{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1315", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1315, "subject": "An Instance of the Fingerpost", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-01-05T09:21:04+00:00", "last": "1999-01-05T15:25:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-01-05T13:08:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Instance of the Fingerpost", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A (slightly belated) Happy New Year to everyone on the list. Since\nthings are a little quiet right now, and since we sometimes recommend\nnon-Wolfe books likely to be of interest, can I warmly recommend Iain\nPears' \"An Instance of the Fingerpost\" to you all?\n\nSet in and around Oxford in the year 1660, this is a novel composed of\nfour first-person narratives. The narrator of each, in the course of\ntelling his own story, purports to give the true account of a murder at\nthe University and the events surrounding it. But here's the twist: as\nsoon as you finish the first narrative and start the next, the first\nthing the new narrator tells you is that the last narrator not only\nomitted certain crucial events, but grossly lied about others! As the\nnew account unfolds you find yourself thumbing back again and again to\nthe previous narrative, suddenly seeing everything in a new light. And\nthen you finish the second narrative, and the first thing the -next-\nnarrator tells you is that -both- the previous narrators completely\nmisrepresented the real events! And so on.\n\nThis is no mere historical whodunnit. The -real- twist comes in the\nfourth and final narrative, it's stunning, and wild horses won't drag it\nout of me. If you're still wondering why Wolfe fans should like this\nnovel, I'm definitely not explaining it very well. \n\nEnjoy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-01-05T09:21:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) An Instance of the Fingerpost", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Tony Ellis wrote:\nA (slightly belated) Happy New Year to everyone on the list. Since\nthings are a little quiet right now, and since we sometimes recommend\nnon-Wolfe books likely to be of interest, can I warmly recommend Iain\nPears' \"An Instance of the Fingerpost\" to you all?\n\nSet in and around Oxford in the year 1660, this is a novel composed of\nfour first-person narratives. The narrator of each, in the course of\ntelling his own story, purports to give the true account of a murder at\nthe University and the events surrounding it. But here's the twist: as\nsoon as you finish the first narrative and start the next, the first\nthing the new narrator tells you is that the last narrator not only\nomitted certain crucial events, but grossly lied about others! As the\nnew account unfolds you find yourself thumbing back again and again to\nthe previous narrative, suddenly seeing everything in a new light. And\nthen you finish the second narrative, and the first thing the -next-\nnarrator tells you is that -both- the previous narrators completely\nmisrepresented the real events! And so on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This sounds like it was inspired by a novel from the mid 1800's by Wilkie\nCollins called _The Moonstone_, which T.S. Eliot called \"the first and\ngreatest of English detective novels\" (it introduced the idea of giving\nthe reader all the clues necessary to solve the mystery and of having a\n\"detective\" to put it all together). It features chapters written by\neach of the witnesses to the crime. I don't know if they contradict each\nother, as, alas, I haven't read it yet. \n\nYou can find it here, among other places on the net:\nhttp://www.bibliomania.com/Fiction/collins/Moonstone/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Stephen Witowski", "address": "stephenw at libraries.manchester.gov.uk" }, "date": "1999-01-05T15:25:02+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) An Instance of the Fingerpost", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Michael Straight wrote :" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This sounds like it was inspired by a novel from the mid 1800's by Wilkie\nCollins called _The Moonstone_, which T.S. Eliot called \"the first and\ngreatest of English detective novels\" (it introduced the idea of giving\nthe reader all the clues necessary to solve the mystery and of having a\n\"detective\" to put it all together). It features chapters written by\neach of the witnesses to the crime. I don't know if they contradict each\nother, as, alas, I haven't read it yet. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A quick recommendation of _The Moonstone_. I love Wilke Collins' fiction\nand perhaps this is the best of his novels, with a wonderful complex plot\nand great characters (the detective Sgt. Cuff is great) and a marvelous\nsense of place this is of interest to Wolfe fans. As far as I can recall\nthe Chapters written by various characters do not contradict each other\nthey move the plot on seamlessly and are only written by divers hands\nbecause some of the narrators are not on hand to describe all of the\nevents.\n\nStephen\n-----------\nStephen Witkowski\nLibrarian/Information Officer\nCity Architect's Library , Manchester. UK.\nE-Mail : stephenw at libraries.manchester.gov.uk\nPhone : (0161) 234 4357" } ] } ] }