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Claw of the Conciliator: Chapters 10 to 12
Severian and Jonas eat a special meal with Vodalus, which involves taking a drug from an alien creature, the alzebo, and consuming the flesh of Thecla. Jonas manages to hide the fact he does not partake, but Severian, due to the drug and ritual, absorbs Thecla's memories. And thanks to his peculiar memory, they're not going to fade.
Vodalus gives Severian the job of delivering a message to a servant in House Absolute, and Severian and Jonas head north on destriers provided. They are attacked by a flying shadow creature, the notule; Severian tricks the creature to attack and kill a nearby soldier instead.
Quick thoughts:
(*) I laughed out loud at the reveal that the destrier that Severian stole to go to the cave belonged to Vodalus.
(*) It's revealed in passing that one of the many things Severian is trying to accomplish is find Dorcas again. Something he mentioned to Jonas. So that's something.
Comments
Hmmm.... I can think of a few possibilities...
(1) He's working for Vodalus. Though one would have thought taking him captive might have been preferable.
(2) He's carrying the Claw of the Conciliator. This seems the most likely, somehow.
(3) Right, we know already he's going to eventually be Autarch, and that potentially requires some royal connection (though we don't know how the Autarchy is passed on from person to person). Maybe being tall but not so tall as an exultant suggests one of his parents was noble, the other a commoner.
(4) I'll dismiss Agia as the cause for now, as I don't see how she has those resources unless she's allied with someone else powerful.
Interesting stuff. And although it's a reread, I can't remember the answer- or even whether the answer became clear.
To recap some motives, here:
Jonas desires to find Jolenta, and considers himself Serverian's friend.
Severian wants to serve Vodalus (has been fascinated ever since Chapter 1 of Shadow, really), to go to Thrax to begin his new life to reconcile himself with his guild, to find Dorcas, to make peace with Agia, and to return the Claw to the pellerines.
It is possible, though a stretch, that someone wants to prevent him from becoming Autarch. We've already met one traveller from the future. And yes, it's also possible that he's got a succession claim - someone might know who his parents are, or guess.
To me right now it seems the simplest suggestion is that he's associated with the rebel, Vodalus, and that makes him a target.
Something else in this chapter - The New Sun is referred to as a 'he' rather than an 'it'. It's not literally a New Sun, but that's a title, perhaps, or a nickname. This partially confirms something I began thinking a few chapters ago, or late in the last book; that the "The New Sun" sounds very much like "The New Son" - i.e. is the second coming of Christ.
I took the representation of Thecla that was eaten not to be her actual flesh (as I think you imply, @dr_mitch ) but rather a kind of effigy made from ordinary stuff, then energised psychically by the alzabo. That aside, the description of how Thecla's thoughts and memories are brought alive for him are exquisite.
I found the flying heat-seeking creatures (notules, I think) fascinating. It is as though they are the original fuligin on which the garments of his own guild are modelled. Like the notules, the torturers fasten on the life of the victim and suck it out. But it's not clear that the notules are driven by anything except animal instinct, whereas the torturers ought to have human empathy and sensitivity.
Finally, what a dense statement of that world's history and philosophy... "I lifted my sword to Heaven then, to the diminished sun with the worm in his heart, and I called, 'His life for mine, New Sun, by your anger and my hope!'"
If found the exposition of motives was a useful recap. And after all that time searching for Vodalus and pledging to follow him, Severian's first independent act is to tell us that he won't fulfil Vodalus's command. I wonder why?
I was also amused by Vodalus complaining that someone had stolen his destrier.
The state of the roads was interesting. The description of them as being fallow, grassed strips indicates that no one is using them, not even the state. It's another example of an ossified tradition that doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose any more.
Was the notule a deliberate assassination attempt, a warning, or just a random bit of dangerous fauna?
My current theory is that the grave robbing suggests the eating of the flesh is at least somewhat literal, though the amount of actual, um, meat, might be very much diluted. In any case, I certainly don't blame Jonas for avoiding eating, There's also the issue that Vodalus is willing to break such a taboo for his cause- though arguably that's only going to unite his followers more closely.
I also thought the notule might be the model for the executioners' cloaks. And I also took the eating of the flesh literally. He's missing the drinking of blood though!
Well, it gives the cavalry something to do...
Your comment made me think a lot about the possible connection to communion (Eucharist or Mass in Catholic terms, which I presume Gene Wolfe would think in). In many ways the consumption of Thecla (whether her real body or not) is indeed a parallel of communion, since it was carried out for the express purpose of remembering her and (at least for those who had know her in life) to in some sense bring her and the memory of her back to life.
I realised that my reading of this passage was at least partly conditioned by my own acquaintance with Protestant practice, hence (I suspect) my assumption that the body was "not really" Thecla, but only a symbolic representation of her which attained meaning by virtue of the context rather than the substance.
Gene Wolfe, however would surely have had a more Catholic perspective, in which the body "really becomes" in some sense the body of the person concerned. Which brings me back to your comment, since more traditional forms of Catholic celebration often don't include wine being drunk by the congregation, only the priest. There is a whole theology behind this, to do with the doctrine that either part (bread and wine / body and blood) is as effective as both together. More liberal and more progressive congregations, especially after the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, typically do take both substances, but many older people are more used to the older pattern where most people take bread only.
Did Gene Wolfe have all this in mind? Hard to say, unless anyone has some insider information, but it is certainly a possibility.
Yes, I was referring to the eucharist when I mentioned drinking the blood. I did not realize that some Catholic churches do not share the wine. Now it makes more sense! It was very definitely a eucharist to my mind!
Yes, I got the impression that it was the flesh of the corpse that "primed" the alzabo
I'm not so sure that the cannibalism was as much as a taboo for Severian as it is for us readers. He was revulsed for a moment in the forest, but no-one seemed to have much of a problem at the actual feast.
"If you kill anyone, make sure to eat their heart, to gain their courage! Their rich, tasty courage..." — Professor Farnsworth, Futurama
Finally catching up on my lexicography...
LEXICON
Phororhacos: Extinct patagonian bird, perhaps more correctly called Phorusrhacos.
Analeptic: A restorative drug
Alzabo: A made up word, but seeming to be from the Spanish verb alzar meaning both to 'raise' and 'to snatch', perhaps from an Arabic root word meaning 'wolf'. A clever play on words, then - to 'snatch' (or to Wolfe?) a personality or their memories.
Incidentally, Alzabo Soup is a podcast "where we literally become our favourite authors be devouring portions of their brains". I think they mean 'figuratively' but whatever. Linky-poo: Alzabo Soup
Allouate: French for Howler Monkey.
Not to be confused with Alouette, which is french for skylark and the subject of a famous folk song.
Berdiche: Variant spelling of 'bardiche', a renaissance period pole-axe (as anyone who read the original DMG will know).
Spadroon: A light, straight, sword.
Thiasus: A festival to celebrate one of the gods - or more technically the group of people assembled to do so.
Pelagic: From the open sea
Argosy: A merchant fleet (named after the Argo)
Pelagic argosy - fleet from the open sea.
Quecine: Oaken, from Quercus, the genus for oak.
Penetralia: The inner sanctum, or inner section; also means hidden.
Quercine penetralia, therefore, might mean 'heart of oak'.
Upanga: A nose flute. Also a Swahili sword, though context gives us the first meaning here.
Notule: A little note. I found a reference to the Japanese edition of the Lexicon Urthus which claims a notule is specifically a 'note from the wind god' which makes a lot more sense, here.
Uhlan: A Prussian light cavalryman with a lance.