Castle of Days by Gene Wolfe

Author:Gene Wolfe
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Faithfully,

Gene Wolfe

Sun of Nelioscope

You’ve now read two quite different pieces describing the way in which The Book of the New Sun came to be written. I wasn’t lying in either—writing’s a complex process, and if I wanted to I could do a third piece giving quite different explanations. They, also, would be true.

This isn’t it. What I would like to do here is go through “Helioscope,” which was written over a year ago, and dilate a little on various things I said there.

We might begin with the title. A helioscope is an instrument for observing the sun. You know that, of course. The Book of the New Sun is full of all kinds of symbolism. In “The Feast of Saint Catherine” I mentioned the rose symbolism, and Roger Stewart just wrote me from Austin, Texas, mentioning the tree symbolism. But the symbol of the sun is central, primary, as the titles of both The Book of the New Sun itself and The Shadow of the Torturer show. (Indirectly roses and trees are sun symbols too, since neither could live without sunlight. A blown rose is practically a representation of the sun.) Urth is dying as its sun gutters: its people retain a legend that the Conciliator will return and revive the sun, and thus this renascent Conciliator is called the New Sun. A member of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence stands between his victim and the sun in performing an execution, and in so doing symbolically terminates the life prior to actually taking it. (Although the title The Claw of the Conciliator may appear to hold no sun symbolism, the thing itself, the Claw of the Conciliator, is a sun symbol.)

Moving right along, perhaps I should explain that Empire is a magazine circulated to aspiring sf writers; thus “Helioscope” is laden with Uriah Heeps of advice to beginners. The present work is intended for the master class—readers—but with the thought that a few copies may fall into the hands of their slaves, and with the hope of undoing the harm perpetrated by “Helioscope,” I will bend the rule here to say that there are only three pieces of advice for writers worth reading.

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