★★★★★ Such a clever premise!

Soldier of the Mist

Gene Wolfe

Roman soldier Latro (not his real name -- it is Latin for "thief") sustains a head injury in 492 BC in one of the many battles of the Greco-Persian Wars. As a result of this injury, he is unable to remember events more than day in the past. Even his own name is lost, although he still remembers how to write and fight. (This, by the way, is plausible -- factual memories and memories of skills are stored differently in the brain, a neurological detail Gene Wolfe obviously knows.) An Egyptian healer gives Latro a lead stylus and a papyrus scroll bearing the words "Read This Each Day". He tells Latro that he must write down the events of every day in the scroll, and read it. This papyrus scroll turns up unexpectedly in a basement of the British Museum and makes its way into the hands of a collector, who, discovering the writing, asks Wolfe to translate it. Soldier of the Mist is Wolfe's translation of the first scroll, Soldier of Arete the second, and Soldier of Sidon the third.

I probably read each of the three books shortly after they were published (Mist in 1986, Arete in 1989, and Sidon in 2006). After The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe was on my must-read authors list. They are perhaps my favorite of Wolfe's works, partly because they are lighter than usual for him -- fun and not hard work to read. I have read them several times (Mist and Arete more times than Sidon, for the obvious reason), and therefore remember them quite well. Indeed, I think feel a re-read coming on now...

Yesterday I wrote a review of Mary Renault's The King Must Die, another historical novel of ancient Greece, and was reminded of the Latro series by the very different ways that Renault and Wolfe handle the fantastic elements of mythology. Renault airbrushes them out -- every historically incredible event is rationalized. For instance, Renault's Minotaur is not a bull-headed man, but rather the large, brutal son of Queen Pasiphaë.

Latro, in contrast, sees and speak with gods and spirits. If he touches them, his companions can also see them. Gods, nymphs, and ghosts are characters of Soldier of the Mist. Now, you're probably thinking "Unreliable narrator, yadda yadda yadda", but I don't believe that is Wolfe's intention. Latro, despite his name, is an honest, educated, yet down-to-Earth soldier, and there is no reason to believe he is less than 100% sane. Soldier of the Mist is his diary, written solely for his own use in a language none of his companions can read, and is useless to him unless it is honest. His companions also become aware of the gods and spirits whom Latro makes visible. Indeed, one chapter is written in Greek by one of Latro's companions and is consistent with the story Latro tells. I believe Wolfe means us to understand Latro's stories as true stories of what actually happened.

In his Foreword, Wolfe writes

In ancient Greece, skeptics were those who thought, not those who scoffed. Modern skeptics should note that Latro reports Greece as it was reported by the Greeks themselves. The runner sent from Athens to ask Spartan help before the battle of Marathon met the god Pan on the road and conscientiously recounted their conversation to the Athenian Assembly when he returned. (The Spartans, who well knew who ruled their land, refused to march before the full of the moon.)

To be clear, when I say, "Wolfe means us to understand Latro's stories as true stories of what actually happened," I do not of course mean that Wolfe wants you to believe that, objectively and physically, ghosts rose and walked and Diana's hounds appeared in 492 BC. I mean only that it should be taken to be true in the story. I suspect Wolfe would say something a bit stronger than this -- that these are true reports of the world as the Greeks themselves saw and would have reported it.

Soldier of the Mist, Soldier of Arete may be the best of Gene Wolfe's many novels. I am less certain about Soldier of Sidon -- I need to re-read it.

Amazon review of Soldier of the Mist

Amazon review of Soldier of Arete

Amazon review of Soldier of Sidon

Goodreads review

Comments

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