The Claw of the Conciliator

After a relatively long hiatus, I've returned to Gene Wolfe's Book fo the New Sun with The Claw of the Conciliator. When I left Severian, he'd just fought a duel, hooked up with a troupe of actors, and was travelling through one of the gates in the vast wall that surrounds the city of Nessus. Now, with a characteristically abrupt shift, I find myself rejoining him in a small village just outside the city.

Separated from all his companions save Jonas, the man with the metal hand, Severian finds himself caught up in the plots of his enemies. Having executed a witch and a man accused of spying for the rebel leader Vodalus, he receives a note informing him that Thecla, his great love, is alive and waiting for him in a nearby mine. After barely escaping the trap, he gets finds himself dragged off into the woods where he is brought before Vodalus. The rebel leader informs him that his fellow actors are due to give a performance at the House Absolute, the home of the Autarch, and that he needs to worm his way into the house. After attending a particularly unusual banquet, Severian and Jonas hurry to catch up with their fellow thespians, only to be caught and imprisoned by the Autarch's praetorians.

While waiting in House Absolute's oubliette, Severian breaks off from his narrative to relate the story he read to the injured Jonas. The story, as Jonas tellingly notes, is a distorted version of the Theseus myth. Escaping through a concealed door, Severian recovers his sword and starts searching for his fellow actors, who are said to be waiting for him in the Green Room. On the way, he meets someone who might be the Autarch or who might equally easily by a flunky. The narrative breaks off again for a long account of the play, a strange sort of Mystery Play that mixes the Bible and the Apocrypha with something that may be a political comment. The play ends abruptly and chaotically, with the players going their separate ways. When the do finally meet up again, Severian, Dorcas and the increasingly sickly Jolenta head off towards Thrax, while Dr Talos and Baldanders return home to rebuild their ruined castle.

Every bit as strange and slippery and wonderful as the first book, Claw adds a lot of depth to the world, draws out the origins of a couple of the principal characters and starts to bring out some of the behind-the-scenes forces that seem to be interested in Severian and his future. It's also clear, with hindsight, that some of the events in the book foreshadow those in The Sword of the Lictor and set up others for their eventual resolution in The Citadel of the Autarch.