{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4094",
    "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": 4094,
    "subject": "(no subject)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-07-14T06:15:44+00:00",
    "last": "2003-07-14T06:15:44+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0307-3672@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "the.wynns at usa.net"
      },
      "date": "2003-07-14T06:15:44+00:00",
      "subject": "",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Andrews asks:\n...what would be the narrative point of Sev having a false belief in his own\nperfect memory? If the intention were to cast ambiguity over everything he\nsays, then it seems too weak to have only examples of fairly trivial\nrecollection errors - does it matter to the story if he actually doesn't\nhave perfect memory for detail; would it really cast doubt on his account of\nlarger things? I'd expect there to be at least one substantial example, even\nif it were Wolfishly hidden & scattered in 5 holographic parts over 3\nvolumes.\n\nCrush blabs on and on:\nTo merely \"cast ambiguity over everything Severian says\" is not IMO the\npoint. Yet while the discrepancies are slight, that is made up for in that\nSeverian throws us LOTS of clues -- I'm talking about, each time he reminds\nus that his memory is immutable.\n\nOne might as well ask  (*should* ask, I say) \"what is the point in having a\nfirst person narrator assert his own flawless memory?\" A flawless personal\nrecollection of the facts is typically *assumed* for any first-person\nnarrator -- even for the most unreliable narrator. That Severian repeatedly\nreminds us that he remembers everything perfectly is therefore suspicious.\nWho is Severian trying to convince? IMO We were gullible to believe him\nafter he said it the second time, let alone over and over.\n\nOn the other hand, for Severian NOT to have a perfect memory but to *think*\nhe does or to want desperately to believe he does suggests volumes about the\nnature of memory. After all, how can Severian, or anyone, know he has a\nvalid memory? The Nature of Memory is a subject in which Wolfe is manifestly\ninterested. During his recent online chat on SciFi.com, I broached the\nsubject of Wolfe's relentless reopening of the theme of the Meaning of\nIdentity. His response was \"I think that identity *and memory* are the\nfascinating themes of life\" which considering the phrasing of my question\nsounded to me as if he considered the two concepts -- identity and memory -- \nto be the same category.\n\nWell, Severian definitely has a discombobulated identity what with sharing\nit with Thecla and all those other Autarchs -- what of his memory? Latro is\nanother journal-writing character with a memory issue. So is Number Five, as\nwhole swaths of his life -- almost a year at one point -- are lost to him.\nAlso there's Aunt Jeanine's theory that all the humans on St. Croix and St.\nAnne's are abos who killed and replaced the humans but have *forgotten it.*\nI seem to be alone in this, but this theory led me wonder what happened to\nNumber Five during those lost forgotten months. Then there is journal writer\nHorn's peculiar assertion that he has not forgotten anything he wrote in the\nBook of Silk.\n\nThere is *definitely* a solid definable connection between *each* of these\ncharacters (and I'm not talking about clones or memory sharing) which I have\ndecided with trepidation to define in an extensive essay as soon as I finish\nthe Short Sun -- but I admit I think I know only superficially what a faulty\nmemory has to do with this connection. But then I haven't *any* real inkling\nof what blue and green orbs have to do with this connection either.\n\nFinally, for Severian to boast fallaciously about his memory is, I am\nconvinced, a direct parody of \"Cugel the Clever\" (as he calls himself), Jack\nVance's shirtless (IIRC), sword-wielding comic hero in \"The Dying Earth\"\nseries.\n\n-- Crush"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}