Chapter I

Resurrection and Death

CHAPTER I SUMMARY

Severian, an apprentice torturer, after nearly drowning in the River Gyoll, has difficulty gaining access to the locked graveyard that he and his friends must pass through to return home, until apprentice Drotte plays a psychological trick on the volunteers. Once inside the graveyard, Severian has a chance encounter with the exultant rebel Vodalus and his henchmen robbing a grave. He spontaneously aids the outlaw by killing a volunteer guard. Severian ends the chapter by declaring that his narrative will describe how he “backed into the throne.” Chapter Title: The phrase has a reversal, where the wording is usually “death and resurrection.” Here the “resurrection” is a bodysnatching (“resurrectionist” is a euphemistic term for graverobbers in 18th and 19th century British English), and the “death” is that of two volunteers trying to prevent grave robbing.

This summary was taken from Michael Andre-Driussi's book, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, A Chapter Guide.

WORDS

Even veteran sci-fi/fantasy readers find this book difficult. Like many books in the genre it uses unique terms and develops a vocabulary all it's own. However, in The Book of the New Sun, none of the words are made up. All of them can be found in one dictionary, encyclopedia, or history book. I am providing the definitions to help you suss out whether Gene Wolfe is simply using an odd, old word for style or because it is significant to the construction of the world and important to the story.

A note on notes: the bold-faced word is what appears in the book. Words are defined or elaborated on in the order they appear in the chapter. The numbers in parentheses represent the location of the word. If you are reading The Shadow & Claw volume, the first number is the page and the number after the decimal is the number of the paragraph on that page. If you are reading a different volume or an ebook, the number after the slash is the number of the paragraph from the beginning of the chapter.

For example, amschaspand (12.11/49) means the word amschaspand appears on the twelfth page in the eleventh paragraph or in the forty-ninth paragraph from the beginning of the chapter. When you encounter a word like chalcedony (14.0/64) where there is a zero after the decimal point, that means the paragraph the word appears in began on the previous page but continues onto the top of the next page.

TERMINOLOGY

pace (9.3/3) a measure of distance, about two and a half feet

barbican (9.4/4) an outer fortification or defense of a city or castle

Gyoll (9.13/13) means "icy" or "freezing," it is the river of death in Norse mythology

gallipots (10.12/25) old slang for assistants or apprentices who pounded drugs, rolled pills, and collected herbs for an apothecary

simples (10.14/27) ingredients, usually herbs, that are compounded into medicines

mystes (11.3/33) those initiated into mysteries

steles (11.6/36) an upright slab of stone bearing sculptured designs and inscriptions

badelaire (11.7/37) a short, heavy, curved broadsword with S-shaped quillions, commonly used in the 16th century

oblesque (11.7/37) antique word for obelisk, a tall, four-sided shaft of stone that tapers to a pyramidal top

execrations (11.8/38) curses

dholes (12.4/42) wild, red dogs found in modern day India

exhultant (12.7/45) the class of high-born people, they are taller than common folk

amschaspand (12.11/49) an angelic being

arctother (13.4/55) a very large prehistoric bear

Erebus (13.6/57) an ancient Greek god who was the son of Chaos and Night, it follows to wonder -- does Erebus exist in the story or is it simply a form of expression?

Terminus Est (13.9/60) Latin for "this is the line of division," more will be revealed about Terminus Est later

chalcedony (14.0/64) a semi-precious stone with the luster of wax

Vodalus (14.2/66) the name of an exhultant revolutionary, the name is derived from vod, an obsolete Scottish term for wood, Vodalus was an Irish or Scottish saint in the 8th century

Vodalarius (14.3/67) a follower of Vodalus, vodalarii is the plural form

flier (14.4/68) a small, personal aircraft, at present in the story, it is a relic and represents a forgotten level of technology

asimi (14.6/70) a silver coin

Autarch (14.6/70) ancient Greek, means "self-ruler"

concubinage (14.7/71) daughters of powerful families were exchanged as concubines (unwed sex partners), used as a form of hostage keeping

POST READING THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS

What is the significance of the chapter title, Resurrection and Death? Ordinarily the order is reversed -- death then resurrection.

9.13/13 Severian says in the final account his memory loses nothing. There are many words for this condition - photographic memory, perfect memory, eidetic memory, etc. Pay attention to your experience of reading The Book in light of this information.

There are points in the narrative where Severian reveals deeply held beliefs. On page 11, in paragraph 3 (11.3/33) he shares:

Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we placeessentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. I understood the principle intuitively that night as I heard the volunteer swing the gate closed behind.

This brings to mind the first entry of the ancient Chinese philosophy classic, the Tao te Ching. From the James Legge translation of 1891:

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.Having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; having a name, it is the Mother of all things.

Likewise, it sounds like the philosophy of Idealism. Idealism is present in a wide-ranging array of philosophical schools. In general, it asserts that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human understanding and/or perception; that it is in some sense mentally constituted, or otherwise closely connected to ideas.

Also, keep in mind that Severian is writing from the conclusion of his adventures.

Is it a spoiler that, in the last paragraph of the chapter (15.0/70), that Severian reveals that he at some point in the narrative he becomes the ruler of the land? Did you catch that? I missed it the first time I read it. Read that paragraph again.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse