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After a long period of starting books and not finishing them because I felt like they weren't too relevant to my life, I went in search of this book--which I'd been meaning to read since it came out--during my Houston sabbatical because: (1) Gene Wolfe was a University of Houston graduate and (2) the main concept here is a mercenary in Greece, circa 479 B.C., who cannot remember anything that happened to him the day before and so keeps a daily scroll of events that he can read to figure out what the hell is going on. Having recently started keeping a semi-regular journal, I figured I could relate, particularly when I would read stuff I'd written a week ago and be surprised and somewhat incredulous I'd seen and thought those things.
Latro (our hero) has the same problem, and it makes for a strange narrative. The only consolation for his loss of long-term memory is that he is able to perceive the gods and supernatural beings who walk through the bizarre, war-torn Mediterranean landscape, and who are obviously using him as a pawn in some vaguely-hinted-at cosmic conspiracy. Latro stumbles about, in the company of friends, from one weird vignette to another, his utter naiveté making him an endearing, innocent protagonist.
One of the more ingenious manipulations of Latro's affliction, narratively speaking, occurs when Latro mistakes a male character for a woman because the character is an effeminate sorcerer. What is initially shrugged off by the reader as an odd joke becomes gradually more significant as other characters also refer to the sorcerer as a woman. Wolfe draws this gender-bending confusion out across several scroll entries until finally clarifying the "objective" reality. Tricky perceptual warping like that abounds.
Religious beauty and terror are earnestly evoked. Occasionally modernistic dialogue will clunk out of the pre-Christian context, but generally the hazy, mystical tone created by Wolfe-as-Latro (sacrificing the baroque, Mervyn-Peakish word jazz of The Shadow of the Torturer for verisimilitude) is well-sustained and worth the trip. Wolfe is a ridiculously skillful writer. There's a sequel to complete the story, but I probably won't read it. Once is enough. --K.S.
(first appeared in Reign of Toads #3)
Tor
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