{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1958", "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": 1958, "subject": "Liars, TWHF", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1999-11-17T01:45:46+00:00", "last": "1999-11-18T19:15:09+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-11-17T01:45:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Liars, TWHF", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Two instances where Severian admits to lying have already been given (I,III\nand IV, XXXV); below I will give a third.\n\nFirst, an instance where he acknowledges his memory isn't perfect:\n\nAfter returning to the Ship after his phony \"trial\", Sev tells his story to\nBig Tzadkiel, the ship's captain. She offers to take away the memories of\nall his hard travails. He declines: \"I don't want to forget, Tzadkiel. I've\nboasted too often that I forget nothing, and forgetting--which I have known\nonce or twice--seems to me a kind of death.\" (V, XXIV) This quote\nestablishes from his own mouth that his claim to a perfect memory is a\nboast, not a fact, and that his boast is lie.\n\nThe subject of lying is an integral part of the conversation Sev has with\nbanished Small Tzadkiel in the chapter \"The Brook Beyond Briah\". After again\ntelling his story to this version of Tzadkiel he adds: \"But you, who are my\nreader, know all these things (if indeed you exist), because I have written\nthem here, omitting nothing, or at least very little.\" This is his admission\nthat he has deliberately left things out of his story. Note that he doesn't\nsay that he has left out only unimportant details--that much is\nobvious--just that he has omitted to relate some things. Indeed.\n\nAt the conclusion of his tale she says:\n\n\"No wonder I accepted you; in all those words there was not one lie.\"\n \"I've told lies when I thought there was need of them, and even when\nthere was none.\"\n She smiled and made no answer.\n I said, \"And I'd lie to you now, mighty Hierogrammate, if I thought\nmy lies would save Urth.\"\n\nHow much plainer can he be? He lies when he finds it expedient and he lies\njust for the hell of it. How many times does Wolfe have to write it?\nSeverian is a liar. He is like all those oh-so-dangerous-people who are\nabsolutely convinced that they are Right; *they have no scruples* when it\ncomes to establishing what they think is Right--especially when they have\nthe power to impose their beliefs on others. He admitted to her face that he\nhas lied and will not hesitate to do so again. She *knows* he has lied to\nher; that's why she said not *one* lie, and only smiled when he told her of\nhis lies, like an indulgent mother to a willful child. Who knows how many\nlies he has told? There's no way to know because his manuscript *is*\ntantamount to literary solipsism; there's nothing to check it against.\n\nShe knows all about lying because she/he/it isn't any better. She asks him\nwhat is seen, in the plowman's view, in comparable places on Urth to where\nthey are now at the Brook Madregot. Sev finally gives the answer she wants:\n\"wild things\". She is, herself, a \"wild thing\" banished to the Brook between\nBriah and Yesod. Why was she banished? Because she is the rogue element of\nthe Hieros, the Dionysian principle spurned by the Apollonian, just as was\nthe case for mankind when they strove to be as gods, just as Cyriaca told\nSeverian.\n\nSev wants to return to Urth nearer the time when the New Sun will arrive.\nShe says: \"And you want my help.\" She paused to stare at me with as serious\na face as ever I was to see her wear. \"I've many times been called a liar,\nSeverian, but I would help you if I could.\"\n\nNow who, exactly, would be in a position to call an angel-like being a liar?\nWhy would anyone do so? That, at least, is obvious; because they lie.\nSeverian was lied to at every turn by agents of Yesod. And the last thing he\nheard of Small Tzadkiel was her mocking laughter ringing in his ears.\n\nRostrum wrote:\n\n[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "TWHF also attempts to answer the" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "question of why God, if he exists, does not simply show himself to us, but\nthe book is much less overtly Christian than Lewis's other fiction. I\nthink it's a great story, but would be interested to know what folks who\naren't Christians think of it.<<\n\nIt's been 25 years or so since I read it, and my memory isn't the best, but\nas a non-Christian I still liked it.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-11-17T12:57:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Liars, TWHF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(All re: Roy's post)\n\nThis interpretation of BOTNS can be supported from the text, with a lot of \nwork, but I strongly disagree with it. It seems to me that you're seeing smalland largely disputable points in Severian's narrative as evidence that \n(A) Severianis a bald-faced liar and the narrative we have is not merely \nincomplete, but actually a complete distortion of actual events we can never, \nin any way, know, and (B) the cosmic plan outlined (why we should believe in \nit at all, I'm unsure--why not say Severian is a poor torturer's apprentice \nwho, in a fever, dreams he is a savior of the world?) is in fact the work of \nwhat seems almost a fallen angel, or, perhaps, as others have stated some time\nago on the list, a kind of sneaky colonization plan by Empire-builders from \nYesod :).\n\nAs I argued before, this way lies complete literary solipsism--given that \nSeverian acknowledges that he lies to other people from time to time (which \nstrikes me as the admission of a fairly honest narrator) and that his memory \nis, I would argue, perfect enough that Severian certainly BELIEVES it to be \naccurate to call it perfect, and given the fact that at least some of the \ninconsistencies are pointers to the existence of more than one past for\nSeverian (or more than one Severian, depending on how you look it)--this is a\nfairly difficult interpretation to reach. Ignoring the fact that from external\nevidence Wolfe didn't mean BOTNS/Urth to be an ironic examination of a liar's\ndistortion of his past, it seems to break a general Occam's razor of narrative:\nbefore one interprets a narrator as unreliable to this extreme (willful lying,\nas opposed to incompleteness or misunderstanding), I think it's best to have\nMUCH stronger evidence than what has been given. Some of the points are\ncertainly worth bringing up, and I myself have swung over more to thinking that\nSeverian only has a VERY powerful memory, but imperfect, and only believes\nhimself to have a perfect memory. However, I think the extrapolation is\nunreasonable.\n\nIn fact, given this approach, I'm curious--could you elaborate on what you see\nBOTNS as \"about,\" in this case? It strikes me that most of the underlying \nthemes I see in it are undercut by this interpretation (which reminds me of the\n\"Weer is a mass-murderer, and kills EVERYONE in Cassionville\" version of \nPEACE). \n\nThe statement:\n\"He is like all those oh-so-dangerous-people who are absolutely convinced that\nthey are Right; *they have no scruples* when it comes to establishing what \nthey think is Right--especially when they have the power to impose their \nbeliefs on others.\"\nwould seem to be the heart of this conception, but I don't for a moment \nbelieve Wolfe meant to make such a cliched idea the heart of his masterpiece. \nAnyway, I have a feeling Wolfe is, to some extent, one of those \n\"oh-so-dangerous-people who are absolutely convinced that they are Right\", in\nthe sense being considered here. I think the text makes it clear that despite\nthe awful price, thinks that Severian was absolutely right to \nbring the New Sun's purging floods, and avoid the safe but ultimately dead\nfuture of \"Ragnarok.\" Typhon's there for contrast, not as a mirror of the\nnarrator.\n\n(By the way, Tzad's laughter as Small Tzad strikes me as being possibly related\nto Chesterton's comment that the one thing never heard in the Gospels in\nJesus' laughter, possibly because the humor of God is too awesome for us to\nbehold.)\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": "Ouroboros", "address": "ottofaij at yahoo.com" }, "date": "1999-11-18T09:05:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: Liars, TWHF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "<<<>>>>\n\nGosh, you sound very sure of your opinion about those\npeople as well as your take on TBOTNS. Hmmmm. Of\ncourse, that's natural, because thesis/anti-thesis is\nthe only way human beings can reason regardless of\ntheir scruples. It's also the only method we have of\ndivining reality from delusion.\n\nWhat's my point? Well, while I agree that Severian's\nmemory is far from perfect, I'm convinced Wolfe's\nmemory (for the purpose of this work) *is* reasonably\nsecure and objective. \n\nI'm unconvinced you have found *any* lies yet. !BUT!\nI don't believe you'll find a place where Severian" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "lies<< as the narrator where Wolfe doesn't provide a" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "clear signal of it in the text. Otherwise, Wolfe would\nbe permitting himself to play tennis without a net(to\nborrow an analogy from Robert Frost). Of course, if\nTBOTNS is \"literary solipsism\" how *could* you discern\na lie, a delusion, or an objective fact (see the\nimportance of thesis/anti-thesis?). Actually, TBOTNS\nseems to me more in the tradition of J. Bach rather\nthan John Cage.\n\nIf you *can* convince me that TBOTNS is \"literary\nsolipsism\", you can have my 5 hardback volumes, 'cause\nI won't be needing them anymore.\n\n-Ouroboros" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-11-18T19:15:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) re: Liars, TWHF", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(snip)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There's no way to know because\nhis manuscript *is*\ntantamount to literary solipsism; there's nothing to\ncheck it against." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Literary solipsism????\n\nWhat do you mean? How is the manuscript a solipsist document? I assume \nyou're referring to solipsism in the moral sense and not existential \nsolipsism." } ] } ] }