Torture in Gene Wolfe

One of the difficulties in recommending The Book of the New Sun to friends is Wolfe's approach to torture. Severian, the main character, begins as an orphan apprentice of the Order of the Seekers after Truth and Penitence commonly call the Guild of Torturers. In the Matachin Tower, the guild maintains an ancient trade in the Commonwealth serving the single ruler, the Autarch (the self-ruling). They are one of many ancient guilds in a future world in which every scrap of the earth has been mined and turned to machinery, broken down and been buried and mined again - and in politics too every system has been tried, and every tradition and mode of living and structure of society is still to be found in some form. The Guild of Torturers have their place. The secret of their Guild (spoilers!) is that in all the ancient rotting corrupt commonwealth of institutions, the Guild alone is the only sound stone, the only truly obedient, never inflicting more pain, but never less, than ordered. Only when a man will do the unthinkable do you have his complete obedience.

(Compare with George Orwell in 1984:

"How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"
 Winston thought.
 "By making him suffer," he said.
"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them back together again in new shapes of your own choosing....In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy—everything.")

When an Autarch tells old Master Palaemon, Severian's old teacher, of plans to reform the guild, the following dialogue ensues.

“It will not avail. If I offend you, Autarch, I ask your indulgence for my age...but still it will not avail. You will find in the end that you require men to do what we do.  You may call it healing, if you wish.  That has been done often. Or ritual. That has been done too.  But you will find the thing itself grows more terrible in its disguise. Will you imprison those undeserving of death? You will find them a mighty army in chains. You will discover that you hold prisoners whose escape would be a catastrophe, and that you need servants who will wreak justice on those who have scores to die in agony.  Who else will do it?"
“No one will wreak such justice as you.  You say our mercy extends from sun to Sun, and we hope it is so. By our mercy we will grant even the foulest a quick death. Not because we pity them, but because it is intolerable that good men should spend a lifetime dispensing pain.”
His head came up and the lenses flashed.  For the only time in all the years I had known him, I was able to see the youth he had been. “It must be done by good men.  You are badly advised, Autarch! What is intolerable is that it should be done by bad men.” 

Here there are two arguments. The first argument for torture is pragmatic - that a society will always have reason to inflict suffering on non-conforming people (which is most economically inflicted speedily - note the massive imprisoned population of the present-day USA), and the second is that frankly admitting what is happening makes it the least terrible - perhaps because it is easier to see that prisoners should not be tortured than that they should not be 'exploited for intelligence.'  Even today, many prisoners would prefer to take lashes or lose a finger or perhaps suffer a waterboarding as an alternative to prison.

The fundamental distinction between Wolfe's world and that of Orwell.  Wolfe's Autarch stands for so many things that are wrong, and yet is the last human ruler, and the hope for a new sun for urth. The Autarch represents a system that is Human, accepting and incorporating everything a human has in him or her - a congruence which is Good, even Holy. The non-conforming person is anti-life, evil.  Orwell's Party are fundamentally anti-human, aiming to strip away everything except power, and the power of suffering.  And yet, the resolution of the Book of the New Sun leans against torture because a day is coming and has indeed come and the time is short.

But none of this is the difficulty: I have no problem publishing this argument myself.  The real difficulty is that Wolfe does not shy away from portraying the horror of torture, the exercise and refinement of skills to produce suffering and degradation for their own sake. Unless you are a student of primitive mythology or the practices of ancient peoples (e.g. the Romans) in their cruelest mode, you should find parts of this series disturbing, even mildly traumatising. They are unspeakable.  In this Wolfe is like Severian himself, able to inflict the unthinkable in order that the object might be achieved.