Litany of the Long Sun: Nightside of the Long Sun/Lake of the Long Sun Book

3.5 stars

The year of (re)reading Gene Wolfe, parts six and seven: Back to the Long Sun

So…I've had a pretty rocky relationship with Gene Wolfe's Books of the Long Sun series. It's no secret that Wolfe can be a 'difficult' author and he doesn't exactly write with clarity or the reader's ease of comprehension in mind, he rather prefers to compose literary puzzles and often obfuscates more than he clarifies in the text which can often lead to an experience that is more than a little frustrating for the reader. Historically the worst offender in this regard for me has been the Long Sun series. This has largely had to do, I think, with the main protagonist Patera Silk. I have noted elsewhere that I have often found Wolfe's protagonists to be the least favourite part of his books for me, and in this regard Silk has definitely taken the cake. I think it ultimately came down to his well-meaning, almost bumbling nature as he careened from crisis to crisis with seemingly only his faith in his divine mission and authorial fiat to guide him. His self-abnegating nature, pious asides, and seemingly willful belief in the good in all things, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, just got on my nerves a bit too much I'm afraid. Added to that was my strong feeling that Wolfe really went overboard on the obfuscation in this series as many important story elements seem to happen off-stage or are simply implied, left for the careful reader (of which I am not always one I must sadly admit) to pick up as best he or she can. Has this changed at all for me on this re-read? It seems the answer so far is a tentative yes: either something has changed in my brain, or else my knowledge of the underlying 'secret' story elements upon this re-read are sufficient to fill in the gaps that existed on my previous readings, and I would have to say that the change in my attitude has been significant.

_Nightside the Long Sun_ (the first part of this volume) is our introduction to the series in which our hero, the young augur (priest) Patera Silk, receives enlightenment from a little known minor god identified only as the Outsider. Convinced that he has been earmarked to save his failing manteion (church) Silk soon finds himself pulled into the underbelly of the whorl's demi-monde, colloquially known as the Nightside, when the local crime boss Blood decides that he will purchase the struggling manteion in order to use the property for his own ends. In a rash attempt to 'steal back' the manteion from Blood Silk breaks into the criminal's palatial compound and sets off a string of events that will change the whorl forever. This entire first volume covers little more than a few days in Silk's life, with the lion's share of it detailing his adventures as he prepares for, and then undertakes, his break-in of Blood's compound.

As the story progresses the careful reader is able to pick up on the fact that the setting is a giant generation starship which is starting to experience signs of decay and degeneration. Rumours of absent gods that no longer show themselves to their worshippers, unseasonably bad weather paired with poor crops, and the rumble of unrest all colour the background of this segment of Wolfe's multi-series 'solar' cycle (this time the "Long" sun due to the fact that on this world - or "whorl" as its inhabitants call it - the sun is a giant energy source that crosses the artificial sky in a straight line from pole to pole).

The second book of the series which is also in this volume, _Lake of the Long Sun_, follows Silk as he attempts to find a way to raise the funds he needs to save his manteion and ends up becoming even more embroiled in the political machinations of his city. Known as the augur who received enlightenment Silk has become a lightning rod for the hopes of the people of his city, especially the poor inhabitants of his own quarter, and has unwittingly been put forward as a replacement for the long dead Calde (or ruler) of his city, much to the chagrin of the de facto rulers on the leading council who have no wish to abdicate their power to anyone, let alone a mere augur. The digital gods of the Long Sun whorl had already begun to manifest themselves after a long absence in the first volume, but their actions start to become much more obvious as the story progresses and we begin to see that the political crises of the city of Viron are intertwined with a much larger crisis that will impact the entire Long Sun whorl.

Wolfe has created an interesting whorl, er world, in this series. His characters (especially the secondary ones) are well developed and nuanced and they inhabit a truly lived-in world. You can almost feel the generation starship ticking to its demise as the best layed plans of the digital god that made it (a direct shout-out to a very interesting character from the New Sun series) begin to unravel and are superceded by circumstance and the contrary desires of others. It can still be something of a slow read however, and while I have not found Silk to be as contrary to my tastes as has been the case in the past, I can't deny that he often seems too good to be true. As I said in a much more disparaging review of the third volume there is a lot of stuff that is great in this series: it's a generation starship story with digitized people turned into gods, robotic armies, political revolution, bodysnatching psychotic teenage clones, and vampiric, shapeshifting aliens. I really hope my new appreciation of the series continues. All that being said the true acid test of how I feel about this series still remains to be made: it was in the next book, _Calde of the Long Sun_, that Wolfe lost me on my last attempt to re-read the series and I ended up (metaphorically) throwing the book against the wall and uttering the eight deadly words. Let's see what happens this time, shall we?