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chloazo 's review for:
Shadow & Claw
by Gene Wolfe
The two books that comprise Shadow and Claw are filled with strange and compelling details that, like the world of Dune, situate you in an alien universe with some, but very little, context. Many writers employ this immersive move with varying degrees of success, and I would say Wolfe is semi-successful. I loved the medieval-futuristic universe (I wonder if Poptropica’s Astro-knights were perhaps inspired by it), although much of the vocabulary and customs are glossed over by Severian, the narrator, as the simple facts of life—never to be explained. These two books require a lot of commitment, which can be hard to give when the story takes us on such a wildly confusing romp. While this makes things exciting and intriguing, it also raises questions that, if you remember certain extremely specific details VERY exactly after about 400 pages, MIGHT be sort of vaguely answered. So you need to have a lot of faith to enjoy.
But other parts of these books are enjoyable immediately. Severian, and his self-construction through unreliable narration, is fascinating. I spent most of the first and second books thinking of him as a relatively decent guy, with jarring details interspersed throughout his tale that I good-naturedly dismissed, but eventually, the accumulation of odd events, glibly narrated, became too much to ignore. From the outside, Severian is a decent guy with a quest. But as we learn more about him (from his own words, no less), it becomes clearer and clearer that he is not who he paints himself to be. His gleeful showmanship during executions, his regular dismissal of women, his willingness to abandon everyone and everything that isn’t Terminus Est, and the very questionable scene with Jolenta (not to mention pretty much every woman he meets) all add up to a pretty not-stellar guy. And yet he remains compelling, partly because of his story and partly because his facade is torn down.
Many times I found myself lost while reading this story, and sometimes I felt that my trust in the process was misplaced. Why did I read such oddly placed stories and plays with wildly confusing characters, events, and meanings? Why did so many questions remain completely unanswered? I suppose that as Severian says many times, I must read on—although he gets it, really, if I don’t want to—to understand. Besides, I must admit that a lot of the beauty of this story lay in the fabulous little details that teemed from its pages—things like Jonas’s flesh hand being weaker than his metal one, or tiny, earthshaking sentences like when Severian meets the man in yellow for (almost) the first time, or Dorcas’s VERY revealing (though spare) words. Every gorgeous little detail fed me like a little morsel and that is ultimately what kept me compulsively turning the pages and that is what will ultimately propel me into the rest of Severian’s story.
But other parts of these books are enjoyable immediately. Severian, and his self-construction through unreliable narration, is fascinating. I spent most of the first and second books thinking of him as a relatively decent guy, with jarring details interspersed throughout his tale that I good-naturedly dismissed, but eventually, the accumulation of odd events, glibly narrated, became too much to ignore. From the outside, Severian is a decent guy with a quest. But as we learn more about him (from his own words, no less), it becomes clearer and clearer that he is not who he paints himself to be. His gleeful showmanship during executions, his regular dismissal of women, his willingness to abandon everyone and everything that isn’t Terminus Est, and the very questionable scene with Jolenta (not to mention pretty much every woman he meets) all add up to a pretty not-stellar guy. And yet he remains compelling, partly because of his story and partly because his facade is torn down.
Many times I found myself lost while reading this story, and sometimes I felt that my trust in the process was misplaced. Why did I read such oddly placed stories and plays with wildly confusing characters, events, and meanings? Why did so many questions remain completely unanswered? I suppose that as Severian says many times, I must read on—although he gets it, really, if I don’t want to—to understand. Besides, I must admit that a lot of the beauty of this story lay in the fabulous little details that teemed from its pages—things like Jonas’s flesh hand being weaker than his metal one, or tiny, earthshaking sentences like when Severian meets the man in yellow for (almost) the first time, or Dorcas’s VERY revealing (though spare) words. Every gorgeous little detail fed me like a little morsel and that is ultimately what kept me compulsively turning the pages and that is what will ultimately propel me into the rest of Severian’s story.