afternoon.  He suggests a torchlight ceremony, but the portreeve tells him the judge must meditate on his decision overnight, that people think military magistrates are hasty enough.  A civil judge would take a week.

Severian says he and Dorcas will need somewhere to stay.  They can't stay in the lazaret, they can't stay with the troopers, and they can't stay in one of the rooms for the higher ranks because no one would ever want to use that room again.  Finally a small storeroom is cleared out for them and some furniture moved in.

Severian asks to see the prisoner.  He is surprised to hear a woman sobbing, and even more surprised when he steps in the cell and sees Agia and her brother.  Agilus is naked, chained to the wall, and Agia is naked as well.  They explain that it was Agia who played the role of the Septentrion in the shop, coming round through the back, and it was the reason she could not speak.  Severian is stunned that they would have killed him for his sword.  Agilus protests that he tried to make him leave it there. "don't you understand? It was worth ten times more than our shop..."

Agia insists it was fair combat.  Severian answers they knew the warmth of his hands would agitate the avern and it would strike his face, while Agilus wore gloves.  Agilus says Severian wronged him three times: by entrapment, since he came into the shop carrying an heirloom worth a villa without knowing what he had, and it was his duty to know, so he should free him tonight; secondly, by refusing to entertain an offer to buy, because while it's ok to set as high a price as you want, it's treason to refuse to sell at any price; and thirdly, by the sleight neither he nor Agia could understand by which he won the combat ie by not dying.  And for that, Agilus demands Severian free him.

Severian laughs at the idea he would free Agilus when he wouldn't free Thecla, who he loved.

At that, Agia throws herself at Severian kissing him and holding him while at the same time trying to get her hand into his sabretache (a pouch a cavalry officer wore on his belt together with his sabre).  He slaps her wrist, and she flies at him clawing for his eyes "as Thecla used sometimes to do when she could no longer bear the thoughts of imprisonment and pain".  He pushes her away against the wall, and she strikes her head (he thinks her hair should have kept her head padded).  She sinks to her knees and weeps.

Agilus asks what she did,  Severian thinks she was trying to steal his money or the note to the archon at Thrax. Agilus thinks it's the former, because she's hungry.  Severian picks her up and puts her outside the cell, and gives her a silver coin.  She throws it down, and Severian returns to the cell.

He instructs Agius how to prepare for his execution, and drills him in some false routine they teach all those who must die, so that they don't realize the moment has come and therefore die in less fear.  When he leaves, the orichalk Agia threw down is gone and some design has been scratched on the floor with letters he doesn't recognize.  He rubs it off with his foot.

[Fragile Bird]

Thoughts on the chapter.  Once again, everyone fears the man in black.

Agia and Agilus are both naked when Severian enters the cell.  I can't imagine he was chained naked in the cell, I assume they were naked because they were having sex.  Wolfe isn't as direct as GRRM is, but I assume this is the reason.  Could this be the inspiration for certain twins who have sex with each other in ASOIAF?

I don't know if he was lying, but it seems like Agia never told her brother she stole the Claw of the Conciliator.  He seems to be genuinely surprised that Severian didn't die, and specifically says he and his sister both could not understand it. 

Once again, Severian uses excess force on Agia.  I agree with Dorcas' assessment:  Agia hates him, no matter what protestations of love she makes.  And we find out about Thecla having at him as well, another thing he's glossed over so far.

Oh...I was surprised the torturers have little scenarios they use on clients, so they won't be so fearful at their executions.  I can imagine it's something like Severian setting out the steps of what will happen, and adding an extra step at the end that he won't actually do.  Like saying "you will kneel and put your head down, and I will say the Angelus over you", and then chopping off the client's head while the client thinks they still have another minute to live.

[Jo498]

I think twincest is clearly implied for the past of the twins but I am not so sure that Agilus would not be chained naked in a cell. Severian uses excess force because he still feels very tempted by Agia despite of everything, I believe. I agree that Agilus didn't know about the Claw at all but Agia didn't expect (and maybe still does not quite understand) that it would/could save Severian from the avern's poison. As you say, he is effected (I especially like how the "dance of leaves" distracts so he is hit by the next one thrown) but not fatally.

Agilus' sophistry (that it was not his fault, but Severian's) is also quite funny. Like Severian on monomachy, torture, love and desiere etc., Wolfe seems to enjoy semi-serious diversions like that. The claim of the twins that they are destitute is not quite so plausible, there must be far poorer people in Nessus that owners of little shops (I think in the descriptions of the city it is implied that, like in today's third world metropoles, many people are basically living on the street.)

 

[Jo498]

10 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Her husband did not mention Dorcas having a child in their four years of marriage.  An oversight or something more complicated?

The start of vol. 2 is an abrupt change with insufficient explanation and a reference to dreaming. 

Nothing more complicated. AFAIK she (probably) died in childbirth.

The gap between vol.1 and vol.2 I found rather disconcerting. It's main purpose seems to confuse the reader as there isn't really anything very important happening in between to hide from the reader; some things are cleared up later on but I never really understood why and how the party split up the way it did after that "skirmish" at the Gate. (Overall I think the 2nd vol. is the weirdest and most confusing of all 4 by some margin.)

[matt b]

Apparently there is a theory out there that Agia and Agilus are Severian's cousins. It's not one I subscribe to, I haven't been able to follow it very far myself, but most of it seems to rest on some of the imagery in this last chapter, XXIX.

"There was a tiny window high up in the wall behind them, and from it, suddenly, as though the ridge of a roof, or a cloud, had now fallen below the sun, a beam of light came to bathe them both. I looked from one aureate face to the other."

This golden, halo-like imagery seems reserved for Severian and his family members. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find much else that points that direction, so maybe this imagery means something else. But it does seem noteworthy.

[Jo498]

Severian is pale and dark-haired (at the end of the book when his parents are revealed this is implied as heritage from pale and blond father and a dark-haired mother). Thecla (and Thea) are pale and darkhaired as well. (There seems to be some tradition to consider such as "snow-white" appearance particularly noble and beautiful, Tolkien's Noldor and IIRC also some of the "High Gondorians" like Aragorn and Boromir seem to look like that.)

Dorcas has "golden" blond hair and pale (slightly freckled) skin. Agilus and Agia seem to have (light) brown hair and not quite pale (tanned golden brown?) skin. Especially the description of Agia is often somewhat confusing because Severian stresses on the one hand that she is not very beautiful (compared to Thecla or Dorcas), but nevertheless she seems to have considerable sex appeal, a curvy shape and golden-toned skin.

By sheer habit I imagine all those people with more or less caucasian features although half a million years or more (or even less) in the future with indications that at least the exhultants have "improved" their appeance in the direction of tall and lanky figures with huge eyes (like anime characters or humanoid comic book aliens) this may not be justified at all. (On the other hand, the supposedly 20th century people in the jungle hut do not look different in body shape or facial features.) Therefore the description of e.g. Agia's skin tone evokes for me a tanned "white" person. But her skin might well be darker than that without any tanning.

[Wilbur]

7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

...  When he leaves, the orichalk Agia threw down is gone and some design has been scratched on the floor with letters he doesn't recognize.  He rubs it off with his foot.

Do we ever learn what the "design" on the floor was?

[Fragile Bird]

16 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Do we ever learn what the "design" on the floor was?

I have no idea, this is a first read for me.

[matt b]

5 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Do we ever learn what the "design" on the floor was?

I don't believe so. There's a suggestion that she was perhaps trying to cast some kind of spell, whether to protect Agilus or curse Severian, who knows.

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I have no idea, this is a first read for me.

And your chapter reviews are great; I am re-reading it with you.

This was one of the first books I can remember reading that contained clues and mysteries that could be solved within the series of books.  Unfortunately, Wolfe being Wolfe, the clues were littered with red herrings and mystifying allusions, so I always felt like I was only getting about 10 to 15% of what was actually going on.

So this re-read and the comments is an enjoyable pursuit for me as I finally get to peel back some of the layers.