The original idea was to incorporate all of this footage into our "Ultimate" Book of the New Sun video, which would have made it over four hours long. I think this is a better idea, seperating that different style.
Hi @MediaDeathCult, while reading sf books I love having some great ambient background, if you do also, please check out this one, ambient heavily inspired by the whole "Urth of the new sun" series, hope you gonna love it! ruclips.net/video/e_TdzjzoIZM/видео.htmlsi=8cNe7-RYLMgkVyzL And thanks for your brilliant videos, love your content and dedication !
Great piece, thank you. I discovered this book via the comedian Frankie Boyle who said it was his favourite book. I would love to see you interview Frankie to get his take on the book!
Wow what a fine assortment of enthusiasts!! Only through the first 10 mins or so now but I can already tell this is going to be something I re listen to now and again.
Its amazing to see where everyone has a revelation with this story. My revelation was finishing the last book and realizing i was just brutally humbled. No matter how much i think i remembered or understood there was so much more to find and comprehend.
It's been said, and it's not a cliche, that you don't read Gene Wolfe, you reread him. So too with these two videos, The Ultimate Guide and Experts Answer The Big Questions, you don't just watch them, you rewatch them. What Moid and the Wolfe experts have done is amazing, create quality video companions to the books that can be watched and rewatched. Great job guys.
I can definitely see your point. When i attempted reading it, i saw very early on that to understand it, i would have to make notes.... essentially to _study_ it, not read it. I had no clue whether i was supposed to be trying to comprehend the implausible events at face value, or whether i was supposed to work out and resolve a series of complex metaphors. I decided that the author didnt want me to understand what was going on, and sadly i got about as far as a third of the way through the first book and gave up. I have never returned. I didnt get enough sense that any investment into the complexity would ultimately pay off. I think if i had read it as a teenager maybe i would have relished the challenge, but aged about 40, my patience ran out after about 7 chapters of 'wtf is going on'. For me, studying is for learning. Maybe i will try again one day with BOTNS if i have a study guide.
@@mikeharbour_music I'm 74 and came to reading Wolfe very late. That wasn't an impediment for me. I enjoy immensely reading his works, especially TBOTNS. I plan to be reading his ouevre until I kick the bucket. That being said, Gene Wolfe is not for everyone. I think you need some maturity as a reader, by that I mean to have read Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantès, Dickens, ect. the classics of literature, and subsequently have a certain discipline as a reader. This takes time, and not every one has it. There are a few who "get" Wolfe from the get go. The issue is that Wolfe wants you to work it out. He doesn't hand on a platter anything to the reader. He is more show than tell.The more work you put into reading Wolfe, the more you get out of it. Again, not every reader is cut out for the task. You either love his works passionately or you throw the book across the room.
@@mikeharbour_music For the first read you are not supposed to try to understand it. Just let it carry you along as a surreal journey where you will only get bits and pieces. The atmosphere is what will carry you along the first read. You can start trying to understand it from the second read and onwards. If you try to understand it on the first read you will just hit a wall.
No one is going to mention the old Autarch as an amazing character?? He's such a master!!! And his way of dealing with people and his sense of humor pervades most of his interactions. Also every word from him has important implications. Gravitas!!!😎
Love that more people are getting exposed to Book of the New Sun. I subbed for this and will watch anything you release on the topic :) Can't wait to dive into this one!
This was such a fun video. I've made it through the whole series once and the first book 3 times (because it's my fave). I'm going to try to rope my husband into another read through for both of us.
Oh shit more Severian content! 😱 You sir are responsible for getting me to finish reading the Book of the New Sun. I then immediately restarted it and I'm midway through the saga again. Thanks! 🙏
SOON! We're up through a big chunk of Sword behind the scenes, but FRICKIN' LIFE has gotten in the way of all the "work stuff" that goes into getting the podcast out there. We love you for caring. heh heh - Craig
@@weirdchristmasweirdchristm1127 I keep checking every week or so to see if a new episode dropped and I missed it. Just finished a re-read earlier this year so excited to listen to your breakdown while it’s “fresh”! Keep up the great work, y’all are awesome!!
Now that I've gone to read the BotNS quartet after your first video, it's finally time for me to be active in the discussion as opposed to being outside of it 😤
I still need to read Urth of the New Sun. I picked up the Shadow & Claw omnibus from a second-hand charity shop rather randomly because I was interested by the blurb on the back. It ended up being one of the best novels I've read. Got Sword & Citadel soon afterwards. It's very hard to find affordable copies of Urth though. All are second hand and prohibitively expensive, so I was very happy to learn that a new edition will be published next year (2025). Can't wait to read it.
One of my favorite moments from the book of the new sun is right after Severian Jr passes away on the giant ring of the statue. And then Severian thinks of Dorcas and we find out that Dorcas and Jolenta banged. Which explains a lot about Severians walk with Jolenta, why he gets so extremely angry when Jolenta mentions that even straight women can't resist her and fall for her. Why when they return and everyone knows what they've done, Dorcas cries but then doesn't make a big deal of it etc
Currently rereading and just came across this quote from dr talos in the aftermath of performing the play, he says to severian "I wrote in the Familiar's part so that we should hide you better by giving your habit a reason for existence." Is this significant or just take it on face value?
Wasn't the Culture novel Player of Games? But yeah, my smooth brained view is that Severian was just that guy who got shot through the proverbial cosmic Swiss Cheese and, all the holes lined up for him. Great 2 and a half hours, enjoyed every minute and frustrated by a few. 10/10 sir. By hey! A few of those guys bookshelves need a to be reorganised and catagorised properly! 😂
When they talk about the value of rereading it, I personally feel a lot of that also applies to Dune. I’ve read the original novel 6 or 7 times in my life.
First readings of BotNS feel like Jack discovering Christmas in Nightmare Before Christmas. You know there is something there but you just can't figure it out. Multiple readings can help but until you find the key it'll always feel unreachable. The key doesn't unlock the final door but it unlocks a fractal pathway that enriches the experience and the world itself. (The Christmas tree symbolism actually applies here). Because Wolfe didn't write self contained entertainment but a work of symbolism which reflects and refracts the real and the numinous.
@@MediaDeathCult If you haven't yet, look up Marc Aramini's work on Wolfe. He has 2 books covering a big chunk of Wolfe's fiction with (at least) one more on the way. Again, really nice video. Thank you.
53:40 There’s an argument to be made that Wolfe was referencing Taylor Swift since she has the line “Midnights become my afternoon” in the song Anti-Hero and Severian brings afternoon to the midnight of his world. #mindblown
I core part of "what" The new Sun "is" seems to me to be "perspective" that is point of view, view point, frame of reference, frame of mind et al. it seems that Wolf was playing with - in some ways like Escher does - with "perspective". You have at one point for a short time Savarin's own perspective, then you have the Severian/Thecla gestalt. He adds outside perspectives, alien perspectives which all are "interoperative" both by the protagonist and the reader. I think its also a commentary on myth creation and history creation as narrative forms around what you the reader can understand but your own understanding is a limited one and your own formed narrative still occurs casting an amorphous tale into a concrete narrative of the events. This is the true genius I think. its a wonder really that the book has a fandom given the experimental form it takes. Were it not for the deliberate artifice and techniques at play within the story and the cohesive use of literary devices the story would not have had the ability to guide the reader to continue into the abstract events and occurrences which from the backbone of the story from which the readers narrative experience emerges. Reading it at thirteen years old it seemed like a S&S novel, at 22 it seemed more grand at 50 with a deeper understanding and more life experience it takes on even more colour. (I'll add that I don't really like Severin torturer , rapist (how is he a rapist if he is a gestalt mind with a feminine consciousness and a male one? Thinking of it now maybe the rape was not a rape but a act neither consented to? Maybe it was Jolenta's "nature" that made them both copulate without there really being any other possibility?) Incompetent, puppet of greater powers, ineffectual protagonist ... essentially Severin is a walking McGuffin around which the events have to take place but his agency is extremely limited within the "universe" of the books.
In Final Fantasy 16 - the main character has a red star or perhaps sun that appears to give him power, the world has 8 titans I think ? Ancient technology beyond anything current
lol you can't stop yourself from making more Wolfe videos can you?? I am not complaining. If you haven't... maybe time to start long/short sun? 👀 or explore some of his other works!
I will never undertsand people that buy expensive editions of books but then don't read them. Even the most expensive collectors edition is meant to be read. Why would you spend the money on a folio but then not experience the book in that format with the nice exclusive illustrations, high quality paper, print, the incredible feel of that nice hardcover and binding etc.
@@MediaDeathCult Obviously mate, I'm not saying not to buy a nice edition of a book. I literally only buy hardcovers and most of those are nice special editions (although not as nice as your beautiful folio society edition of the BotNS). My point was, why buy such a beautiful version of a book and not enjoy it. If you're careful then you won't damage the book anyway, but to have such a piece of art only to put it in your shelf is strange to me. I don't get people who buy folio's but don't read them, when I can't imagine a better way to read a book than a really nice folio edition.
It’s a multiverse in time, not in space. The universe is constantly rewritten backwards in time by Yesod at its beginning and Brah at its beginning. Past and future are a matter of perspective in the eyes of the Increate; the Corridors of Time run both ways.
Not only is BotNS superior in every way to The Lord of the Rings, it is an effective answer to Tolkien’s time and space wager with C.S. Lewis, Wolfe’s response being, “Why not both?” The fact that it is also a science fiction recasting of the Gospels only further distances Wolfe from Tolkien’s faerie story.
I’m trying to think of a better book…. I don’t think I can. Heart of darkness is almost perfect but nothing on the scale of botns. USA trilogy is THE great American novel and almost reinvented the novel form to build an entire world. Hemingway, Kafka, Vonnegut, Camus, Steinbeck……. I can’t think of any example that really holds up to BOTNS in style or content. Maybe War and Peace comes closer than anything? I dunno. I think it just is a fact the botns is the greatest book ever written. And if it ain’t then it’s only second to The Little Prince.
Severian is the chosen one in the way the player in Dark Souls is. You play the chosen one because you defeat gwynn, but every other undead who escaped the prison has the potential to be that chosen one as well. We're only chosen because we actually did it.
Hey, so I know what inspired the mirrors of Father Inire. I am 99% certain .. and it's kinda funny to me that no one has ever discovered this. Because it's very obscure but the mirrors are inspired by a real life event.
Severian is such a dork, if every grain of sand is a sacred grain of sand then every dirty old boot is also a sacred boot. Sev never quite figures anything out.
The original idea was to incorporate all of this footage into our "Ultimate" Book of the New Sun video, which would have made it over four hours long.
I think this is a better idea, seperating that different style.
Hi @MediaDeathCult, while reading sf books I love having some great ambient background, if you do also, please check out this one, ambient heavily inspired by the whole "Urth of the new sun" series, hope you gonna love it!
ruclips.net/video/e_TdzjzoIZM/видео.htmlsi=8cNe7-RYLMgkVyzL
And thanks for your brilliant videos, love your content and dedication !
Great piece, thank you. I discovered this book via the comedian Frankie Boyle who said it was his favourite book. I would love to see you interview Frankie to get his take on the book!
Nice to see author Michael Andre-Driussi in person. The Lexicon Urthus and The Wizard Knight Companion are diligent and informative works.
Wow what a fine assortment of enthusiasts!! Only through the first 10 mins or so now but I can already tell this is going to be something I re listen to now and again.
Thank You
Its amazing to see where everyone has a revelation with this story. My revelation was finishing the last book and realizing i was just brutally humbled. No matter how much i think i remembered or understood there was so much more to find and comprehend.
It's been said, and it's not a cliche, that you don't read Gene Wolfe, you reread him. So too with these two videos, The Ultimate Guide and Experts Answer The Big Questions, you don't just watch them, you rewatch them. What Moid and the Wolfe experts have done is amazing, create quality video companions to the books that can be watched and rewatched. Great job guys.
Thank you so much
I can definitely see your point. When i attempted reading it, i saw very early on that to understand it, i would have to make notes.... essentially to _study_ it, not read it. I had no clue whether i was supposed to be trying to comprehend the implausible events at face value, or whether i was supposed to work out and resolve a series of complex metaphors. I decided that the author didnt want me to understand what was going on, and sadly i got about as far as a third of the way through the first book and gave up. I have never returned. I didnt get enough sense that any investment into the complexity would ultimately pay off. I think if i had read it as a teenager maybe i would have relished the challenge, but aged about 40, my patience ran out after about 7 chapters of 'wtf is going on'. For me, studying is for learning. Maybe i will try again one day with BOTNS if i have a study guide.
@@mikeharbour_music I'm 74 and came to reading Wolfe very late. That wasn't an impediment for me. I enjoy immensely reading his works, especially TBOTNS. I plan to be reading his ouevre until I kick the bucket. That being said, Gene Wolfe is not for everyone. I think you need some maturity as a reader, by that I mean to have read Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantès, Dickens, ect. the classics of literature, and subsequently have a certain discipline as a reader. This takes time, and not every one has it. There are a few who "get" Wolfe from the get go. The issue is that Wolfe wants you to work it out. He doesn't hand on a platter anything to the reader. He is more show than tell.The more work you put into reading Wolfe, the more you get out of it. Again, not every reader is cut out for the task. You either love his works passionately or you throw the book across the room.
@@mikeharbour_music For the first read you are not supposed to try to understand it. Just let it carry you along as a surreal journey where you will only get bits and pieces. The atmosphere is what will carry you along the first read. You can start trying to understand it from the second read and onwards. If you try to understand it on the first read you will just hit a wall.
Thanks for putting this together bud!
Thanks for collecting all these great experts and informations.
My pleasure, thank you very much
No one is going to mention the old Autarch as an amazing character?? He's such a master!!! And his way of dealing with people and his sense of humor pervades most of his interactions. Also every word from him has important implications. Gravitas!!!😎
Love that more people are getting exposed to Book of the New Sun. I subbed for this and will watch anything you release on the topic :) Can't wait to dive into this one!
This was such a fun video. I've made it through the whole series once and the first book 3 times (because it's my fave). I'm going to try to rope my husband into another read through for both of us.
I'm so grateful for another edition of Book of the Long Video Essays.
Heeeey Phil and Metz! Awesome 😎
Oh shit more Severian content! 😱
You sir are responsible for getting me to finish reading the Book of the New Sun. I then immediately restarted it and I'm midway through the saga again. Thanks! 🙏
This is the way, you're welcome
Also, when do we get another Rereading Wolfe episode?
SOON! We're up through a big chunk of Sword behind the scenes, but FRICKIN' LIFE has gotten in the way of all the "work stuff" that goes into getting the podcast out there. We love you for caring. heh heh - Craig
@@weirdchristmasweirdchristm1127 I keep checking every week or so to see if a new episode dropped and I missed it. Just finished a re-read earlier this year so excited to listen to your breakdown while it’s “fresh”! Keep up the great work, y’all are awesome!!
Would love these commentators to speak about Long Sun and Short Sun also 🙌
Now that I've gone to read the BotNS quartet after your first video, it's finally time for me to be active in the discussion as opposed to being outside of it 😤
Don’t forget book 5, it’s a 5 book series
Jonas is my favorite character (severian excluded of course) would love to read HIS story.
From the outset voldalus of course looms large
Long and short sun one day please!!
I still need to read Urth of the New Sun. I picked up the Shadow & Claw omnibus from a second-hand charity shop rather randomly because I was interested by the blurb on the back. It ended up being one of the best novels I've read. Got Sword & Citadel soon afterwards.
It's very hard to find affordable copies of Urth though. All are second hand and prohibitively expensive, so I was very happy to learn that a new edition will be published next year (2025). Can't wait to read it.
One of my favorite moments from the book of the new sun is right after Severian Jr passes away on the giant ring of the statue. And then Severian thinks of Dorcas and we find out that Dorcas and Jolenta banged. Which explains a lot about Severians walk with Jolenta, why he gets so extremely angry when Jolenta mentions that even straight women can't resist her and fall for her. Why when they return and everyone knows what they've done, Dorcas cries but then doesn't make a big deal of it etc
Currently rereading and just came across this quote from dr talos in the aftermath of performing the play, he says to severian
"I wrote in the Familiar's part so that we should hide you better by giving your habit a reason for existence."
Is this significant or just take it on face value?
This is fun. I like this.
Wasn't the Culture novel Player of Games? But yeah, my smooth brained view is that Severian was just that guy who got shot through the proverbial cosmic Swiss Cheese and, all the holes lined up for him. Great 2 and a half hours, enjoyed every minute and frustrated by a few. 10/10 sir.
By hey! A few of those guys bookshelves need a to be reorganised and catagorised properly! 😂
Recently finished the book of the short sun and I highly recommend it, ending was even better than book of the new sun
Christmas came early this year 🎉
This video contains the testimony of many persons who have found The Book of Gold.
When they talk about the value of rereading it, I personally feel a lot of that also applies to Dune. I’ve read the original novel 6 or 7 times in my life.
Rereadability, where each new read adds something new, is the main sign of a great book.
Does James Wynne always wear such a cool shirt!?
Yes. Yes he does. Can confirm. (- Craig)
Really wonderful. 👏
Thank you
I could read the book and find out myself quicker than I can watch this video
First readings of BotNS feel like Jack discovering Christmas in Nightmare Before Christmas.
You know there is something there but you just can't figure it out.
Multiple readings can help but until you find the key it'll always feel unreachable.
The key doesn't unlock the final door but it unlocks a fractal pathway that enriches the experience and the world itself. (The Christmas tree symbolism actually applies here).
Because Wolfe didn't write self contained entertainment but a work of symbolism which reflects and refracts the real and the numinous.
I wish I could remember who described the structure of the book as “infinitely recursive picaresque.” I think that’s a perfect description.
Pretty sure it was Gary Lineker
Found it. Peter Nichols review in the Washington Post.
Great video! No Marc Aramini?
No, i just gathered those that are part of my personal Book of the New Sun journey, it means a lot to me.
Thank you for the kind words
@@MediaDeathCult If you haven't yet, look up Marc Aramini's work on Wolfe. He has 2 books covering a big chunk of Wolfe's fiction with (at least) one more on the way. Again, really nice video. Thank you.
Only halfway through the full book of the new sun, saving this vid for later
Summerian Neuromancer needs to exist
it was no easy road
Thanks
53:40 There’s an argument to be made that Wolfe was referencing Taylor Swift since she has the line “Midnights become my afternoon” in the song Anti-Hero and Severian brings afternoon to the midnight of his world. #mindblown
No.
I core part of "what" The new Sun "is" seems to me to be "perspective" that is point of view, view point, frame of reference, frame of mind et al. it seems that Wolf was playing with - in some ways like Escher does - with "perspective". You have at one point for a short time Savarin's own perspective, then you have the Severian/Thecla gestalt. He adds outside perspectives, alien perspectives which all are "interoperative" both by the protagonist and the reader. I think its also a commentary on myth creation and history creation as narrative forms around what you the reader can understand but your own understanding is a limited one and your own formed narrative still occurs casting an amorphous tale into a concrete narrative of the events.
This is the true genius I think. its a wonder really that the book has a fandom given the experimental form it takes. Were it not for the deliberate artifice and techniques at play within the story and the cohesive use of literary devices the story would not have had the ability to guide the reader to continue into the abstract events and occurrences which from the backbone of the story from which the readers narrative experience emerges. Reading it at thirteen years old it seemed like a S&S novel, at 22 it seemed more grand at 50 with a deeper understanding and more life experience it takes on even more colour. (I'll add that I don't really like Severin torturer , rapist (how is he a rapist if he is a gestalt mind with a feminine consciousness and a male one? Thinking of it now maybe the rape was not a rape but a act neither consented to? Maybe it was Jolenta's "nature" that made them both copulate without there really being any other possibility?) Incompetent, puppet of greater powers, ineffectual protagonist ... essentially Severin is a walking McGuffin around which the events have to take place but his agency is extremely limited within the "universe" of the books.
Great comment, thanks
In Final Fantasy 16 - the main character has a red star or perhaps sun that appears to give him power, the world has 8 titans I think ? Ancient technology beyond anything current
Alzabo Soup 4 lyf ❤
Anyone know what dark souls podcast metz is talking about lol ?
Bonfire side chat
lol you can't stop yourself from making more Wolfe videos can you?? I am not complaining. If you haven't... maybe time to start long/short sun? 👀 or explore some of his other works!
WE NEED SUMERIAN NEUROMANCER 😤
I will never undertsand people that buy expensive editions of books but then don't read them. Even the most expensive collectors edition is meant to be read. Why would you spend the money on a folio but then not experience the book in that format with the nice exclusive illustrations, high quality paper, print, the incredible feel of that nice hardcover and binding etc.
Because the act of owning something nice brings joy.
@@MediaDeathCult Obviously mate, I'm not saying not to buy a nice edition of a book. I literally only buy hardcovers and most of those are nice special editions (although not as nice as your beautiful folio society edition of the BotNS). My point was, why buy such a beautiful version of a book and not enjoy it. If you're careful then you won't damage the book anyway, but to have such a piece of art only to put it in your shelf is strange to me. I don't get people who buy folio's but don't read them, when I can't imagine a better way to read a book than a really nice folio edition.
It’s a multiverse in time, not in space. The universe is constantly rewritten backwards in time by Yesod at its beginning and Brah at its beginning. Past and future are a matter of perspective in the eyes of the Increate; the Corridors of Time run both ways.
One question, am I the only one obsessed with who the f@ck are the " creators" that favored humanity in the upper realms or distant past?
Not only is BotNS superior in every way to The Lord of the Rings, it is an effective answer to Tolkien’s time and space wager with C.S. Lewis, Wolfe’s response being, “Why not both?” The fact that it is also a science fiction recasting of the Gospels only further distances Wolfe from Tolkien’s faerie story.
I’m trying to think of a better book….
I don’t think I can. Heart of darkness is almost perfect but nothing on the scale of botns.
USA trilogy is THE great American novel and almost reinvented the novel form to build an entire world.
Hemingway, Kafka, Vonnegut, Camus, Steinbeck……. I can’t think of any example that really holds up to BOTNS in style or content.
Maybe War and Peace comes closer than anything?
I dunno.
I think it just is a fact the botns is the greatest book ever written.
And if it ain’t then it’s only second to The Little Prince.
I believe the same.
Spend that $250 wisely, Moid
What $250?
@MediaDeathCult Your milk from the Wolfe!
I'll just buy more Wolfe books.
*Alzabo Soup
Severian is the chosen one in the way the player in Dark Souls is. You play the chosen one because you defeat gwynn, but every other undead who escaped the prison has the potential to be that chosen one as well. We're only chosen because we actually did it.
Hey, so I know what inspired the mirrors of Father Inire. I am 99% certain .. and it's kinda funny to me that no one has ever discovered this. Because it's very obscure but the mirrors are inspired by a real life event.
Severian is such a dork, if every grain of sand is a sacred grain of sand then every dirty old boot is also a sacred boot. Sev never quite figures anything out.
Metz Said something about the dead can only watch what’s going to play out - so can we and so can the alzabo residents in severian kinda 🥲