No. A good portion of the book's appeal is that we're seeing things from Severian's perspective, and realizing that he's bullshitting us, and reading between the lines to figure out the reality.
Also a lot of the fun is Severian's descriptions of things, and spending time parsing what he's seeing.
I tried to reread this as an adult recently. Its complete garbage and couldn't make it more than 100 pages in before I had to stop before I had a cringe induced aneurysm. Sad because I loved it as a 13 year old
I read grimdarks when I was still a teenager, but it was embarrasing to read them again in my current age (22). Like how could you go outside, bringing some edgy looking books with video game looking character on its cover and edgy title, reading that shit up or discuss that book with your peers without getting embarrased?
I read grimdarks when I was still a teenager, but it was embarrasing to read them again in my current age (22). Like how could you go outside, bringing some edgy looking books with video game looking character on its cover and edgy title, reading that shit up or discuss that book with your peers without getting embarrased?
The term is "Dark Fantasy". Grimdark isn't a distinct genre it's just a shitty meme word.
It wasn't me that invents that word anon. Grimdark and dark fantasy is a different genreslop from that one chart that I read from Cinemaphile long time ago so I assume that it was a different slop of a genre fiction.
Maybe grimdark is the edgy version of dark fantasy and dark fantasy is the less edgy version of grimdark, who knows? People invents new genreslop each day, like dark romance, what the hell is that even supposed to be? Enemy turns into lovers?
All of these are confusing me anon
Dark Fantasy is already the edgier version of Fantasy. If we start making new genres every time something is slightly more edgy than another work then things will just proliferate forever. Soon you'll have a Grimgrimdark and a grimgrimgrimdark.
>The term is "Dark Fantasy". Grimdark isn't a distinct genre it's just a shitty meme word.
Grimdark should be used exclusively for 40k where it's edgy to the point of being ridiculous and self-aware to boot.
The slow reveal of the world not being some antiquated fantasy one but actually a post-collapse high tech scifi wonderland is too subtle to be conveyed in film. It's just an inherently lesser medium.
It's visually hard to do. The tone is all over the place. One minute he's killjng a guy the next minute he's winning a charity race to save the learning annex for orphans in the pod race or whatever
>with a strong christian bent
It's set so far in the future that any current religion no longer exists, and the protag is a moron who does basically nothing other than kill people and lust after women.
>with a strong christian bent
It's set so far in the future that any current religion no longer exists, and the protag is a moron who does basically nothing other than kill people and lust after women.
Why is his writing style so fricking weird? It's like Infinite Jest where it forces you to derive the actual meaning from the subtext of it because the prose itself is "coy" and hard to read.
Same. I understand the anons itt saying they struggled to reread it; the moments that stand out are so good that you forget how many long-winded yet inaccurate descriptions of the surroundings combined with vague musings pad those moments. But damn if those moments don't stick in your head forever >sev losing his flower duel, saying "frick that" and coming back to life for no reason >anything involving Jonas >exultants using holodrones to torment prisoners just for funsies >every time sev gets an unfair advantage by using thecla's memories >finding out the duo of "big stupid oaf + small weak genius" is actually a trick and Baldanders was the real evil genius all along >the huge fight against baldanders where terminus est breaks and he decides to become a whale and leave >saving little sev from one of the most fricked up fantasy monsters ever, only for him to get vaporized by a random trap >"why would gravity serve Urth when it could serve Tychon?" gets sucker punched to death
I will admit the last book seemed kind of weak though, I really wasn't interested in the big battle at the end or any of the shit Severian did afterwards. And the plays were a fricking drag, like you said.
For me it's >But evertything had approached and even touched the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not walk shod on holy ground.
Same. I understand the anons itt saying they struggled to reread it; the moments that stand out are so good that you forget how many long-winded yet inaccurate descriptions of the surroundings combined with vague musings pad those moments. But damn if those moments don't stick in your head forever >sev losing his flower duel, saying "frick that" and coming back to life for no reason >anything involving Jonas >exultants using holodrones to torment prisoners just for funsies >every time sev gets an unfair advantage by using thecla's memories >finding out the duo of "big stupid oaf + small weak genius" is actually a trick and Baldanders was the real evil genius all along >the huge fight against baldanders where terminus est breaks and he decides to become a whale and leave >saving little sev from one of the most fricked up fantasy monsters ever, only for him to get vaporized by a random trap >"why would gravity serve Urth when it could serve Tychon?" gets sucker punched to death
I will admit the last book seemed kind of weak though, I really wasn't interested in the big battle at the end or any of the shit Severian did afterwards. And the plays were a fricking drag, like you said.
Please stop. I'm dying from the cringe.
You're making me realize its just Harry Potter for incels
I just re-read that chapter and he builds a cairn for the bodies of his mother and grandfather and then walks to Typhon's mountain statue while explaining what Zoanthrops are.
I've heard this theory before, that Severian molests little Severian, but I've never gotten a specific explanation for why people think that.
it's probably because severian says there was no sexual play between him and the boy and they use it to feed into the theory that severian is just walking around raping everybody
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah maybe.
That reminds me of the 'sexual play' he describes between Dorcas and Jolenta.
I've also read people say that Severian is an autistic psycho for believing Dorcas and Jolenta were sexual with each other and that it's just his rationalization of 2 people being kind to him that he doesn't really understand.
They use this as an example of Sev being an unreliable narrator.
But they just assume he isn't so unreliable to have simply not mentioned that a mentally vacuated Dorcas, having spent months alone with a hypersexual megathot like Jolenta, had lezzed out with her. They think that can't possibly have happened and then Sev never mentioned it until he did, no surely he's delusional.
Wolfe's metaphorical language is still impenetrable to you then.
There's a passage where Severian writes how he hugs the boy over the alzabo's corpse and immediately switches to describing the beast in fleshy details like its flaccid tongue sticking out. Right after the boy starts crying - should I explain what the tongue is a metaphor for?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yes
3 months ago
Anonymous
the organ for sexual play
3 months ago
Anonymous
You don’t have sex with your tongue, you use your penis
3 months ago
Anonymous
unless you're being fatuous, the book's language is not for you
Just re-read that passage as well, he doesn't intentionally do that at all.
He's thinking to himself mere moments before how the gold from the ring might be useful to pay for an apprenticeship for the boy.
Wolfe's metaphorical language is still impenetrable to you then.
There's a passage where Severian writes how he hugs the boy over the alzabo's corpse and immediately switches to describing the beast in fleshy details like its flaccid tongue sticking out. Right after the boy starts crying - should I explain what the tongue is a metaphor for?
You're an absolute moron.
I just read that passage, it describes how Severian is recovering from the fight, looks for the boy, finds him next to the alzabo presumably because the it had just used his father's voice to lure him closer, then Sev grabs the boy and pulls him away from the dying alzabo. Then the predatory animal has a last gasp of energy as it tries to weakly bite at little Severian but dies in the process.
You have a israeli mind, you probably call the ADL whenever someone talks about exterminating wienerroaches.
>I looked about for the boy. To my horror, he was huddled against the
alzabo's back. No doubt the thing had called to him in his father's voice, and
he had come. Now its hindquarters trembled spasmodically and its eyes
were closed. As I took him by the arm, its tongue, wider and thicker than a
bull's, emerged as though to lick his hand; then its shoulders shuddered so
violently that I started back. The tongue was never wholly returned to its
mouth, but lay flaccid on the grass. >I drew the boy away and said, "It is over now, little Severian. Are you all
right?” >He nodded and began to cry, and for a long time I held him and walked up
and down.
The metaphors are very overt.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>a guy saves a kid from being eaten alive >comforts him >yea he def fricked him
The biggest twist is learning that he took on the Autarch's hundreds of consciousness, essentially making him an unreliable narrator because he has MPD. It would be hard to translate to film, but maybe it could be done in a Fight Club like way where you have voice over narration that is given new meaning by the revelation, which could be done by picking the passages that would make up the narration so that it would work.
No. A good portion of the book's appeal is that we're seeing things from Severian's perspective, and realizing that he's bullshitting us, and reading between the lines to figure out the reality.
Also a lot of the fun is Severian's descriptions of things, and spending time parsing what he's seeing.
American Psycho was written with the perspective of the unreliable narrator and that movie came out good
No it didn't.
>he's bullshitting us
ah shit, here we go again
>we're seeing things from Severian's perspective
Debatable
I tried to reread this as an adult recently. Its complete garbage and couldn't make it more than 100 pages in before I had to stop before I had a cringe induced aneurysm. Sad because I loved it as a 13 year old
All grimdark fiction are cringe if you read them as adult. I cant even finished The Way of Shadows without cringing in every paragraphs
Its partially the plot and juvenile themes but mainly the writing. I can't believe I was impressed by it as a child, I'm embarrassed for myself
You didnt read it as a child
If 13 counts as being a child then yes I did. Did I hurt your feelings?
Just stop anon
I apologize for making you cry
I read grimdarks when I was still a teenager, but it was embarrasing to read them again in my current age (22). Like how could you go outside, bringing some edgy looking books with video game looking character on its cover and edgy title, reading that shit up or discuss that book with your peers without getting embarrased?
don't worry anon, someday you won't be afraid of looking childish
This. Nothing wrong with watching barney or my little pony in public. Same with reading gene wolfe. You gotta say "Frick off" to the haters
The term is "Dark Fantasy". Grimdark isn't a distinct genre it's just a shitty meme word.
It wasn't me that invents that word anon. Grimdark and dark fantasy is a different genreslop from that one chart that I read from Cinemaphile long time ago so I assume that it was a different slop of a genre fiction.
Maybe grimdark is the edgy version of dark fantasy and dark fantasy is the less edgy version of grimdark, who knows? People invents new genreslop each day, like dark romance, what the hell is that even supposed to be? Enemy turns into lovers?
All of these are confusing me anon
Dark Fantasy is already the edgier version of Fantasy. If we start making new genres every time something is slightly more edgy than another work then things will just proliferate forever. Soon you'll have a Grimgrimdark and a grimgrimgrimdark.
Grimdark is not a genre, it's a fairly broad pejorative that can be applied to any work of fiction that mishandles darker themes.
>The term is "Dark Fantasy". Grimdark isn't a distinct genre it's just a shitty meme word.
Grimdark should be used exclusively for 40k where it's edgy to the point of being ridiculous and self-aware to boot.
The slow reveal of the world not being some antiquated fantasy one but actually a post-collapse high tech scifi wonderland is too subtle to be conveyed in film. It's just an inherently lesser medium.
Reveal? Energy pistols, AI voices, electricity, cars are mentioned in the first chapters of the first book.
It's visually hard to do. The tone is all over the place. One minute he's killjng a guy the next minute he's winning a charity race to save the learning annex for orphans in the pod race or whatever
They’re doing the sequel first
Book of the New Sun is optimistic science fantasy with a strong christian bent, how the frick do you morons think its grimdark?
Should I read it or just read the synopsis on chatgpt?
I don’t know the first guy just said it was like that
>optimistic
Was it? I thought humanity was in complete decline and severian fails in whatever he was supposed to do.
Also
>falls deeply in love with most of the women who give him the time of day
He just like me frfr
Did you even read the books?
He unironically redeems humanity in Urth of the New Sun, but you can get the gist of it from the play and piecing together bits and pieces in BotNS.
>with a strong christian bent
It's set so far in the future that any current religion no longer exists, and the protag is a moron who does basically nothing other than kill people and lust after women.
A clockwork orange was written by a catholic. It ain’t always obvious.
because whatever youtube video they watched on it said it was
>he filtered millions
WOLFED
WOLFEED
Why is his writing style so fricking weird? It's like Infinite Jest where it forces you to derive the actual meaning from the subtext of it because the prose itself is "coy" and hard to read.
he's a shy little sexy girl who likes to be chased
>Why is his writing style so fricking weird?
Translating from whatever language they write several million years in the future is hard.
Well it comes off as cringy try-hard "look how creative but not DFW I am!"
He cute.
Nah, the film would spoil the premise 1 minute in.
That play filtered, hard. Goes on waaaaaay too long.
I fricking love botns, but I started just skimming the play after a few pages
I got filtered
Same. I understand the anons itt saying they struggled to reread it; the moments that stand out are so good that you forget how many long-winded yet inaccurate descriptions of the surroundings combined with vague musings pad those moments. But damn if those moments don't stick in your head forever
>sev losing his flower duel, saying "frick that" and coming back to life for no reason
>anything involving Jonas
>exultants using holodrones to torment prisoners just for funsies
>every time sev gets an unfair advantage by using thecla's memories
>finding out the duo of "big stupid oaf + small weak genius" is actually a trick and Baldanders was the real evil genius all along
>the huge fight against baldanders where terminus est breaks and he decides to become a whale and leave
>saving little sev from one of the most fricked up fantasy monsters ever, only for him to get vaporized by a random trap
>"why would gravity serve Urth when it could serve Tychon?" gets sucker punched to death
I will admit the last book seemed kind of weak though, I really wasn't interested in the big battle at the end or any of the shit Severian did afterwards. And the plays were a fricking drag, like you said.
For me it's
>But evertything had approached and even touched the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not walk shod on holy ground.
Please stop. I'm dying from the cringe.
You're making me realize its just Harry Potter for incels
>saving little sev from one of the most fricked up fantasy monsters ever
Read the chapter again. Severian raped the boy right after the fight.
I just re-read that chapter and he builds a cairn for the bodies of his mother and grandfather and then walks to Typhon's mountain statue while explaining what Zoanthrops are.
I've heard this theory before, that Severian molests little Severian, but I've never gotten a specific explanation for why people think that.
it's probably because severian says there was no sexual play between him and the boy and they use it to feed into the theory that severian is just walking around raping everybody
Yeah maybe.
That reminds me of the 'sexual play' he describes between Dorcas and Jolenta.
I've also read people say that Severian is an autistic psycho for believing Dorcas and Jolenta were sexual with each other and that it's just his rationalization of 2 people being kind to him that he doesn't really understand.
They use this as an example of Sev being an unreliable narrator.
But they just assume he isn't so unreliable to have simply not mentioned that a mentally vacuated Dorcas, having spent months alone with a hypersexual megathot like Jolenta, had lezzed out with her. They think that can't possibly have happened and then Sev never mentioned it until he did, no surely he's delusional.
Wolfe's metaphorical language is still impenetrable to you then.
There's a passage where Severian writes how he hugs the boy over the alzabo's corpse and immediately switches to describing the beast in fleshy details like its flaccid tongue sticking out. Right after the boy starts crying - should I explain what the tongue is a metaphor for?
Yes
the organ for sexual play
You don’t have sex with your tongue, you use your penis
unless you're being fatuous, the book's language is not for you
>only for him to get vaporized by a random trap
Which is funny since Severian suspects the trap and leads the boy going first intentionally as bait.
Just re-read that passage as well, he doesn't intentionally do that at all.
He's thinking to himself mere moments before how the gold from the ring might be useful to pay for an apprenticeship for the boy.
You're an absolute moron.
I just read that passage, it describes how Severian is recovering from the fight, looks for the boy, finds him next to the alzabo presumably because the it had just used his father's voice to lure him closer, then Sev grabs the boy and pulls him away from the dying alzabo. Then the predatory animal has a last gasp of energy as it tries to weakly bite at little Severian but dies in the process.
You have a israeli mind, you probably call the ADL whenever someone talks about exterminating wienerroaches.
You made download the book
>I looked about for the boy. To my horror, he was huddled against the
alzabo's back. No doubt the thing had called to him in his father's voice, and
he had come. Now its hindquarters trembled spasmodically and its eyes
were closed. As I took him by the arm, its tongue, wider and thicker than a
bull's, emerged as though to lick his hand; then its shoulders shuddered so
violently that I started back. The tongue was never wholly returned to its
mouth, but lay flaccid on the grass.
>I drew the boy away and said, "It is over now, little Severian. Are you all
right?”
>He nodded and began to cry, and for a long time I held him and walked up
and down.
The metaphors are very overt.
>a guy saves a kid from being eaten alive
>comforts him
>yea he def fricked him
I'm currently flipping through the book to find this quote, but there was an entire sentence where I didn't understand a single word.
I'd rather have an adaptation of The Wizard Knight.
botns>lotr>dune>>>>GoT
Realizing Severian is just a creepy, self aggrandizing liar the entire time was so kino bros, it wouldn’t be portrayed well in movie form
The biggest twist is learning that he took on the Autarch's hundreds of consciousness, essentially making him an unreliable narrator because he has MPD. It would be hard to translate to film, but maybe it could be done in a Fight Club like way where you have voice over narration that is given new meaning by the revelation, which could be done by picking the passages that would make up the narration so that it would work.
Book of the Long Sun was better
The first book was perfect, the second fine, the last two really bad.
Besides, Short Sun is the true Wolfe's masterpiece.
the fifth book filtered me hard. I get sleepy everytime I try to read it. I quite like the fourth one
Did anyone else notice yesterday that Biden IMMEDIATELY made a mistake as soon as he started gloating about his memory?
They’re putting him down
Obviously not. Fricking moronic idiot frick ass thread have a nice day.