People who have issues with Severian's takes on women forget that he lives in a time period with traditional gender roles. People who have issues with Severian's takes on women are in denial that there are fundamental differences between men and women - in terms of lived experience due to biology, but also in terms of interests. Severian's takes are not problematic. If anything, he is a keen observer of male/female dynamics. It may be politically incorrect in the 21st century, but doesn't mean they are not valid.

He interacts with 6 women in the first book, only 1 "falls in love with him within 1 hour" - and that's due to the circumstances of how they met let's say. His a teenager that has very limited exposure to women, other than through his trade. He will fall for most beautiful women he meets, there's nothing strange about that. The strange philosophizing he indulges sometimes is strange.

I've read it, but long ago for the first time, and I haven't reread it recently. I thought Severian did have a perfect memory, but it recounts things as they happen to him first, and it's so hectic that they don't make sense. Then he gives a more straightforward explanation in the next chapter. Flowers and death? I should reread the duel with the razor-edged hypnotic orchids again. I love that bit. I notice that when you're quoting Severian about women, he's always explicitly talking about men's reaction to women (presumably his own reaction generalized to men). There's probably something to be made of that. You're probably an older and more careful reader than I was when I first read it-- it took me several reads to notice that the skyscrapers are repurposed rocket ships, even though Wolfe says it again and again. Later in the series, Severian has a moment of revelation that a great deal of his troubles were the result of his attraction to women, and it was a burden for him. Some of the vocabulary is explained in a chapter in a book called _The Castle of the Otter_ Maybe that's included in more recent editions. You might want to catch up with the book, since it has jokes people told in Severian's world. The one from the Guild of Torturers is pretty good.

A weird question that just came up in my mind (as I wasn't listening really carefully): was Death Sea known as Death Sea back then? Considering that it's "death" because of the amounts of salt in it. And how everyone that turned to look at the cities destruction turned into a column of salt. It kinda, I don't know. Made me wonder.

The authors political and personal opinions are on every page - way too preachy for me

I am so tired of the subversion of everything we love....

The whole opening chapter in TCG walking us slowly back to the Bone Hunter's and through their camp.. Whew. So heavy. Dead Hedge welcoming the Burned Tears into his squad. The scene where Brys meets up with the queen before the parley and gives honor to the Kundryl. Erikson is a master at touching nerves rarely exposed in everyday life. Have not finished TCG yet, but wow what an incredible journey so far.

Wtf attracted her to him in the first place? Even if she found him physically attractive surely 5 minutes of his personality would turn anyone off. The mind boggles.

Except for the weakness of the female characters, these might be perfect books. It fills me with joy just thinking of reading them again. If you can get past the seemingly antagonistic nature of the narration toward the reader, you begin to enter a dialog with the books. Wolfe spoke on this often, saying novels should be dialog. There should be a reason to re-read them. Each of the main characters is so much more realized as people because of their flaws in presentation of the story. Eventually, you begin to read with this kind of engrossing paranoia. You start reading and meta-reading at the same time, asking yourself what you know about the wants and perception of the narrator. It's great.

Trying to make a story wherr everyone is equal. Essentially everybody has the same face, anatomy and capabilities. Ofc for a sense of individuality theres pronouns lol, and there is a popular interest in fashion just so they can express themselves. The theme of my work is equality, hence i want to potray an equal standing between men and women, not sure if i csn rly keep up the androgynous look for every character (fear it might make them look unnatural, due to lack of diversity and id rather not have them be sexualised by the internet)and i also i dislike how unrealistic a lit of male v female fights can be, but alongside that i hate how one-sided they can be.

Hello , This feels great. A book lover trying to speak her opinions on the internet. I am at the same stage currently - planning to do some booktube videos. You are my inspiration. would you please let me know what devices you used to record audio and video.

Perfect monologue, congratulations.

Yeah he literally falls in love with every woman that crosses his path. It’s almost a bit of a gag. 😂

Damn. Your recalling of events was enough to get me teary eyed. Awesome list thank you for sharing

Wolfe is remarkable in his ability to stay completely true to the point of view of his character exclusively without inserting his own opinions or moralities into them. Since Severian was raised in such a particular cloistered environment, necessarily his viewpoint is extremely skewed. Also he is very young and inexperienced and going through what amounts to a late puberty unsupervised and stumbling headlong through a very crazy series of events.

Glad to find a review by a woman. I had been getting hints it was iffy, but wasn’t sure if it would be deal breaker iffy going off male reviewers who seemed to glass over it.

Thank you for the video. As much as I love the books I just feel like shit about the authors view on gender. I find his depictions of women not literery device but a many dimensional fault. For all god's sakes do we really need all those "heaving bosoms", etc. And Wolfe is not laying a critique of medieval male imagination, rather he is incriminating his own limits.

I think a lot of these complaints would be dispelled by a more careful reading of the text. For example, the women in BotNS don’t all instantly fall in love with severian. Thecla and Agia are desperate characters who manipulate Severian’s desire to serve their own ends-Agia is actually trying to get him killed so she and her brother can rob him!; Jolenta only loves dr talos (because he does not and cannot desire her) and her interest in severian is mainly bound up with validating her self-conception as being magnetically attractive; and Dorcas is his grandmother-grandmothers tend to love their grandsons, that’s not Gene Wolfe’s fault 🤷‍♂️

Gene Wolfe ruined reading for me. Nothing comes close. The short sun was his best series. Followed by new sun and then his soldier series.

It *does* makes sense! Incredibly well said. (The 'nostalgia for what you've not experienced' part.)

Just found your channel! Such a great video :) I really appreciate how you brought up Severian's weird weird monologue on women, also how it's important to recognize that a character's views are not always indicative of the author's views. HOWEVER the dead giveaway that you're not going to enjoy a read is usually in the author's characterization of women. I don't want to bash any authors because there's only a handful of men in the world who can actually write women, but wow it is painful reading a book when you have to constantly worry if they're going to bring up a female character and completely break immersion. I think that was probably the biggest strength of Malazan because on my first read I had no idea what anybody really looked like or even what their gender was and I had a very good understanding of their underlying character regardless of those superficial details. Anyway have a wonderful day and thanks for the content

its almost comical how poorly he understands women and how much he deludes himself about their views of him. it shouldnt be forgotten that he is the whole time cherrypicking his words around events in an attempt to portray himself in a gratiating light, and that said, this is what he considers to be a glowing account of his journey? lol. What i find most interesting about re-reading BotNS is trying to understand just why Severian acts the way he does. hes such a thoroughly flawed being

God help me the algorithm has finally recommended me book reviews 😂. At least it recommended me one of the greatest novels ever written.

Great breakdown! I read the whole quadrilogy + Urth this year, and my mind was BLOWN to smithereens. I just subscribed to your channel !

"It's entirely possible that I might misinterpret things that are made clear later on..." yes, definitely, haha... or at least, they're made less hazy for discerning readers (this is not to say that you aren't). That said, within the context of the book, the views that Severian's shares about women are completely understandable, and actually do a lot for the world-building and character development. I don't think readers need much (if any) more than what you're holding (Shadow and Claw) to piece that together. You do have less than half the story there though, and I think you'd benefit from further reading/contemplation. Besides my curiosity about who you'd consider to be "authorized" to speak about women, I question who else could possibly be a more qualified authority in regards to the women of Urth? I'd hazard to say that literally nobody is better suited than he. Remember, it's very far removed from the sensitivities and structure of our "enlightened" era. Regardless, I'm sure Wolfe would appreciate your passionate response to his writing, haha. I have a theory that those bits you read are almost explicitly for the female audience, if you understand me. I'm trying desperately not to spoil anything here...

Great summary!

It’s inspiring to see how much of an impact a work of fiction has had on you. I can relate to that and I cherish it very much. Thank you for this wonderful video!

Great video. You just gained a new subscriber.

I didn´t realized you were DE ! I am FR but living in Mü ( my DE is terrible though). Is one of u near my aera ?

Kruppe is my favorite ❤through book 4. I will do terrible things if and when Erikson decides to kill him off.

This is the level of analysis I've been looking for. So many videos on Malazan only scratch the surface. Thank you for this insightful overview.

Finally watching this video, yaaaay! Five minutes in, I am already crying, haha! No regrets, though.

Just came through volume 1(part 1 and 2)! Needed a break to process it all so I'm reading A Canticle for Leibowitz now which is awesome so far. Looking forward to volume 2(part 3 and 4)!

I’m planning on rereading the Book of the New Sun this year, and your thoughts were very insightful and interesting. Yup, Severian is up there for Unreliablest Narrator Ever. 😆 I see you haven’t posted in months. Any plans to come back to Booktube? I’d love to see more. 🙂

Hiya! Thank you for this audio "readalong" session, even though I'm not reading along, and don't know if I'll ever get to actually reading the ICE series. I own every book in the series and I have been meticulously following the reading order thus far. Somehow made it through Night of Knives and a decent chunk of RotCG before throwing in the towel. I enjoy the main series so much and I pick up on all the little hints and interesting tidbits, but with ICE I never have any idea about what the f is going on and I just want to get back and move on with the series already. I've decided I'm okay with downing the sunken cost, and I feel like if I put in more of my time into actually reading RotCG I will regret wasting my time. These audios I'm sure will be very useful for me to still enjoy the adventure in the wonderful world these two have built. But I think I'll go read Toll The Hounds before the rest of the videos because it seems you've already done so, and I want to make sure I see the same colors you do. In your opinion, does ICE get any better with Path2Asc, or is that more of the same style? I already have the books so it's not the money-cost I'm worried about, it's the time/frustration.

I really really enjoyed this. Severian of course is no authority on love or women as you say. This whole memoire and his endless interactions with women is his attempt to figure HIMSELF out -- which he never completely pulls off in this book. I will say something about his "love and desire" passage at the Inn of Lost Loves. Maybe this will make the passage make more sense. Severian is not saying "a woman has to be attractive to be loved." Rather he said that "if you desire a woman you will eventually fall in love with her." And "if you love a woman, she will become attractive and desirable to you." As you probably know by now, he never overcomes his tendency to draw up lists of women he's encountered and compare them. And in those he regularly ranks Agia near the bottom in physical beauty -- trying to determine why he is so attracted to her.

Really good discussion. Thanks!

57:00 There is plenty of violence against men: the volunteer that Severian killed in chapter 1. Also when he "persuaded" Drotte/Roche/Eata (can't remember which one) in quite brutal fashion to be his 2nd in command.

I really loved your point of view about this book, I recently read and have this same opinion. I was in doubt during the reading about the existence of the house.. "Is the house existe? Or everthing is happend in his broken mind?" but then others can entrance in the house too, so in my point of view this place is real for some people.. And I think that is a perfect place to being because to being there you need forgout.. Forgout who you are. So then the House's comes to being something more to the people there. But is the curios it about that, to seeing the perfection of House's and her greatness, you first need forgot about this and everthing. I belive that Piranesi was touch and protect by the House during his time there and when he came to real world again I felt the same lost's that you saying.. In the end of book I have this sensation that Piranesi was complacent about being in this world because he understood he could’t lived alone there but he also has this feeling like "Am I really could’t?" So he seeks confort in thinks that people here are like the statues of the House's because he understood that here is just another world and another type of House. . . *(I beg your pardon about my English I'm from Brazil but I really loved your thougths and wanted share my's eigther.. Thanks for you lovelly video, xoxo 😘)

Oh so sorry I missed this when it came through! I picked this series up a few months ago and am currently loving it.

Hey I had a question. You mentioned that you have read fantasy books with harder plots? wanted to see what is the most difficult one plot wise that you have read?

I don’t understand how people complain so much about the reading experience. It flows well and it’s honestly been a page turner for me. I wouldn’t say it’s dense or hard to read at all.

I finally got around to reading this book. I really enjoyed listening to your thoughts and interpretations

The idea that the plot is simple or straightforward is a bit strange. I don't want to spoil anything, but that is far from reality. On its surface you can describe the book as: shit Jesus walks around a bit. That, however, is not the point of the book. I guess if I was going to describe the book it would be as a time traveling buildungsroman.

One of my favorite series ever

Great video, I hope you read Claw and post another one. I have not heard a woman's perspective before on these books and aside from the deserved outrage at Severian's immature, inexperienced, and misguided views on women, your thoughts on the rest of the book are interesting too. Keep it up!

I loved The Slow Regard of Silent Things too, it's brilliant that you compared it with Piranesi! <3 This book was very soulful and full of kindness. It was an unexpected and good surprise. Loved your analysis, Counsellor! Great vid, thank you!

Thanks for the great Video! I discovered your channel while reading Midnight Tides and Malaz-Booktube in general. Can't wait to watch all the spoilerfilled discussions once I am finished. =) Currently I am near the End of Toll the Hounds Also much respect for putting yourself out there, I can totally relate to the aversion of showing yourself on the Internet. Awesome Bookshelf by the way! :)

I got a name in dream which I never heard . Nimander. What is this. So I searched

try Elizabeth moon, sheep farmers daughter, amazing story.