{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4078", "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": 4078, "subject": "Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "messages": 24, "voices": 13, "first": "2003-07-10T04:32:53+00:00", "last": "2003-07-15T14:14:27+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-07-10T04:32:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What follows is a post I originally tried to send in late September 2000,\nbut it was the night Moonmilk turned to cheese, so it never arrived. When\nthe list was back up and running, weeks later, the big PEACE debate was on,\nso I let it slide. Recent discussion of Severian's memory seems sufficient\nexcuse to re-post it now.\n---------------------------------------------\n\n In my rereading of the Urth Cycle, looking for--and\nfinding--mistakes (most of them, hopefully, Severian's) relating to Sev's\nreliability as a narrator, especially those relating to his famous memory, I\nhave come to develop a theory regarding Wolfe's handling of Sev's memory in\nthe memoir. It is unprovable, in part, because the memory-based text is all\nwe have to go on, and the mistakes are subtle, of course, or the issue would\nhave been decided twenty years ago. The theory is just this: that wherever\nin the text Sev starts vaunting his perfect memory, not always, but often\nenough, that the particular memory then recounted, or another close by in\nthe text, will be flawed.\n\n Those recollections, when they are of an incident which has been\nrelated elsewhere in the text, can be verified by the careful reader, but\nnot so those of which we are given only the transient memory, such as piling\npebbles, crying in a basket, or those subsumed from Thecla. This second\ncategory of memory becomes even more suspect, in light of the provable\nerrors of the first category.\n\n Sev's mistakes of memory tend to go unnoticed because the reader,\ncaught up in the story, becomes spellbound by it, like some of the denizens\nof the Botanic Gardens, succumbing to Wolfe's wizardry as a story teller and\nhis sleight-of-hand and stage-magician's misdirection in his plotting.\nWolfe's style of writing is one of the reasons it is often hard to find a\nparticular passage, because the reader doesn't associate it with the context\nof the story where it is actually found, e.g., that of Gurloes being a\nmaster for twenty years is found in the middle of Sev's account of his\nescape from the mine of the man-apes.\n\n In addition to the errors I have pointed out in the past (not\ngoing/going swimming, not returning/returning to the mausoleum, etc.), or\nthat others have found (doeskin/manskin bag, Roche/Drotte seeing the pikes,\netc.), here are some more. Although most of the errors of memory are of\ndetails, there are too many of them for them all to be Wolfe's mistakes. I\nhave endeavored to include only those of which there can be no reasonable\ndoubt. There are, of course, others subject to interpretation.\n\nA) \"Whatever I possess I would give to become one of you, who complain every\nday of memories fading. My own do not. They remain always, and always as\nvivid as at their first impression, so that once summoned they carry me off\nspellbound.\n \"I think I turned from the innkeeper and wandered into the crowd of\npushing rustics and chattering vendors, but I saw neither them nor him.\nInstead I felt the bone-strewn paths of the necropolis under my feet, and\nsaw through the drifting river fog the slender figure of Vodalis as he gave\nhis pistol to his mistress and drew his sword.\" (II, I)\n\n That's not quite what happened. He gave the pistol to Hildegrin,\nfrom whom Thea then took it. (I, I) However, the same mistake he makes above\nis repeated by Wolfe in the appendix to CITADEL.\n\nB) Shortly after returning to Saltus from the mine of the man-apes, Sev\nquestioned Jonas:\n\n \"One last question,\" I said, \"and then I promise I won't ask you anything\nmore. When we were going through the Wall, you said the things we saw in\nthere were soldiers, and you implied they...\" (II, VIII)\n\n No, he didn't. Sev specifically asked Talos what the creatures in\nthe Wall were, and it was Talos who answered him, saying they were soldiers.\n(I, XXXV) That Jonas doesn't bother to correct him _may_ indicate the error\nis Wolfe's, not Sev's.\n\nC) While camped, with Dorcas and Jolenta, by the stream where the odalisque\nappeared, Sev slept, woke, and:\n\n \"...lay down again to watch the birds voyage among the constellations and\nenter that world of memory that, no matter how sweet or how bitter it may\nbe, is never wholly closed to me.\n \"I sought to recall that celebration of Holy Katharine's day that fell\nthe year after I became captain of apprentices; but the preparations for the\nfeast were hardly begun before other memories came crowding unbidden around\nit.\" (II, XXVII)\n\n Here, we have an example of Severian the deceiver. He goes on to\nrecall an incident from infancy, which captures the reader's attention and\ndistracts from what he wrote. The first part of the last quoted sentence is\nworded so that the casual reader may not realize that he is referring to his\n_own_ feast day, when he became a journeyman. Why he chose to phrase it that\nway, I will not speculate upon. The second part of the sentence sounds\ninnocent enough--someone recalling a sequence of events and beginning at the\nbeginning. But when Sev in fact described that feast day, when he reached\nthe point in the ceremony where he raised the fake sword to strike, he\nwrote:\n\n \"When I think back on that time, it is that moment I recall first; to\nremember more, I must work forward or backward from that. In memory it seems\nto me I stand always so, in gray shirt and ragged trousers, with the blade\npoised above my head.\" (I, XI)\n\n The second sentence in the above second quoted passage I included\nbecause it, too, I believe, contains an error. When Sev gave his brief\naccount of the feast day when he became captain of apprentices, he wrote:\n\n \"We apprentices were to serve the feast, and before we did so were to\ndoff the relatively new and clean clothes we had been given for the\nceremony.\" (I, V)\n\n The clothes worn by the apprentices for the ceremony were their\nversion of their \"Sunday best\". If they had been their normal rags, there\nwould have been no need to change clothes, so I doubt that Sev was wearing\n\"ragged trousers\" for his own elevation.\n\nD) When Sev first visited the jacal of the two sick children in Thrax, he\nwrote:\n\n \"I braced my hands on the mud and wattle wall beside the door and\nstraightened up. The boy said, 'You see she is very sick, sieur, My sister.'\nHe held out his hand again.\n \"I saw it--I see it before me now--but it made no immediate impression on\nmy mind. I could think only of the Claw; and it seemed to me that it was\npressing against my breastbone, not so much like a weight as like the\nknuckles of an invisible fist. I remembered the uhlan who had appeared dead\nuntil I touched his lips with the Claw, and who now seemed to me to belong\nto the remote past; and I remembered the man-ape, with his stump of arm, and\nthe way Jonas's burns had faded when I ran the Claw along their length. I\nhad not used it or even considered using it since it had failed to save\nJolenta.\" (III, III)\n\n Wrong. The second paragraph contains not one, but two errors. Sev\ntouched the uhlan's forehead, not his lips, with the Claw. (II, XIII) And he\nused the Claw again on the broken arm of the herdsman at whose hut they had\nstayed. (II, XXIX; last paragraph)\n\nE) From the top of the donjon at Acies Castle, Sev recalled the view he had\nhad from the top of the Matachin Tower:\n\n \"When I had gone there to make my farewell to the only place I had known,\nI had stood at one of the loftiest points of the Citadel, which was itself\npoised atop one of the highest elevations in the whole area of Nessus. The\ncity had been spread before me to the limits of vision, with Gyoll traced\nacross it like the green slime of a slug across a map; even the Wall had\nbeen visible on the horizon at some points, and nowhere was I beneath the\nshadow of a summit much superior to my own.\" (III, II)\n\n Contrast the above quote with what he actually wrote about the view\nfrom the top of the Matachin Tower:\n\n \"The mountains [to the north] I could see with my mind's eye, but not\nwith the body's: only the rolling expanse of the city with its million\nroofs. And to tell the truth, the great silver columns of the Keep and its\nsurrounding spires blocked half my view.\" (I, XIII)\n\n Either he had a panoramic vista from the tower, or he didn't.\nPerhaps his memory of home became idealized in his exile. Neither did he\nmake any mention of being able to see the Wall from there at the time,\nthough he did say, later, as they approached the Piteous Gate: \"I've spent\nmy life so near the middle of the city that the Wall was no more than a dark\nline on the northern horizon when we looked from the glass-roofed room at\nthe top of our tower.\" (I, XXXV) Note that he said the Wall was visible only\nat the one point, not \"some points\".\n\nF) When Sev and his motley crew of lake people arrived at Baldander's\ncastle, he:\n\n \"...asked--a rhetorical question--if they knew from where the sky ship\nabove the castle had come. And when they assured me they did not, I\nexplained that I did (and so I did, Dorcas having warned me of them, though\nI had never seen such a thing before), and that because of its presence here\nit would be better if I...\". (III, XXXII)\n\n Well, no, Dorcas didn't say any such thing. She made no mention of a\nspacecraft or its occupants. It was Cyriaca who had warned him: \"...that\ncacogens had landed somewhere in the north.\" (III, XII; first page)\n\nG) Sev to Miles-Jonas at the lazaret:\n\n \"But Jonas, Jolenta is gone--I watched her die, and...\" (IV, VI)\n\n No, he didn't. He was passed out in the mud when he was awakened by\nDorcas calling him. He returned to the roof of the tomb to find \"...Dorcas,\nalone, bent over the body of Jolenta.\" (II, XXXI)\n\nH) Of his jungle prison cell, following the flier crash, Sev wrote:\n\n \"I, who had worked outside so many, thrusting in trays of food to the\ndisfigured and demented, now knew again a cell of my own.\" (IV, XXVI)\n\n Not true. Sev was a journeyman-in-good-standing for less than 72\nhours, and apprentices were forbidden interaction with \"clients\".\nApprentices carried trays for the inmates down to the oubliette, but it was\nup to the journeymen on duty to disperse them. In fact, the day Sev returned\nfrom the library with the four books, Drotte was busy with a client and\nasked him to \"'...finish shoving their food at the rest for me, if you've\ngot a moment.'\n \"I hesitated. Apprentices were not supposed to deal with those committed\nto the guild's care.\" (I, VII)\n\n The same objection applies to what he wrote three pages later, when\nAgia visited him and \"...described the torments she and Hethor had contrived\nfor me when I was strong enough to endure them. When she finished, I told\nher quite truthfully that I had spent most of my life assisting at\noperations more terrible...\" That is a lie, both to Agia and the reader.\n\n BTW, it also means that Gurloes was probably lying when he said that\nwhen he was Sev's age, they had him \"cranking the alternator\".\n\nI) On the morning that Sev, then autarch, passed through the necropolis,\nwith Drotte, Roche, and Eata, on the way to see Ouen, he wrote:\n\n \"The death roses I had hesitated to pick for Thecla still showed a few\nautumnal blooms, and I found myself thinking of Morwenna, the only woman\nwhose life I have ever taken...\" (IV, XXXVII)\n\n Not true. From chapter XX: \"One of the enemy put her head from\nbehind a clump of brush some way up the slope. My contus struck her with a\nbolt of flame; she leaped by reflex, then curled up as spiders do when\nsomeone tosses them among the coals of a campfire.\"\n\nJ) During the blackout aboard Tzadkiel's ship:\n\n \"In my youth, when I had traveled from Nessus to Thrax with Dorcas, and\nfrom Thrax to Orithyia largely alone, I had carried flint and steel to\nkindle fires.\" (V, VI)\n\n Wrong again. Oddly, for all the dearth of detail in his accounts,\nthat specific lack is addressed in the accounts of both those legs of his\njourney. By the stream mentioned in C), above, and when he found the dead\nsoldier, Miles:\n\n \"We had broken a good many and laid our fire before I remembered I no\nlonger had my striker, having left it with the Autarch, who must also, I\nfelt certain, have been the 'highly placed servant' who had filled Dr.\nTalos's hands with chrisos. Dorcas had flint, steel, and tinder among her\nscant baggage, however, and we were soon comforted by a roaring blaze.\" (II,\nXXVII)\n\n \"...I had the impulsive need to kindle a fire.\n \"There had been no fire-making gear in his pack, but I knew every soldier\nmust carry such things. I searched his pockets and found a few aes, a\nhanging dial with which to tell time, and a flint and striking bar.\" (IV,\nII)\n\nK) Sev, just before his \"Examination\", having cried upon seeing the eidolon\nof Thecla:\n\n \"If I had ever wept before, it was when I was so small I can scarcely\nremember it--apprentices learn not to...\" (V, XVIII)\n\n He wept when he left Dorcas in Thrax. (III, XII) He wept when he\nfound, among the rocks below Baldander's castle, the remnants of the gem\nwhich had held the Claw. (III, XXXVIII) He wept in the autarch's pavilion\nwhen he saw the claws of the cat-women. (IV, XXIV)\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "the.wynns at usa.net" }, "date": "2003-07-10T07:24:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bravo, Roy!\n\nExcellent detective work. I believe you are right about this, and apparently\nothers suspected it as well\n(http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0028/0443.shtml). You see, my reporting\nof history -- my claim that Bill's query got no reaction from the list -- is\nnot so accurate either, but then, Crush was not there to remember it).\n\n-- Crush\n\n\n----- Original Message ----- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 10:32 PM\nSubject: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory\nWhat follows is a post I originally tried to send in late September 2000,\nbut it was the night Moonmilk turned to cheese, so it never arrived. When\nthe list was back up and running, weeks later, the big PEACE debate was\non,\nso I let it slide. Recent discussion of Severian's memory seems sufficient\nexcuse to re-post it now.\n---------------------------------------------\n\n In my rereading of the Urth Cycle, looking for--and\nfinding--mistakes (most of them, hopefully, Severian's) relating to Sev's\nreliability as a narrator, especially those relating to his famous memory,\nI\nhave come to develop a theory regarding Wolfe's handling of Sev's memory\nin\nthe memoir. It is unprovable, in part, because the memory-based text is\nall\nwe have to go on, and the mistakes are subtle, of course, or the issue\nwould\nhave been decided twenty years ago. The theory is just this: that wherever\nin the text Sev starts vaunting his perfect memory, not always, but often\nenough, that the particular memory then recounted, or another close by in\nthe text, will be flawed.\n\n Those recollections, when they are of an incident which has been\nrelated elsewhere in the text, can be verified by the careful reader, but\nnot so those of which we are given only the transient memory, such as\npiling\npebbles, crying in a basket, or those subsumed from Thecla. This second\ncategory of memory becomes even more suspect, in light of the provable\nerrors of the first category.\n\n Sev's mistakes of memory tend to go unnoticed because the reader,\ncaught up in the story, becomes spellbound by it, like some of the\ndenizens\nof the Botanic Gardens, succumbing to Wolfe's wizardry as a story teller\nand\nhis sleight-of-hand and stage-magician's misdirection in his plotting.\nWolfe's style of writing is one of the reasons it is often hard to find a\nparticular passage, because the reader doesn't associate it with the\ncontext\nof the story where it is actually found, e.g., that of Gurloes being a\nmaster for twenty years is found in the middle of Sev's account of his\nescape from the mine of the man-apes.\n\n In addition to the errors I have pointed out in the past (not\ngoing/going swimming, not returning/returning to the mausoleum, etc.), or\nthat others have found (doeskin/manskin bag, Roche/Drotte seeing the\npikes,\netc.), here are some more. Although most of the errors of memory are of\ndetails, there are too many of them for them all to be Wolfe's mistakes. I\nhave endeavored to include only those of which there can be no reasonable\ndoubt. There are, of course, others subject to interpretation.\n\nA) \"Whatever I possess I would give to become one of you, who complain\nevery\nday of memories fading. My own do not. They remain always, and always as\nvivid as at their first impression, so that once summoned they carry me\noff\nspellbound.\n \"I think I turned from the innkeeper and wandered into the crowd of\npushing rustics and chattering vendors, but I saw neither them nor him.\nInstead I felt the bone-strewn paths of the necropolis under my feet, and\nsaw through the drifting river fog the slender figure of Vodalis as he\ngave\nhis pistol to his mistress and drew his sword.\" (II, I)\n\n That's not quite what happened. He gave the pistol to Hildegrin,\nfrom whom Thea then took it. (I, I) However, the same mistake he makes\nabove\nis repeated by Wolfe in the appendix to CITADEL.\n\nB) Shortly after returning to Saltus from the mine of the man-apes, Sev\nquestioned Jonas:\n\n \"One last question,\" I said, \"and then I promise I won't ask you\nanything\nmore. When we were going through the Wall, you said the things we saw in\nthere were soldiers, and you implied they...\" (II, VIII)\n\n No, he didn't. Sev specifically asked Talos what the creatures in\nthe Wall were, and it was Talos who answered him, saying they were\nsoldiers.\n(I, XXXV) That Jonas doesn't bother to correct him _may_ indicate the\nerror\nis Wolfe's, not Sev's.\n\nC) While camped, with Dorcas and Jolenta, by the stream where the\nodalisque\nappeared, Sev slept, woke, and:\n\n \"...lay down again to watch the birds voyage among the constellations\nand\nenter that world of memory that, no matter how sweet or how bitter it may\nbe, is never wholly closed to me.\n \"I sought to recall that celebration of Holy Katharine's day that fell\nthe year after I became captain of apprentices; but the preparations for\nthe\nfeast were hardly begun before other memories came crowding unbidden\naround\nit.\" (II, XXVII)\n\n Here, we have an example of Severian the deceiver. He goes on to\nrecall an incident from infancy, which captures the reader's attention and\ndistracts from what he wrote. The first part of the last quoted sentence\nis\nworded so that the casual reader may not realize that he is referring to\nhis\n_own_ feast day, when he became a journeyman. Why he chose to phrase it\nthat\nway, I will not speculate upon. The second part of the sentence sounds\ninnocent enough--someone recalling a sequence of events and beginning at\nthe\nbeginning. But when Sev in fact described that feast day, when he reached\nthe point in the ceremony where he raised the fake sword to strike, he\nwrote:\n\n \"When I think back on that time, it is that moment I recall first; to\nremember more, I must work forward or backward from that. In memory it\nseems\nto me I stand always so, in gray shirt and ragged trousers, with the blade\npoised above my head.\" (I, XI)\n\n The second sentence in the above second quoted passage I included\nbecause it, too, I believe, contains an error. When Sev gave his brief\naccount of the feast day when he became captain of apprentices, he wrote:\n\n \"We apprentices were to serve the feast, and before we did so were to\ndoff the relatively new and clean clothes we had been given for the\nceremony.\" (I, V)\n\n The clothes worn by the apprentices for the ceremony were their\nversion of their \"Sunday best\". If they had been their normal rags, there\nwould have been no need to change clothes, so I doubt that Sev was wearing\n\"ragged trousers\" for his own elevation.\n\nD) When Sev first visited the jacal of the two sick children in Thrax, he\nwrote:\n\n \"I braced my hands on the mud and wattle wall beside the door and\nstraightened up. The boy said, 'You see she is very sick, sieur, My\nsister.'\nHe held out his hand again.\n \"I saw it--I see it before me now--but it made no immediate impression\non\nmy mind. I could think only of the Claw; and it seemed to me that it was\npressing against my breastbone, not so much like a weight as like the\nknuckles of an invisible fist. I remembered the uhlan who had appeared\ndead\nuntil I touched his lips with the Claw, and who now seemed to me to belong\nto the remote past; and I remembered the man-ape, with his stump of arm,\nand\nthe way Jonas's burns had faded when I ran the Claw along their length. I\nhad not used it or even considered using it since it had failed to save\nJolenta.\" (III, III)\n\n Wrong. The second paragraph contains not one, but two errors. Sev\ntouched the uhlan's forehead, not his lips, with the Claw. (II, XIII) And\nhe\nused the Claw again on the broken arm of the herdsman at whose hut they\nhad\nstayed. (II, XXIX; last paragraph)\n\nE) From the top of the donjon at Acies Castle, Sev recalled the view he\nhad\nhad from the top of the Matachin Tower:\n\n \"When I had gone there to make my farewell to the only place I had\nknown,\nI had stood at one of the loftiest points of the Citadel, which was itself\npoised atop one of the highest elevations in the whole area of Nessus. The\ncity had been spread before me to the limits of vision, with Gyoll traced\nacross it like the green slime of a slug across a map; even the Wall had\nbeen visible on the horizon at some points, and nowhere was I beneath the\nshadow of a summit much superior to my own.\" (III, II)\n\n Contrast the above quote with what he actually wrote about the\nview\nfrom the top of the Matachin Tower:\n\n \"The mountains [to the north] I could see with my mind's eye, but not\nwith the body's: only the rolling expanse of the city with its million\nroofs. And to tell the truth, the great silver columns of the Keep and its\nsurrounding spires blocked half my view.\" (I, XIII)\n\n Either he had a panoramic vista from the tower, or he didn't.\nPerhaps his memory of home became idealized in his exile. Neither did he\nmake any mention of being able to see the Wall from there at the time,\nthough he did say, later, as they approached the Piteous Gate: \"I've spent\nmy life so near the middle of the city that the Wall was no more than a\ndark\nline on the northern horizon when we looked from the glass-roofed room at\nthe top of our tower.\" (I, XXXV) Note that he said the Wall was visible\nonly\nat the one point, not \"some points\".\n\nF) When Sev and his motley crew of lake people arrived at Baldander's\ncastle, he:\n\n \"...asked--a rhetorical question--if they knew from where the sky ship\nabove the castle had come. And when they assured me they did not, I\nexplained that I did (and so I did, Dorcas having warned me of them,\nthough\nI had never seen such a thing before), and that because of its presence\nhere\nit would be better if I...\". (III, XXXII)\n\n Well, no, Dorcas didn't say any such thing. She made no mention of\na\nspacecraft or its occupants. It was Cyriaca who had warned him: \"...that\ncacogens had landed somewhere in the north.\" (III, XII; first page)\n\nG) Sev to Miles-Jonas at the lazaret:\n\n \"But Jonas, Jolenta is gone--I watched her die, and...\" (IV, VI)\n\n No, he didn't. He was passed out in the mud when he was awakened\nby\nDorcas calling him. He returned to the roof of the tomb to find\n\"...Dorcas,\nalone, bent over the body of Jolenta.\" (II, XXXI)\n\nH) Of his jungle prison cell, following the flier crash, Sev wrote:\n\n \"I, who had worked outside so many, thrusting in trays of food to the\ndisfigured and demented, now knew again a cell of my own.\" (IV, XXVI)\n\n Not true. Sev was a journeyman-in-good-standing for less than 72\nhours, and apprentices were forbidden interaction with \"clients\".\nApprentices carried trays for the inmates down to the oubliette, but it\nwas\nup to the journeymen on duty to disperse them. In fact, the day Sev\nreturned\nfrom the library with the four books, Drotte was busy with a client and\nasked him to \"'...finish shoving their food at the rest for me, if you've\ngot a moment.'\n \"I hesitated. Apprentices were not supposed to deal with those\ncommitted\nto the guild's care.\" (I, VII)\n\n The same objection applies to what he wrote three pages later,\nwhen\nAgia visited him and \"...described the torments she and Hethor had\ncontrived\nfor me when I was strong enough to endure them. When she finished, I told\nher quite truthfully that I had spent most of my life assisting at\noperations more terrible...\" That is a lie, both to Agia and the reader.\n\n BTW, it also means that Gurloes was probably lying when he said\nthat\nwhen he was Sev's age, they had him \"cranking the alternator\".\n\nI) On the morning that Sev, then autarch, passed through the necropolis,\nwith Drotte, Roche, and Eata, on the way to see Ouen, he wrote:\n\n \"The death roses I had hesitated to pick for Thecla still showed a few\nautumnal blooms, and I found myself thinking of Morwenna, the only woman\nwhose life I have ever taken...\" (IV, XXXVII)\n\n Not true. From chapter XX: \"One of the enemy put her head from\nbehind a clump of brush some way up the slope. My contus struck her with a\nbolt of flame; she leaped by reflex, then curled up as spiders do when\nsomeone tosses them among the coals of a campfire.\"\n\nJ) During the blackout aboard Tzadkiel's ship:\n\n \"In my youth, when I had traveled from Nessus to Thrax with Dorcas, and\nfrom Thrax to Orithyia largely alone, I had carried flint and steel to\nkindle fires.\" (V, VI)\n\n Wrong again. Oddly, for all the dearth of detail in his accounts,\nthat specific lack is addressed in the accounts of both those legs of his\njourney. By the stream mentioned in C), above, and when he found the dead\nsoldier, Miles:\n\n \"We had broken a good many and laid our fire before I remembered I no\nlonger had my striker, having left it with the Autarch, who must also, I\nfelt certain, have been the 'highly placed servant' who had filled Dr.\nTalos's hands with chrisos. Dorcas had flint, steel, and tinder among her\nscant baggage, however, and we were soon comforted by a roaring blaze.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(II," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "XXVII)\n\n \"...I had the impulsive need to kindle a fire.\n \"There had been no fire-making gear in his pack, but I knew every\nsoldier\nmust carry such things. I searched his pockets and found a few aes, a\nhanging dial with which to tell time, and a flint and striking bar.\" (IV,\nII)\n\nK) Sev, just before his \"Examination\", having cried upon seeing the\neidolon\nof Thecla:\n\n \"If I had ever wept before, it was when I was so small I can scarcely\nremember it--apprentices learn not to...\" (V, XVIII)\n\n He wept when he left Dorcas in Thrax. (III, XII) He wept when he\nfound, among the rocks below Baldander's castle, the remnants of the gem\nwhich had held the Claw. (III, XXXVIII) He wept in the autarch's pavilion\nwhen he saw the claws of the cat-women. (IV, XXIV)\n\n-Roy\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-10T16:04:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy,\n\nTwo points: one general, one nit.\n\nThe general point: In most of the (apparent?) contradictions you list, you \nmake an\ninteresting assumption ... you cite Sev talking about an incident, then say \nthat what\nhe says is wrong, because it contradicts what he said in his direct \nnarration of the\nincident. The point here is, what is your basis for thus privileging the \ndirect narration,\nwhen both are from the same source (i.e., Sev)? If I were to privilege one \nover the\nother, I would be more likely to go the other way -- he's more likely to \n\"edit\" the\nincident when he's attending directly to it, rather than when he's attending \nto some\nother incident in which the incident in question is mentioned in passing. \nThis would\nbe especially true, I think, when the passing mention is in reported \ndialogue; it might\nnot occur to him to edit the reported dialogue to match the edited incident.\n\nThe second point has to do with the Feast of Holy Katherine.\n\nThe contrast between his own feast, with \"gray shirt and ragged trousers,\"\nand the \"relatively new and clean clothes [the apprentices] had been given\nfor the ceremony\" strikes me as just that -- a contrast. It isn't a \ncontradiction;\nit's a fact of the ceremony. The apprentice to be raised is not among the \ngeneral\nrun of apprentices that day; he is participating in a ceremony in which he \nis\nchanged, from prentice to journeyman. Part of the symbolism of the ceremony\n-- pardon me if I am belaboring the obvious -- is the taking off of the garb \nof\nthe prentice and the donning of the fuligin cloak of the journeyman. (In \nparticular,\nrecall that the journeyman never wears a shirt under his cloak.) Thus it \nwould be\nappropriate, even necessary, for those being elevated, and _only_ them, to \nwear\nragged clothes." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "the.wynns at usa.net" }, "date": "2003-07-11T00:50:42+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Blattid disagrees:\nRoy,\nIn most of the (apparent?) contradictions you list, you make an interesting\nassumption ... you cite Sev talking about an incident, then say that what he\nsays is wrong, because it contradicts what he said in his direct narration\nof the incident. The point here is, what is your basis for thus privileging\nthe direct narration, when both are from the same source (i.e., Sev)? If I\nwere to privilege one over the other, I would be more likely to go the other\nway -- he's more likely to \"edit\" the incident when he's attending directly\nto it, rather than when he's attending to some other incident in which the\nincident in question is mentioned in passing. This would be especially\ntrue, I think, when the passing mention is in reported dialogue; it might\nnot occur to him to edit the reported dialogue to match the edited incident.\n\nCrush butts in:\nI'm not sure I understand your point, O Leggy One. I don't think Roy favored\none incident over another. The point is that Severian tells one version at\none point and another elsewhere -- frequently just at the point where he\nbrags about his flawless memory. The point is that one or both versions must\nbe wrong. No, Severian doesn't \"edit\" out the discrepancy. The conceit seems\nto be that he doesn't edit his book at all -- relying on his inerrant memory\nto carry him through at all times.\n\nOr perhaps his memory IS flawless (this is a Wolfe novel after all so it\nwould make sense if the narrator's lies were to be somehow true), and his\nmemory is \"reconsitituted\" continuously as he says on page 2 of tSotT just\nbefore making his first error. So every version is somehow true. I do think\nthat curly-wurly sentence is somehow (although I don't KNOW how) a true\nexplanation of Severian's \"memory\" (if it can realistically be called that).\n\nWhatever, I still think the long ago comparison between Cugel's (of \"The\nDying Earth\") and Severian's brags is valid.\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-07-11T06:54:12+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 11/07/2003 01:50:42 James Wynn wrote:\nI'm not sure I understand your point, O Leggy One. I don't think Roy \nfavored\none incident over another. The point is that Severian tells one version \nat\none point and another elsewhere -- frequently just at the point where he\nbrags about his flawless memory. The point is that one or both versions \nmust\nbe wrong. No, Severian doesn't \"edit\" out the discrepancy. The conceit \nseems\nto be that he doesn't edit his book at all -- relying on his inerrant \nmemory\nto carry him through at all times.\n\nOr perhaps his memory IS flawless (this is a Wolfe novel after all so it\nwould make sense if the narrator's lies were to be somehow true), and his\nmemory is \"reconsitituted\" continuously as he says on page 2 of tSotT \njust\nbefore making his first error. So every version is somehow true. I do \nthink\nthat curly-wurly sentence is somehow (although I don't KNOW how) a true\nexplanation of Severian's \"memory\" (if it can realistically be called \nthat)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Random thought: What is the process for creating a new Severian when the \nold one carellesly dies? Occasionally we see a corpse, but more often \nnot. If the heirodules are tampering with time in order to produce the \n\"right\" result might _both_ reccollections be true? True that is for the \ncurrent incarnation of Severian?\n\nThus Severian's claim to perfect memory could be accurate but it's \ndifferent worlds that he's remembering.\n\nNow the obvious flaw in this is that it isn't third person historical \nnarrative but the conceit of the book is that he writes - or copies from \nmemory - the manuscript that we are supposedly reading between boarding \nthe Ship and casting the casket overboard. How many times does he die in \nthat time? Not at all as far as I can remember but certainly not a \nsufficient number of times to account for all the discrepencies thus far \nnoted. How many times might he have died in the course of writing the \noriginal manuscript? We can't tell because his life as Autarch isn't in \nthe narative.\n\nWhich trangentially brings up something else. Are there not at least two \nand possibly more mechanisms by which Severain is incarnated? From memory \nit seems that we only get embarrasing bodies left behind after Severian \nboards the Ship. Thus the reincarnation is explicit whereas before it had \nto be inferred. Possibly a third mechanism might exists post-trial, \nduring his return along the stream of time.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-07-11T07:56:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush quoted and wrote:\nBlattid disagrees:\nRoy,\nIn most of the (apparent?) contradictions you list, you make an interesting\nassumption ... you cite Sev talking about an incident, then say that what\nhe\nsays is wrong, because it contradicts what he said in his direct narration\nof the incident. The point here is, what is your basis for thus privileging\nthe direct narration, when both are from the same source (i.e., Sev)? If I\nwere to privilege one over the other, I would be more likely to go the\nother\nway -- he's more likely to \"edit\" the incident when he's attending directly\nto it, rather than when he's attending to some other incident in which the\nincident in question is mentioned in passing. This would be especially\ntrue, I think, when the passing mention is in reported dialogue; it might\nnot occur to him to edit the reported dialogue to match the edited\nincident.\n\nCrush butts in:\nI'm not sure I understand your point, O Leggy One. I don't think Roy\nfavored\none incident over another. The point is that Severian tells one version at\none point and another elsewhere -- frequently just at the point where he\nbrags about his flawless memory. The point is that one or both versions\nmust\nbe wrong. No, Severian doesn't \"edit\" out the discrepancy. The conceit\nseems\nto be that he doesn't edit his book at all -- relying on his inerrant\nmemory\nto carry him through at all times." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush said it for me. Perhaps all of the discrepancies I and others have\npointed out over the years are just mistakes made by Wolfe. He makes\nmistakes. But Wolfe is also subtle. He causes Sev to go out of his way to\nboast \"...that I have not scrupled to recount in great detail things that\ntranspired years ago, and to give the very words of those who spoke to me,\nand the very words with which I replied; and you must have thought this only\na conventional device I had adopted to make my story flow more smoothly. The\ntruth is that I am one of those who are cursed with what is called perfect\nrecollection.\" (II, VIII)\n\nThat sort of braggadocio is almost a gauntlet thrown down. Sev makes that\nsort of boast several times, yet gives contradictory accounts of the same\nrecollections. That much is fact. I don't think that anyone on this list has\never maintained that Sev wrote the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but\nthe truth as he knew it. He clearly deceives, if only by omission, so the\nquestion comes down to: are the demonstrated errors of recollection subtle\nclues left by Wolfe as unspoken commentary on Sev's veracity, or did Wolfe\nmake that many mistakes?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "katbarx at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-11T17:04:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I didn't see Crush's original post." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Blattid disagrees:\nRoy,\nIn most of the (apparent?) contradictions you list, you make an \ninteresting\nassumption ... you cite Sev talking about an incident, then say that what\nhe\nsays is wrong, because it contradicts what he said in his direct \nnarration\nof the incident. The point here is, what is your basis for thus \nprivileging\nthe direct narration, when both are from the same source (i.e., Sev)?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Crush butts in:\nI'm not sure I understand your point, O Leggy One. I don't think Roy\nfavored\none incident over another." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "By calling one \"wrong,\" it seems to me that he implies that the other is \n\"right.\"\nMy point is that I don't see any justification for that; in fact, I think \nthat it may\nbe undecidable, when Sev gives contradictory accounts, which is \"true.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The point is that Severian tells one version at\none point and another elsewhere -- frequently just at the point where he\nbrags about his flawless memory. The point is that one or both versions\nmust be wrong." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not as sure that this must be true. Consider the Narrator's ability to \nchange\na story as it's being told. Now, I think we can agree that Severian is at \nleast\nas close to omnipotent as the Narrator; we know that Severian is a \ntimewalker;\nand we know that Severian claims that there have been previous versions of\nhimself. I think we should at least _consider_ the possibility that \nSeverian, in\ntelling his story, actually changes his history.\n\nAlternatively, he could be lying (or wrong) about his memory.\n\nAlternatively, he could be telling the truth about his memory, but the \nnature\nof memory (not only his) may be more complex than it appears at first \nglance.\n\nAlternatively, he could be lying about some of the incidents -- which was my\npoint about which version is more likely to be \"edited\" to suit his purposes\n(whether they be political, propagandistic, historical, or merely \negotistical)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush said it for me. Perhaps all of the discrepancies I and others have\npointed out over the years are just mistakes made by Wolfe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That strikes me as the least likely hypothesis in general (though it may be\ncorrect in any _given_ case)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"...The truth is that I am one of those who are cursed with what is\ncalled perfect recollection.\" (II, VIII)\n\nThat sort of braggadocio is almost a gauntlet thrown down." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That much is fact. I don't think that anyone on this list has\never maintained that Sev wrote the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but\nthe truth as he knew it. He clearly deceives, if only by omission, so the\nquestion comes down to: are the demonstrated errors of recollection subtle\nclues left by Wolfe as unspoken commentary on Sev's veracity, or did Wolfe\nmake that many mistakes?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or might it be that Wolfe is implying something more complex..." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "the.wynns at usa.net" }, "date": "2003-07-11T22:02:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Blattid asserts:\nThat [all the discrepancies are mistakes on Wolfe's part] strikes me as the\nleast likely hypothesis in general (though it may be correct in any _given_\ncase).\n\nCrush agrees:\nI'm with you on this, Blattid. Especially the first and most glaring\ndiscrepancy -- that of whether Drotte or Roche mentioned the pikes. As has\nbeen said before, The first couple pages are the part of any novel that is\nmost likely to be pristine. For this to have slipped through unnoticed would\ndismay me.\n\nBlattid goes on:\nBy calling one [description] \"wrong,\" it seems to me that he implies that\nthe other is \"right.\" My point is that I don't see any justification for\nthat; in fact, I think that it may be undecidable, when Sev gives\ncontradictory accounts, which is \"true.\"\n\nCrush attempts to clarify:\nGranted. But for Severian to boast about his infallible memory and then give\ncontradictory accounts about trivial details, it questions his account of\nhis memory and his level of self-delusion about it far more than his general\naccount of the events.\n\nBlattid suggests:\nAlternatively, he could be lying about some of the incidents -- which was my\npoint about which version is more likely to be \"edited\" to suit his purposes\n(whether they be political, propagandistic, historical, or merely\negotistical)...so the question comes down to: are the demonstrated errors of\nrecollection subtle clues left by Wolfe as unspoken commentary on Sev's\nveracity, or did Wolfe make that many mistakes?\n\nCrush responds:\nThat Severian is lying about these things strikes me as less likely than\nthat they are typos (and I don't think it is likely _as a whole_ that they\nare typos). The discrepancies at issue are just _too_ trivial -- too trivial\ntoo lie about, but not too trivial to prove Roy's point. If the\ndiscrepancies were about big things, it would be obvious to argue that\nSeverian was lying or covering up the truth. But what reason is there to lie\nabout whether Drotte or Roche mentioned pikes?\n\nWith each discrepancy discovered close to a claim of inerrant memory, the\nlikelihood of any of them being typos decreases as well.\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-07-12T14:25:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 7/11/03 5:02 PM, James Wynn at the.wynns at usa.net wrote:\nBlattid asserts:\nThat [all the discrepancies are mistakes on Wolfe's part] strikes me as the\nleast likely hypothesis in general (though it may be correct in any _given_\ncase).\n\nCrush agrees:\nI'm with you on this, Blattid. Especially the first and most glaring\ndiscrepancy -- that of whether Drotte or Roche mentioned the pikes. As has\nbeen said before, The first couple pages are the part of any novel that is\nmost likely to be pristine. For this to have slipped through unnoticed would\ndismay me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What convinces me is the number of discrepancies Roy has found, rather than\nany specific one. We know that Wolfe is a careful writer; if he were going\nto create a character who really had a perfect memory, he would surely have\ncross-checked the character's later recollections of events with the\noriginal accounts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Blattid suggests:\nAlternatively, he could be lying about some of the incidents -- which was my\npoint about which version is more likely to be \"edited\" to suit his purposes\n(whether they be political, propagandistic, historical, or merely\negotistical)...so the question comes down to: are the demonstrated errors of\nrecollection subtle clues left by Wolfe as unspoken commentary on Sev's\nveracity, or did Wolfe make that many mistakes?\n\nCrush responds:\nThat Severian is lying about these things strikes me as less likely than\nthat they are typos (and I don't think it is likely _as a whole_ that they\nare typos). The discrepancies at issue are just _too_ trivial -- too trivial\ntoo lie about, but not too trivial to prove Roy's point. If the\ndiscrepancies were about big things, it would be obvious to argue that\nSeverian was lying or covering up the truth. But what reason is there to lie\nabout whether Drotte or Roche mentioned pikes?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, if Severian really had a perfect memory, and intended to lie, wouldn't\nhe have remembered to lie consistently?\n\nAll of which raises the question: what is the point of making Severian an\nunreliable narrator? For that matter, what is the point of making Horn the\nnot-necessarily-reliable narrator of TBotLS, or Horn's family the unreliable\nauthors of the third-person sections of RttW? None of these seem to fulfill\nany obvious function in their respective novels." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nWhat does it matter if Severian has an\nalmost perfect memory as opposed to a perfect one?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's a small point, but if Severian doesn't have a perfect memory, there's\nno reason to think he has an almost perfect one. The only reason for\nthinking he had a perfect memory was that he said so. (It's been a while\nsince I last read the books, though; are there any scenes where his great\nmemory is objectively validated?)\n\n--Adam\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2003-07-12T16:31:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, 2003-07-12 at 07:25, Adam Stephanides wrote:\nWhat convinces me is the number of discrepancies Roy has found, rather than\nany specific one. We know that Wolfe is a careful writer; if he were going\nto create a character who really had a perfect memory, he would surely have\ncross-checked the character's later recollections of events with the\noriginal accounts." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In a fifteen hundred page book?\n\nWithout a computer?\n\nNo one, as far as I know, is arguing that Gene Wolfe has a perfect\nmemory.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-12T19:34:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, if Severian really had a perfect memory, and intended to lie, \nwouldn't\nhe have remembered to lie consistently?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On some occasions I believe that Severian changes his mind about what he's \ngoing to tell you as he goes along. It seems like he is reticent on the \nsubject of Thecla early on, but later finds that in order to tell his story \nhe can't hold certain things back after all. For sins of omission he \nprobably wouldn't feel obligated to go back and fill things in earlier- thus \nyou get surprising revelations about events that you thought you understood \nwell after they are first recounted. However, even when it comes to the \nlies, while he may have remembered full well that his account isn't going to \nmatch, there are reasons he might not go back and correct them. First of \nall, he was writing a manuscript; it's not quite so easy to go back and make \na significant revision or rewrite, and he may not have had time to do such \nrevisions. Another possibility which may seem odd is that there are things \nSeverian may want the reader to know, but hesitates to say directly either \nfrom squeamishness or because he won't be believed if he says it outright." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "All of which raises the question: what is the point of making Severian an\nunreliable narrator? For that matter, what is the point of making Horn the\nnot-necessarily-reliable narrator of TBotLS, or Horn's family the \nunreliable\nauthors of the third-person sections of RttW? None of these seem to \nfulfill\nany obvious function in their respective novels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Possibly just to make things interesting. But it also occurs to me that \nthere are some points which can be made far more effectively if you give the \nreader the tools to figure them out for themselves. Especially concerning \nmatters of religion or philosophy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's a small point, but if Severian doesn't have a perfect memory, there's\nno reason to think he has an almost perfect one. The only reason for\nthinking he had a perfect memory was that he said so. (It's been a while\nsince I last read the books, though; are there any scenes where his great\nmemory is objectively validated?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suppose it's a matter of how much of the narrative you want to reject. By \nthinking of him as having an almost perfect memory, you leave open the \npossibility that he is simply mistaken rather than outright lying to you. If \nthere were nothing special about his memory, there's no way he could simply \nbe mistaken. This isn't \"evidence\" that he has an almost perfect memory, but \nit is *a* reason to believe it.\n\nCivet" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-07-13T07:31:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Josh says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In a fifteen hundred page book?\n\nWithout a computer?\n\nNo one, as far as I know, is arguing that Gene Wolfe has a perfect\nmemory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "FWIW, I agree with Josh. Roy's list of errors are easily explained as Wolfe\nnodding, IMO. Go through any series of large books by anybody, and you'll\nprobably find the same. I'm reading Trollope at the moment - a similar\neffort for his body of work would probably fill a volume the size of one of\nhis big, fat novels." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-07-13T21:34:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps this point has been made, but what is even more striking about the \ncontradictions is that this is the SECOND time Sev. has written this, and \nevidently the SAME Sev. Wouldn't he catch these errors the second time \nthrough?\n Which makes we wonder if they really are errors. I'd have to look \nat all of them carefully, and I'm not rereading the books now. Is it \npossible both other boys pointed out the pikes, maybe one first and the \nother saying, \"Yeah, look!\" Is is possible Vodalus handed his weapon to one \nperson with the intention of its being handed on to a third? Are some or \nall of these contradictions reconcilable?\n Maybe not. But given that they all seem to be \"small\" errors, it \nmakes me wonder.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-07-13T21:41:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 02:31 AM 7/13/2003, you wrote:\nJosh says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In a fifteen hundred page book?\n\nWithout a computer?\n\nNo one, as far as I know, is arguing that Gene Wolfe has a perfect\nmemory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "FWIW, I agree with Josh. Roy's list of errors are easily explained as Wolfe\nnodding, IMO. Go through any series of large books by anybody, and you'll\nprobably find the same. I'm reading Trollope at the moment - a similar\neffort for his body of work would probably fill a volume the size of one of\nhis big, fat novels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " BUT, Trollope wrote for serialized publication. The first part of \na given book or series was in magazine print before the later parts were \neven written, as I understand it. Wolfe worked over the New Sun books FOUR \ntimes before initial publication. I can tell you that I myself check \nearlier chapters more than once for consistency while I write, and go over \nmy whole book more than once after it is all finished. I don't write \nfiction but Bible commentary (fiction to some, here, I suppose!), and when \nI find something \"new\" to talk about in chapter 10 of, say Daniel, I make \nsure what I wrote about chapters 1-9 is consistent with it. I think we \nshould assume that usually the errors are deliberate and ask IF they really \nARE errors (my previous post), and if so, what they might mean.\n\nNutria" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Bollen", "address": "abollen at internode.on.net" }, "date": "2003-07-13T23:18:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nutria says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " BUT, Trollope wrote for serialized publication. The first part of\na given book or series was in magazine print before the later parts were\neven written, as I understand it. Wolfe worked over the New Sun books FOUR\ntimes before initial publication. I can tell you that I myself check\nearlier chapters more than once for consistency while I write, and go\nover\nmy whole book more than once after it is all finished. I don't write\nfiction but Bible commentary (fiction to some, here, I suppose!), and when\nI find something \"new\" to talk about in chapter 10 of, say Daniel, I make\nsure what I wrote about chapters 1-9 is consistent with it. I think we\nshould assume that usually the errors are deliberate and ask IF they\nreally\nARE errors (my previous post), and if so, what they might mean." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As an ex-computer geek, I think of it like debugging - there's always some\nleft, no matter how carefully you check. I sort of appreciate the\nserialization point, but it doesn't seem to me that there's that much\ndifference - presumably a serializer will also check against earlier\nchapters?\n\nOne of my problems with Roy's list representing deliberate \"errors\" is just\ntheir triviality - I find it hard to think that most of them could mean\nanything much." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-07-14T07:09:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 13/07/2003 08:31:14 Andrew Bollen wrote:\nJosh says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In a fifteen hundred page book?\n\nWithout a computer?\n\nNo one, as far as I know, is arguing that Gene Wolfe has a perfect\nmemory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "FWIW, I agree with Josh. Roy's list of errors are easily explained as \nWolfe\nnodding, IMO. Go through any series of large books by anybody, and you'll\nprobably find the same. I'm reading Trollope at the moment - a similar\neffort for his body of work would probably fill a volume the size of one \nof\nhis big, fat novels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wouldn't disagree with you were it not for Severian's persistant claim \nto a perfect memory.\n\nIs that claim significant or just a throw-away line. Throw-away lines in \nWolfe?\n\nIf it's significant I don't find it credible that Wolfe would have allowed \nit to be diminished or negated by a number of textual \"mistakes\".\n\nSo we have a meaningful reference to the narrator's memory; a careful \nauthor (who is on record to the effect that he never says anything twice \nyet the matter of Severian's memory is repeatedly highlighted). And in \nSeverian we have a first person narrator who is not consistant.\n\nAnd an observed correlation between some of the inconsistancies and claims \nfor Severian's memory.\n\nThere has to be a reason for this although I confess that what that reason \nmight be eludes me entirely.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-07-14T07:45:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I personally think it's a backhand statement of the fact that Severian is\nthe Narrator.\n\nWolfe's universe is a Catholic one, and in a Catholic universe The Narrator\nhas a special place.\n\nA way of putting it would be that S's memory is perfect **because this\nreality conforms to his memory** not the other way round.\n\n\nI am sorry if this sounds semi-mystical, but it expresses more or less what\nI mean. I think.\n\nI am still lurking here with great enjoyment but I only have time to drop in\nthe odd note nowadays, and some of the notes are very odd indeed :-)\n\n\n hartshorn\n\n\n\n----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \nTo: \nSent: Monday, July 14, 2003 8:09 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory\nI wouldn't disagree with you were it not for Severian's persistant claim\nto a perfect memory.\n\nIs that claim significant or just a throw-away line. Throw-away lines in\nWolfe?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-07-14T13:25:35+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 7/12/03 11:31 AM, Josh Geller at brunians at brunians.org wrote:\nOn Sat, 2003-07-12 at 07:25, Adam Stephanides wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "What convinces me is the number of discrepancies Roy has found, rather than\nany specific one. We know that Wolfe is a careful writer; if he were going\nto create a character who really had a perfect memory, he would surely have\ncross-checked the character's later recollections of events with the\noriginal accounts." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In a fifteen hundred page book?\n\nWithout a computer?\n\nNo one, as far as I know, is arguing that Gene Wolfe has a perfect\nmemory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And Wolfe undoubtedly knows he doesn't have a perfect memory. Which is why,\nif he had intended to create a character with a perfect memory, and to\nprovide many illustrations of this perfection, he wouldn't have relied on\nhis own memory to get it right.\n\nAnd he must have had an outline, or some other means of locating events in\nhis manuscript. Otherwise he couldn't possibly have written a 1500-page\nbook in which the parts are so complexly related.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Thomas Bitterman", "address": "tom at bitterman.net" }, "date": "2003-07-14T23:43:41+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Since they are trivial, they can only be errors in memory (assuming\nthey aren't typos)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They might also be errors in interpretation. Perhaps Drotte and Roche \nboth said it, but at\none point it was more significant that one said it, and at another time \nthe other. Maybe\nVodalus handed the pistol to Thea with his helper as an intermediary. \n After a while it starts\nto sound like Biblical exegesis. Which may be the point.\n\nTom" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net" }, "date": "2003-07-15T00:09:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 06:43 PM 7/14/2003, you wrote:\nCrush responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Since they are trivial, they can only be errors in memory (assuming\nthey aren't typos)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They might also be errors in interpretation. Perhaps Drotte and Roche \nboth said it, but at\none point it was more significant that one said it, and at another time \nthe other. Maybe\nVodalus handed the pistol to Thea with his helper as an intermediary. \nAfter a while it starts\nto sound like Biblical exegesis. Which may be the point.\n\nTom" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " Yes, this is like interpreting a particular part of the Bible that \nis kind of relevant to the Severian narrative: the gospels. One can find \nscores of \"contradictions\" in the four gospels that upon a brief inspection \nturn out not to be contradictions. Did Jesus meet two blind men on the road \nto Jericho (Matthew), or only one (Mark)? Resolution: He met two, but for \nthematic reasons the legal \"two witness\" gospel of Matthew mentions two, \nand the personalistic gospel of Mark only mentions one and names him. Was \nJesus leaving Jericho or entering it? Leaving the old Jewish city (Matthew \n& Mark, more Jewish) and entering the newer Roman city (Luke, more Gentile \norientation). The gospels seem to give different accounts of who came to \nthe empty tomb on resurrection morning, but these can easily be put \ntogether into a coherent narrative.\n Another example of this kind of question consists of the \ndifferences between the books of Kings and the books of Chronicles, in the \nOld Testament.\n Of course, some people object to these harmonizings and prefer to \nbelieve in real errors or differences between the gospels. Fine. Wolfe, \nhowever, is a conservative Catholic, and I've no doubt but he is a \nharmonizer when it comes to the gospel accounts. And the question on the \ntable is what Wolfe is doing.\n Which is why I agree with Tom. Before assuming there are real \ncontradictions in Sev's book, we should consider whether some or even all \nof them can be harmonized.\n I agree that Sev's repeated claims to perfect memory are \nsuspicious, and likely a self-deception. I'm just arguing that we want \nfully clear-cut examples so we can begin to uncover precisely what Wolfe \nmay be getting at.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-15T00:09:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To throw more into the fire:\nPerhaps, given the \"many worlds\" cosmology of the NS books, Severian has \nactually picked up memories from Severians in several different branches of \nthe possible event tree which all had similar enough outcomes that they \nsucceeded and were able to return, become Autarch, and pass their memories \non. If the differences were small enough he might not notice that he was \nremembering it differently from one time to the next. Even larger \ndifferences might pass unnoticed if there were enough time between the first \nremembrance and whenever he revisits the same subject. It may not be the \nonly or even the best solution, but it's consistent enough and hangs \ntogether with the Ash episode.\n\nOn a side note, I am not very comfortable attaching the same powers Silk has \n(seeming to be able to change stories, including his own) to Severian. The \ntwo may be connected, but are not the same. Were there hints in the NS \nnovels that Severian was able to do this? I can't recall any.\n\nCivet" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Since they are trivial, they can only be errors in memory (assuming\nthey aren't typos)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "They might also be errors in interpretation. Perhaps Drotte and Roche both \nsaid it, but at\none point it was more significant that one said it, and at another time the \nother. Maybe\nVodalus handed the pistol to Thea with his helper as an intermediary. After \na while it starts\nto sound like Biblical exegesis. Which may be the point.\n\nTom\n\n\n\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-07-15T04:50:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam wrote:\n(It's been a while\nsince I last read the books, though; are there any scenes where his great\nmemory is objectively validated?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since Sev wrote the whole thing there are, of course, no independent\naccounts of an event also related by Sev to compare. In fact, I can recall\nonly one scene in which another character made any comment at all about\nSev's memory, and that one casts doubts about it. It's in chapter XIII of\nSHADOW, on the day Sev left for Thrax. Master Palaemon was giving Sev\ninstructions and advice for his journey and Sev (it's almost the trademark\nof Wolfe's unreliable narrators) wasn't paying attention:\n\n \"Severian!\" Master Palaemon exclaimed. You are not listening to me. You\nwere never an inattentive pupil in our classes.\"\n \"I'm sorry. I was thinking about a great many things.\"\n \"No doubt.\" For the first time he really smiled, and for an instant\nlooked his old self, the Master Palaemon of my boyhood. \"Yet I was giving\nyou such good advice for your journey. Now you must do without it, but\ndoubtless you would have forgotten everything anyway.\"\n\nNow, in one breath Palaemon indicates that Sev had always been attentive in\nclass. Sev is pretty-near grown at this point; his schooling is over with. A\nchild with a very good memory, much less an eidetic one, who paid attention\nin class couldn't help but be a star pupil. He only had to be told something\nonce. It's hard to believe that in those small classes Sev's remarkable\nmemory would have gone unnoticed by his teachers. Yet, almost in the next\nbreath, Palaemon doesn't hesitate to say that Sev would doubtless have\nforgotten everything anyway. That a damn peculiar remark to make to someone\nwho should have been notable for never forgetting _anything_.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "mournings glory", "address": "mourningsglory at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-15T05:28:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wrote Nutria:\n\n\" Wolfe worked over the New Sun books FOUR times before initial \npublication.\"\n\nDoes anyone know if any of these earlier drafts still exist and/or if Mr. \nWolfe has designated a final repository for his works yet? Knowing our luck \nhe's probably destroyed them, but just think what a close analysis of this \nputative quartet might reveal.\n\nAlso, while I'm temporarily delurking, would like to recommend Wolfe's \"From \nthe Cradle,\" in the latest Year's Best Fantasy edited by David Hartwell. \nIt's the tale of another brown book, with three embedded stories a la PEACE, \nand many of you will surely enjoy it.\n\nmsg (enhances only food, not memory)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "LJ Janowski", "address": "eforlesen at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-07-15T14:14:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Chris wrote:\n\nFrom: \"Chris\"\nSubject: Re: (urth) Sev's not-so-perfect memory\nDate: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:09:06 +0000\n\nTo throw more into the fire:\nPerhaps, given the \"many worlds\" cosmology of the NS books, Severian has\nactually picked up memories from Severians in several different branches of\nthe possible event tree which all had similar enough outcomes that they\nsucceeded and were able to return, become Autarch, and pass their memories\non. If the differences were small enough he might not notice that he was\nremembering it differently from one time to the next. Even larger\ndifferences might pass unnoticed if there were enough time between the first\nremembrance and whenever he revisits the same subject. It may not be the\nonly or even the best solution, but it's consistent enough and hangs\ntogether with the Ash episode.\n\n\nLJ writes:\n\nI tend to side with Chris (and the several others who were pursuing similar \narguments), I simply cannot believe that several of the conflicting points \nwould be Wolfe's mistakes. For instance, the \"like glass grow\"/\"like grass \ngrow\" dissimilarity between Sev's charm in BOTNS and UOTNS was so striking I \ncaught it while reading the first time through. And given that Wolfe has \nstressed in several interviews that he finds it shocking when he readers \nexpect narrators *not* to lie, it seems that the tension between Sev's \nclaims to flawless memory and his actual capabilities has to be deliberate. \nAs several excellent posts have pointed out, there are several areas where, \neven if Sev's memory is near flawless (his narration is highly detailed and \nhe seems too unimaginative to completely fabricate things whole cloth), he \nbecomes muddled and contradicts himself. I like the theory that the \ncontradiction results at least partially from outside manipulation of Sev's \ntimeline and would argue that another of Severian's claims also supports the \nidea.\n\nWith all the insistence on Sev's claims to perfect memory, the discussion \nhas not touched upon another Sev's insistence that he is at least partially \ninsane. To my mind, Sev's belief in his own insanity reflects his \noccasional lapses into fugue and the events at the end of BOTSS (too \nunbelievable for him to write down), but also support the many timelines \ninterpretation (i.e. the ambiguity of Sev's memory sometimes results from \naccurate memory of events that temporal manipulation has rendered \nambiguous). Sev suspects his insanity because his memory, ordinarily \npowerful, fails him at several critical junctures. The claims of perfect \nmemory and partial insanity allow Sev to have his cake and eat it too. He \ncan rationalize the flaws in his acute memorty to himself by using his \npartial insanity to explain experiences that are muddled in his mind." } ] } ] }