>What is this The Urth Book Club is exactly as it sounds. We are a book club that discusses the events of Gene Wolfe's Book of New Sun series. Everyone should generally gather on Sundays from 7 to 9pm EST to discuss. This week the discussion centers around the events of the first five chapter of the first book in the series, The Shadow of the Torturer. >How do I join? All you have to do is read the assigned chapters and discuss during the set time. We also have a discord for more dedicated members (Here's the link: discord.gg/hmx6Xe). There you can find loads of resources like online copies of the book, and music to immerse you in the story.
Obviously the time for discussion can go past 9pm but it is encouraged to be online during those hours so you can talk about the book with a reliably large amount of people.
For the foreseeable future we are doing five (5) chapter per week. So next week's meeting is going to be on chapters 6-10
Josiah Jones
Rereading the first chapters, coming up to the picture of the astronaut and the talk of the gardens of Lune, is it actually ever stated whether there is still travel from Urth to Lune or if there are even people still living there?
Christian Wood
>tfw only up to chapter 3 Will I make it lads
Thomas Hernandez
>"But Ymar the Almost Just, observing how cruel the women were and how often they exceeded the punishments he had decreed, ordered that there should be women among the torturers no more." >"Eata guessed, I think---before they come too near to being men, boys often have an almost female insight." Based Gene Wolfe
Luke Sullivan
i dont understand anything im reading so i dont know how to discuss it
travel is not mentioned. People living there is referenced offhandedly in one sentence.
Ayden Myers
even women agree with this >If it were a matter of bourgeois ladies voting, the capitalist state could expect nothing but effective support for the reaction. Most of those bourgeois women who act like lionesses in the struggle against “male prerogatives” would trot like docile lambs in the camp of conservative and clerical reaction if they had suffrage. Indeed, they would certainly be a good deal more reactionary than the male part of their class. - Rosa Luxemburg
Kayden Murphy
If you're having trouble with certain words that he throws in to make the world more Scifi-ish, I'd look at the Lexicon Urthus. It defines a lot of words and it helped me understand the book. mediafire.com/file/p213aybe4d986t6/SCCC-GW.zip
Carson Sanders
great chapters. the painting was an instant hook to learn urth's lore
Jordan Miller
Not partaking in the book club but the matachin tower parts are just super comfy fantasy, you get such a good feeling of the life of the torturers and the society around them. I wish it was longer.
Logan Hill
It's also pretty spoiler heavy if you happen to glance at a character's name.
Brody Campbell
dl'ed it and thanks for the heads up
Nathan Phillips
>There are three usable levels, reached by a central stairwell. The cells are plain, dry, and clean, equipped with a small table, a chair, and narrow bed fixed in the center of the floor. The lights of the oubliette are of that ancient kind that is said to burn forever, though some have now gone out.
It seems that we may be able to talk some about the nature of the citadel without too much spoiler material cropping up. Along with the painting, this line seems to be talking of long lost future technology, i.e. electric light. Are there other scenes or details at the start which point to hidden details about what the citadel is, and why it is so shot forward in time?
While we're on this, might it be the case that the citadel is no citadel at all? Part of what makes this book so effective is that Sevarian's language suggests a rich fantastical understanding but which is actually just florid misapprehension of the world before him (those in the tower of the bear taking animals for wives might be an implied misunderstanding of animal husbandry, for example); do you think the citadel is a citadel at all? At times it feels like one, in the necropolis, in the vaults, but the oubliette conjures images of the tunnels beneath an asylum.
Jeremiah Ramirez
I agree, it felt like it could have been it's own book. I got the same feeling reading those parts as I did reading Tom Sawyer. Just this kid about to be a man, navigating a world very different than our but at the same time very similar (playing with friends, going to school, etc.)
Charles Powell
If i have never read wolfe before, is starting with this series a bad idea?
Brandon Cox
No. I think most people start with BotNS.
Zachary Jackson
He mentions the propulsion chamber at one point, as well as keeps using the term bulkheads (which I only know from being used in ships).
There's also this: "Her family occupied these towers. They had waited, at first, to leave Urth with the autarch of their era, then had waited because there was nothing left for them but waiting." It's kind of implied here they were living in the towers because they were waiting to take off.
Colton Torres
No, as long as you understand that it's actually just one long book released in four volumes and you're not afraid of getting confused at times. Some shorter works of his might be a better introduction if you don't want to invest the time for a 1000+ page book.
Aiden Lewis
Gene Wofle is a big fan of the unreliable narrator. He says it's because in a sense all the stories we tell ourselves are misinterpretations of the truth, even if only slightly.
I also don't remember any other telling remarks about the exact look of the citadel in these chapters, but the gun room seemed to me another example of a technology present, but not commonly used or even fully understood.
Nathaniel Nguyen
The original idea for BotNS was a novella that takes place entirely in the Citadel actually
Julian Brooks
I'm enjoying it so far. I think Wolfe sometimes divulges into flowery, purely sci-fi descriptions and ideas that get a little ridiculous. However, that doesn't mean that I don't love the world he has created so far. It's very impressive and entertaining. Plus the journey you have taken so far with Severian is a treat.
Matthew Peterson
Gene wolf once designed a bubble foe hwr nephew and asked her friends and relatives to piss in it while she locked him inaide. It was meant ro steell him against diseases and cunts but he ended upngetting heppwtitis and all thw people who pissed on the kids went to his wake and ate his food and helped burey him. Gene wolf made a cunt load of money from killing him. Stupid bitch cleared hwr name by claiming she had norhinf to do with it.
Jack King
Spoilering because it's a quote from a later chapter:
"I climbed the stair of our tower then, past the storeroom to the gun room where the siege pieces lounged in cradles of pure force. Then higher still to the room of the glass roof, with its gray screens and strangely contorted chairs, and up a slender ladder until I stood on the slippery panes themselves, where my presence scattered blackbirds across the sky like flecks of soot and our fuligin pennon streamed and snapped from the staff over my head"
The room at the top of the Matachin Tower is the ship's old cockpit/bridge.
Evan Gray
So should I post repeat reading stuff here or does that belong on discord?
Honestly this book is super comfy and I kind of want to finish it today.
Tyler Scott
I was just about to ask if there's a glossary too. Thanks mang
James Sanders
???
Jace Cox
I imagine this was written by artificial intelligence
Eli Moore
Thanks. Now I know what a armiger is. >armiger >in the Commonwealth, a social class below exultant and above optimate; a fighting class similar to that of the samurai who served the daimyos of feudal Japan (I, chap. 1, 20).
Jose Powell
About how many pages is in 5 chapters? I won't be getting the books for a few weeks but should be able to catch up if they aren't ludicrously lengthy
Logan Cruz
Feel free, just spoiler tag the spoilery stuff
Landon Diaz
~30 pages, so not much. But Wolfe is pretty dense if you're not used to him.
Connor Wood
~30 pages. I read it an hour ago.
Chase Nguyen
Neat, thanks. I've read Cerberus before and found his prose enjoyable enough to sit through for long periods so hopefully this is similar.
Nolan Wood
Do you think that Severian is merely mistaking the term ‘animal husbandry’ for a more literal practice or the guildsmen of the Bear Tower literally fuck animals?
Sebastian Lee
Probably but the fact (assuming it's true) that they abstain from human partners and the plethora of other weird shit encountered, gives me reason to believe its true.
Brandon Edwards
Something I came up with on my third reading Who is so important that both Vodalus and Thea need to be present while Hildegrin digs up her corpse? The only reasonable answer I can come up with is Thecla. Thea asking about the condition of the corpse along with Vodalus saying she didn't have to come point to a personal investment on Thea's part. Also the long black hair and white gown match Thecla. The explanation for Severian remembering this happening a year in advance is that Severian accidentaly (at least from his perspective) ended up walking through the corridors of time. "I dashed along a path that was (or at least then seemed) completely unfamiliar...Then, as suddenly as if it had been snatched away, the path was no longer beneath my feet---I suppose I must have failed to notice some turning." It seems odd that there would be an unfamiliar path in the necropolis that Severian spent so much time playing with his buddies.
Connor Williams
While I think you might be right, I'd just like to point out that Severian is really really bad at orientating himself. He gets lost a lot, even when for example given clear instructions.
Jason Campbell
i started reading this like a week ago. i'm at that part where they walk around the botanical garden. is it in the 6-10 first chapters? i don't really look at chapters.
damn i didn't realise i was so far in. i haven't read in a couple of days, i'll do that tonight i think.
Aaron Gutierrez
I was only planning on reading up to chapter 5, but I immediately became entranced. I just got to 16!
One of my favorite parts of Wolfe’s writing is how fluidly he introduces new parts of Urth.
From the first chapter: “Thus I knew nothing, as the coin dropped into my pocket, of the dogmas of the movement Vodalus led, but I soon learned them all, for they were in the air.” (cont. with the rest of the paragraph)
I’ve been using a dictionary for reference a lot as I read, but it never feels like a hindrance. It’s not word-soup, it reads like a genuine artifact.
Jaxon Powell
What are your faves besides BoTNS
Jace Johnson
There's also something about Master Gurloes (or perhaps Palaemon) being the only one unafraid of the voices that are heard in the gun room, which further suggests that there is a radio-like device for intership communication.
Isaac Ramirez
Interesting, didn't catch that. Had assumed the rebellion was small on first read and hadn't put it together on reread. Doesn't seem odd that there'd be an unfamiliar path, though. That kind of nigh-infinite intricacy seems natural to the necropolis.
Ryder Sanders
Hildegrin also lifts her out by himself so they couldn't have been that much help. What ruins it is that Vodalus' pistol shot is seen before he runs down the path. Pistols are rare so that's hard to reconcile. It may just be some other exultant woman that they mistook for Thecla thinking she had already been killed or someone who wasn't even a victim of the torturers. May just be the "tribade" that the guys who escort Severian and Jonas to the feast talk about
