The Book of the New Sun, the Self, and Finding Rationalism in Science Fantasy
I recently finished my first reading of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun . It was vivid, profound, difficult, much more literary than I expected - perhaps the best fantasy I've ever read. I won't talk about the plot here. Read it! I can say that it is strewn with insights that Wolfe casually tosses about like old clothes. One for example, outlines tensions between the individual self, companionship and the collective self: "I have never had much need for companionship, unless it was the companionship of someone I would call a friend. Certainly I have seldom wished the conversation of strangers or the sight of strange faces. I believe rather when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuality; to the thrush and the rabbit I had not been Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular pe...