---
title: The Book of the New Sun
tags:
  - topic/hobbies/reading
  - type/media-commentary
---
# The Book of the New Sun

This page is for my notes of Gene Wolfe's _The Book of the New Sun_,
which consists of

1. [[wolfe_1980_shadow|The Shadow of the Torturer]]
2. [[wolfe_1981_claw|The Claw of the Conciliator]]
3. [[wolfe_1981_sword|The Sword of the Lictor]]
4. [[wolfe_1982_citadel|The Citadel of the Autarch]]
5. [[wolfe_1987_urth|The Urth of the New Sun]]

> [!danger]
> This page contains major spoilers the books listed above.

> [!info] The Solar Cycle
> _The Book of the New Sun_ (abbreviated BotNS) is itself
> part of a trilogy of series called "The Solar Cycle"
> which consists of
>
> 1. _The Book of the New Sun_
> 2. _The Book of the Long Sun_
> 3. _The Book of the Short Sun_
>
> I have not yet read the latter two series.

## Characters

This list is intended to be ordered
such that entries give necessary context
to those that follow them.

### Severian

Severian is an apprentice of the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence,
called the Guild of Torturers by outsiders.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#I - Resurrection and Death]]
> Of those values that Master Malrubius
> (who had been master of apprentices when I was a boy)
> had tried to teach me,
> and that Master Palaemon still tried to impart,
> I accepted only one: loyalty to the guild.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#X - The Last Year]]
> ...though I loved the guild I hated it too---
> not because of the pain it inflicted on clients
> who must sometimes have been innocent,
> and who must often have been punished
> beyond anything that could be justified by their offences;
> but because it seemed to me inefficient and ineffectual,
> serving a power that was not only ineffectual but remote.
> I do not know how better to express my feelings about it
> than by saying that I hated it for starving and humiliating me
> and loved it because it was my home,
> hated and loved it because it was the exemplar of old things,
> because it was weak, and because it seemed indestructible.
>
> Naturally I expressed none of this to Master Palaemon,
> though I might have if Master Gurloes had not been present.

### Chatelaine Thecla

The title "chatelaine" is borrowed from the French _châtelaine_,
denoting the mistress of a castle or large household.
but considering the role Thecla and her peers play
for the Autarch I can't help but note the similarity to "chattel"
(of unrelated etymology).

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#VII - The Traitress]]
> "Most of them have nobody at court---
> can't afford it, or are afraid of it.
> Those are the small ones.
> The greater families must:
> the Autarch wants a concubine he can lay hands on if they start misbehaving.
> Now the Autarch can't play quadrille with five hundred women.
> There are maybe twenty.

If the connection does exist, it is not diegetic.
Thea, Thecla's half-sister, claims the title after Thecla's death.

### Masters of the Guild

I suspect the these three form some sort of trinity.

They are all described as aged and not well for it.

### Master Gurloes

Master Gurloes is the first of the three mentioned.
It seems that where Palaemon is the master of apprentices,
Gurloes handles most everything else.

Gurloes sends Severian on his errand to fetch Thecla's books,
and administers her torture.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#VII - The Traitress]]
> Gurloes was one of the most complex men I have known,
> because he was a complex man trying to be simple.
> Not a simple, but a complex man's idea of simplicity.
> Just as a courtier forms himself into something brilliant and involved,
> midway between a dancing master and a diplomacist,
> with a touch of assassin if needed,
> so Master Gurloes had shaped himself to be the dull creature
> a pursuivant or bailiff expected to see when he summoned the head of our guild,
> and that is the only thing a real torturer cannot be.
> The strain showed;
> though every part of Gurloes was as it should have been, none of the parts fit.
> He drank heavily and suffered from nightmares,
> but he had the nightmares when he had been drinking,
> as if the wine, instead of bolting the doors of his mind,
> threw them open and left him staggering about in the last hours of the night,
> trying to catch a glimpse of a sun that had not yet appeared,
> a sun that would banish the phantoms from his big cabin
> and permit him to dress and send the journeymen to their business.
> Sometimes he went to the top of our tower, above the guns,
> and waited there talking to himself,
> peering through glass said to be harder than flint for the first beams.
> He was the only one in our guild---Master Palaemon not excepted---
> who was unafraid of the energies there
> and the unseen mouths that spoke sometimes to human beings
> and sometimes to other mouths in other towers and keeps.
> He loved music, but he thumped the arm of his chair to it and tapped his foot,
> and did so most vigorously to the kind he liked best,
> whose rhythms were too subtle for any regular cadence.
> He ate too much and too seldom,
> read when he thought no one knew of it,
> and visited certain of our clients, including one on the third level,
> to talk of things none of us eavesdropping in the corridor outside could understand.
> His eyes were refulgent, brighter than any woman's.
> He mispronounced quite common words: urticate, salpinx, bordereau.
> I cannot well tell you how bad he looked when I returned to the Citadel recently,
> how bad he looks now.

### Master Palaemon

Master Palaemon is master of apprentices
for the latter and larger part of Severian's apprenticeship.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XIII - The Lictor of Thrax]]
> "Severian!" Master Palaemon exclaimed.
> "You are not listening to me.
> You were never an inattentive pupil in our classes."
>
> "I'm sorry. I was thinking about a great many things."
>
> "No doubt." For the first time he really smiled,
> and for an instant looked his old self,
> the Master Palaemon of my boyhood.

### Master Malrubius

Malrubius is the most interesting of the three
because he is characterized exclusively by Severian's
memory of the man after his death,
while Severian himself was a young boy.

Of the master torturers of Severian's youth,
Malrubius seems the most sympathetic in his mind

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1981_claw#XVI - Jonas]]
> "It's all right," I told him. "Everything is all right, Jonas."
> I despised myself for it,
> but I was talking to him as if he were the youngest of apprentices,
> just as, years before, Master Malrubius had spoken to me.

Malrubius appears to Severian when he is in peril,
first when he is nearly drowned in the river Gyoll:

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#II - Severian]]
> Master Malrubius, who had died several years before,
> was waking us by drumming on the bulkhead with a spoon:
> that was the metallic din I heard.
> I lay in my cot unable to rise,
> though Drotte and Roche and the younger boys were all up,
> yawning and fumbling for their clothes.
> Master Malrubius's cloak was thrown back;
> I could see the loose skin of his chest and belly
> where the muscle and fat had been destroyed by time.
> There was a triangle of hair there, and it was as gray as mildew.
> I tried to call to him to tell him I was awake, but I could make no sound.
> He began to walk along the bulkhead, still striking it with his spoon.
> After what seemed a very long time he reached the port, stopped and leaned out.
> I knew he was looking for me in the Old Yard below.

Again when he dangerously intoxicated after his raising to journeyman:

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XI - The Feast]]
> ...sick though I was, I felt I needed to fear unreality no longer---
> I was back in the world of solid objects and plain light.
> My door opened a trifle and Master Malrubius looked in
> as though to make certain I was all right.
> I waved to him and he shut the door again.
> It was some time before I recalled that he had died while I was still a boy.

***

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XXXIII - Five Legs]]
> I am not sure how old I was when Master Malrubius died.
> It was a number of years before I became captain,
> so I must have been quite a small boy.
> I remember very well, however,
> how it was when Master Palaemon succeeded him as master of apprentices;
> Master Malrubius had held that position
> ever since I had been aware that such a thing existed,
> and for weeks and perhaps months it seemed to me that Master Palaemon
> (though I liked him as well or better)
> could not be our real master in the sense that Master Malrubius had been.
> The atmosphere of dislocation and unreality
> was heightened by the knowledge that Master Malrubius was not dead or even away
> ...
> that he was, in fact, merely lying in his cabin,
> lying in the same bed he had slept in each night
> when he was still teaching and disciplining us.
> There is a saying that unseen is as good as unbeen;
> but in this case it was otherwise---
> unseen, Master Malrubius was more palpably present than ever before.
> Master Palaemon refused to assert that he would never return,
> and so every act was weighed in double scales:
> _"Would Master Palaemon permit it?"_ and
> _"What would Master Malrubius say?"_

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XXXIII - Five Legs]]
> Footfalls reached my ears yet hardly disturbed my rest,
> heavy, yet softly pattering;
> then the sound of breath, the snuffling of an animal.
> If I was awake, my eyes were open;
> but I was still so nearly in sleep that I did not turn my head.
> The animal approached me and sniffed at my clothes and my face.
> It was Triskele, and Triskele lay down with his spine pressed against my body.
> It did not seem odd then that he had found me,
> though I recall feeling a certain pleasure at seeing him again.
>
> Once more I heard footsteps,
> now the slow, firm tread of a man;
> I knew at once that it was Master Malrubius---
> I could recall his step in the corridors under the tower
> on the days when we made the rounds of the cells;
> the sound was the same.
> He came into the circle of my vision.
> His cloak was dusty, as it always was save on the most formal occasions;
> he drew it about him in the old way
> as he seated himself on a box of properties.
> "Severian. Name for me the seven principles of governance."
>
> It was an effort for me to speak, but I managed
> (in my dream, if it was a dream) to say,
> "I do not recall that we have studied such a thing, Master."
>
> "You were always the most careless of my boys,"
> he told me, and fell silent.
>
> A foreboding grew on me;
> I sensed that if I did not reply, some tragedy would occur.
> At last I began weakly, "Anarchy ..."
>
> "That is not governance, but the lack of it.
> I taught you that it precedes all governance.
> Now list the seven sorts."
>
> "Attachment to the person of the monarch.
> Attachment to a bloodline or other sequence of succession.
> Attachment to the royal state.
> Attachment to a code legitimizing the governing state.
> Attachment to the law only.
> Attachment to a greater or lesser board of electors, as framers of the law.
> Attachment to an abstraction conceived as including the body of electors,
> other bodies giving rise to them, and numerous other elements, largely ideal."
>
> "Tolerable. Of these, which is the earliest form, and which the highest?"
>
> "The development is in the order given, Master," I said.
> "But I do not recall that you ever asked before which was highest."
>
> Master Malrubius leaned forward,
> his eyes burning brighter than the coals of the fire.
> "Which is highest, Severian?"
>
> "The last, Master?"
>
> "You mean attachment to an abstraction conceived as including the body of electors,
> other bodies giving rise to them, and numerous other elements, largely ideal?"
>
> "Yes, Master."
>
> "Of what kind, Severian, is your own attachment to the Divine Entity?"
>
> I said nothing. It may have been that I was thinking;
> but if so, my mind was too much filled with sleep to be conscious of its thought.
> Instead, I became profoundly aware of my physical surroundings.
> The sky above my face in all its grandeur
> seemed to have been made solely for my benefit,
> and to be presented for my inspection now.
> I lay upon the ground as upon a woman,
> and the very air that surrounded me
> seemed a thing as admirable as crystal and as fluid as wine.
>
> "Answer me, Severian."
>
> "The first, if I have any."
>
> "To the person of the monarch?"
>
> "Yes, because there is no succession."
>
> "The animal that rests beside you now would die for you.
> Of what kind is his attachment to you?"
>
> "The first?"
>
> There was no one there.
> I sat up. Malrubius and Triskele had vanished,
> yet my side felt faintly warm.

Severian assumes that the attachment developed most recently
must be the "highest",
but Malrubius points out that the bond between man and God,
or between man and dog must surely be higher.

#### Lessons

These are lessons Severian attributes to Malrubius.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XIII - The Lictor of Thrax]]
> hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XXIV - The Flower of Dissolution]]
> Urth's fires \[are\] long dead,
> ...
> it \[is\] more than possible
> that they had cooled long before men had risen from the position of the beasts
> to cumber her face with their cities.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1981_claw#XXII - Personifications]]
> The rain we see in spring
> is the same water we saw running the gutters the year before.

### The Claw of the Conciliator

It is helpful to analyze the claw as a character
since its actions are not understood to be Severian's
until very late in the series.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1982_citadel#VIII - The Pelerine]]
> "It is a claw---" I began.
>
> "That was only a flaw at the heart of the jewel.
> The Conciliator was a man, Severian the Lictor,
> and not a cat or a bird."

### Agia

In [[wolfe_1981_claw#VII - The Assassins]]
Severian thwarts Agia's attempt at revenge,
but spares her life.

### Dorcas

In [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XXII - Dorcas]] an unnamed old man
is searching for his late wife Cas's body in the Lake of Birds.

Dorcas herself is not mentioned until she appears
(from the water, out of nowhere)
in the _next_ chapter.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XXIV - The Flower of Dissolution]]
> Dorcas plucked a water hyacinth and put it in her hair.
> Except for the vague spot of white on the bank some distance ahead,
> it was the first flower I had seen in the Garden of Endless Sleep;
> I looked for others, but saw none.

The hyacinth is a symbol of rebirth.
Hyacinthus was a lover of Apollo,
whom Apollo accidentally killed.
Apollo created the hyacinth flower from the man's blood.

The biblical Dorcas was resurrected by Saint Peter
after dying from illness.

> [!note] The Appearance of the Water Hyacinth
> The previous quote leads immediately into a monologue
> where Narrator Severian speculates on the potential for Urth's rebirth.
> The lead-in is contrived
> and the flower's appearance is terribly convenient,
> I suspect some aspect of the telling
> has been influenced by artistic license.

### Baldanders

### Jonas

Jonas is a space-faring man

He has a prosthetic hand,
which may be accurately called "bionic"
since it's only on close inspection
that Severian notices it isn't simply a gauntlet.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1981_claw#XIII - The Claw of the Conciliator]]
> "Where is this island?"
>
> He looked at me curiously.
>
> "Is it far from the coast?
> I've always wanted to see Uroboros,
> though I suppose it is dangerous."
>
> "Very far," Jonas said in a flat voice.
> "Very far indeed. Wait a moment."

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1981_claw#XVI - Jonas]]
> He stirred and muttered,
> "We must get power to the compressors before the air goes bad."

Jonas is, in fact, no man at all, but an android.
[[wolfe_1981_claw#XVIII - Mirrors]]

Jonas is from the relatively near future.
Less time had passed from his perspective,
likely due to extensive sub-light travel,
and/or from spending time near larger gravity wells.

### Hethor

Also a spacefarer

### The Previous Autarch

Severian's unnamed predecessor to the autarchy.
He is not Ymar, but Ymar's successor.

He takes several forms in Severian's narrative
before they meet in truth.

* Master Rudesind, the painting cleaner
    at the Citadel and then the House Absolute
    Maybe? No.
    Confused with the unnamed clerk of the House Absolute.

* The proprietor of the House Azure
    who is also [[#Vodalus]]'s contact
    in the House Absolute

## Creatures

### Khaibits

Khaibits are clones.

> [[wolfe_1982_citadel#XXIV - The Flier]]
> They're khaibits, of course,
> grown from the body cells of exultant women
> so an exchange of blood will prolong the exultants' youth.

### Exultants

Exultants are people of especially noble houses
that are considerably taller than baseline.

It is almost certain that exultants are baseline humans
whose alien features are a result of the youth-extending procedures they undergo.
The process as described by [[#Ymar]] has much in common
with the one used by [[#Baldanders]]

## Symbols

### Teeth

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#VII - The Traitress]]
> She had narrow, very white teeth in a wide mouth...

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#X - The Last Year]]
> "That is well," Master Gurloes said,
> and suddenly they both smiled,
> Master Palaemon showing his few old crooked teeth,
> and Master Gurloes his square yellow ones,
> like the teeth of a dead nag.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1981_claw#XXIII - Jolenta]]
> She smiled again, displaying perfect teeth.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1980_shadow#XV - Baldanders]]
> ...and so I asked \[Baldanders\] what his dreams had been,
> though I was somewhat in awe of him.
>
> "Of caverns below, where stone teeth dripped blood ...
> Of arms dismembered found on sanded paths,
> and things that shook chains in the dark."
> He sat at the edge of the bed,
> cleaning sparse and surprisingly small teeth with one great finger.

> [!quote] [[wolfe_1987_urth#XLVII - The Sunken City]]
> When I looked down again,
> a yellowed skull lay at my feet, half-buried in the mud.
> I picked it up; the lower jaw was gone,
> but otherwise it was whole and showed no injury.
> From its size and unworn teeth,
> I guessed it to have been a boy's or a young man's.
