Subject: (urth) Wolfe as Authority (Is that a minotaur I hear?)

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 13:45:18 +0000

mantis having written:

<Oh good: now we can see that interviews, while providing some data points,
are not necessarily the be-all and end-all.  I mean, not to complain or
anything, but I was starting to feel that people around here were beginning
to give great weight (perhaps even supreme weight) to data points from one
interview or another.  Which is fine, I mean, whatever: the answer that
fits a given reader is where ever he/she finds it (I really don't mean to
knock that); toss out all the lit crit and find all answers in interviews;
but the impish side of me always wants to point out, "Just read _another_
interview.">

Alex David Groce then having written:

<The other difficulty with using Wolfe's interviews is that, while they
are useful in a general way, Wolfe is, I think, intentionally gnomic
and tricky.  Recall the answers to the question list for LONG SUN, and
the fact that THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER did suprisingly little to clear
up some things about NEW SUN (it gave two different explanations of
where the idea came from, for Pete's sake).>

I happen to think both of these statements are right on the money. I also
suspect that Wolfe is this way when people come up to him at conventions and
ask him questions, and know from personal correspondence that he can be both
outright straightforward and maddeningly elusive at the same time. Kinda
makes hash of Peter Wright's contention that Wolfe _wants_ us to understand
him, doesn't it? (Although I do think the co-opting of Severian into RETURN
TO THE WHORL will turn out to be yet another attempt by the author at
clarifying some of the central plotpoints in the New Sun mythos.)

Then again, if Wolfe was anyway else, he'd be somebody other than the
Daedalean writer we all love and respect, and the pilpulist nature of this
group would be so much the poorer.

Now if you'll excuse me, the labyrinth beckons again.

Robert Borski (who, despite Wolfe's somewhat snide answer about Hyacinth's
mother in the LS question list, still believes it's Lime)

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/