{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1921", "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": 1921, "subject": "True Confession?", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1999-11-05T00:05:07+00:00", "last": "1999-11-05T18:32:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-11-05T00:05:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) True Confession?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In the context of the recent discussion of the veracity of Severian's" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "narrative; on Fri, 22 Oct 1999, I wrote:\nWhy write a memoir at all that purports to be a true and accurate account\nof one's adventures, bring up wondrous and even momentous events, then leave\nso many of them unexplained? In the context of the fictional memoirs it\nmakes no sense unless their author is hiding something, whether from the\nreader or from himself, which is hard to do when you have a perfect memory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In this sense, Severian is an unreliable narrator.<<\n\nCompare that with this excerpt from John Clute's review of OBW, recently\ncited on the Whorl list:\n( http://www.scifi.com/sfw/current/excess.html )" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The four-volume Book of the New Sun, set inconceivably deep down the\naisles of the future upon a world called Urth (it is our own Earth\ntransfigured by time), professes to be the \"confession\" of Severian, the\ntorturer's apprentice who becomes Autarch of his Brazil-like country, and\nwho eventually redeems his folk by bringing about the coming of a New Sun--a\nwhite hole which scalds and drowns and cleanses the sacred Urth. But\nSeverian himself has much to hide, and the text of his \"confession\" has\nbecome a honeypot for puzzle-solving readers. Severian's memoriousness--he\ncannot forget a thing--has been deeply analyzed, as have his family (which\nhe never identifies) and the actions he undertakes to gain the throne (which\nhe lies about, for he is a liar).<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It seems that I am not alone in my assessment of Severian being an\nunreliable narrator, and that the rather glaring lacunae in his narrative\nare not just quirks of his (or Wolfe's) writing style. Sev is not being\ntruthful. And Clute seems to think Severian an even bigger liar than did I.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-11-05T12:56:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) True Confession?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Severian TELLS us he's a liar, etc. But I'm still unclear about what\nyou and Clute think he's lying about in a major way--Wolfe's narrators are,\nin my opinion, for the most part unreliable in not giving the whole truth,\nbut only part of it. I really can't think of any instances (other than things\nthat are just odd--who said what on page #1) where Severian outright lies.\nOf course, if he's lying consistently, there's no way we can tell--but that\nundermines the entire narrative, and also (to me) seems out of whack with\nSeverian's role as bringer of the New Sun (unless we're to doubt that, too).\nThe minor oddities--well, Severian may be lying about who was at the gate, but\nWHY? It's a very strange thing to (baldly) lie about, since it seems to have\nno real importance. I think Severian lies to other people in the narrative,\nbut other than dodging the uncomfortable is reasonably honest (given that even\nperfect memory cannot grant him complete understanding of his own story) to\nUS. Anyway, I've always felt that Severian was writing has narrative more for\nhimself than for others--his slinging them into the Seas of Time is a romantic\ngesture, but he's amazingly lucky that they ended up in Mr. Wolfe's back yard.\n:) In which case he may state things that are not completely true (his\nclaim that Jolenta & Dorcas were sexually involved) but these are the self-\ndeceptions that the non-Divine are prone to (and Severian, despite his post-\nhuman state at the end of Urth is still clearly not Divine). In this sense,\nALL narrators are liars.\n\nI think Severian's sometimes stingy with facts, but that the hypothesis that \nhe's a serious liar is the quick path to total literary solipsism.\n\nBy the way, I noticed this past week that Ask and Embla are mentioned in C. S. \nLewis' PERELANDRA--I wonder if that sparked their inclusion in Wolfe (we know\nhe's read Lewis). The whole Lewis trilogy has an interesting feel compared to\nWolfe--I think the visions of the cosmos in it are actually more similar than\nmight be thought to Wolfe's in BOTNS--Lewis is just vastly less subtle about\nit.\n\nNatural theology, at least to the extent that God's existence is knowable from\nobservation of the natural world and the application of reason, is, if not a\ndeclared item of the faith, at least standard Catholic theology (ob: Aquinas).\nOn the other hand, Silk's experience in Long Sun is a direct revelation, and\nso cannot be reasoned from natural experience.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-11-05T18:32:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: True Confession?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Kieran Mullen wrote:\nOh, MAN is that a badly written review.\n\n \"But Severian himself has much to hide, and the text of\nhis\n \"confession\" has become a honeypot for puzzle-solving\nreaders.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\nYou should try \"Eden Sounding\", the published extract of\nClute's mysteriously un-published novel. An object lesson in\nhow knowing lots of long words and being terribly clever\ndoesn't make you a second GW." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Hale-Evans", "address": "rwhe at apocalypse.org" }, "date": "1999-11-05T11:43:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) True Confession?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:56 PM 11/5/99 -0500, you wrote:\nWell, Severian TELLS us he's a liar, etc. But I'm still unclear about what\nyou and Clute think he's lying about in a major way--Wolfe's narrators are,\nin my opinion, for the most part unreliable in not giving the whole truth,\nbut only part of it. I really can't think of any instances (other than\nthings\nthat are just odd--who said what on page #1) where Severian outright lies." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My take on Sev's claim to be a liar is that he is attempting to be as\ntruthful as possible. That is, I have always thought of it in light of the\nsaying that the greatest saints are the most aware that they are great\nsinners. No one is truthful all the time, and anyone who says he is not a\nliar is an even bigger liar, and not to be trusted. Severian's very\nadmission that he is a liar provides a certain amount of paradoxical\nevidence that he is a trustworthy narrator, given what we know of his\ncharacter.\n\nIf Severian were really concerned about saving face with his readers, or\nhis place in posthistory, or whatever, would he have admitted that he raped\nJolenta, for example? It seems more likely to me that Severian's lies are\nlikely to be in places where it doesn't matter -- he might have some hangup\nabout something he did as a child, for example, that no other adult person\nwould hold against him for a second.\n\nIt is possible his \"lies\" are lies of omission; we already know he leaves\nthings out. But there are alternative explanations for this as well that\nothers here have already mentioned -- things that are interesting to us are\nnot necessarily interesting to Severian, etc..\n\nI am willing to grant that I have not read closely enough, and it has been\na few years since I last read the Urth cycle anyway. (I am in the early\nstages of another reading at the moment.) Can *anyone* on the list provide\nmore than one or two examples of Sev lying to the reader in a situation\nwhere it mattered?\n\nRon H-E" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Ron Hale-Evans: rwhe at apocalypse.org ... \nCenter for Ludic Synergy: \nKennexions GBG artgame: \nHexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: \nPositive Revolution FAQ: " } ] } ] }