{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/821", "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": 821, "subject": "Concerning Severian's Lacunae; also, \"Later, dudes\"", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-17T14:41:43+00:00", "last": "1998-06-18T00:06:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy Oakes", "address": "ddanehyo at us.oracle.com" }, "date": "1998-06-17T14:41:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Concerning Severian's Lacunae; also, \"Later, dudes\"", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam (who seems to write at my level, as opposed to some of you" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "folks who are waaay over my pointy bald head) wrote:\n2) What does this quirk" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...specifically, his habit of leaving out some critical detail\nat the time of narration and mentioning it only later, if at \nall...\n\n tell us about Severian? Other quirks" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "in his narration have been explained by his allegedly perfect\nmemory, but I don't see how that would account for this." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, it's pretty easy to attribute it (within story context;\noutside story context, it's Wolfe's delight in torturing the reader \n-- \"puzzling you is the nature of my game,\" as the Stones' Lucifer\nsang) to Severian's allegedly (and that is just the right word; I\nstrongly suspect his memory is quite fallible) perfect memory by\nnoting that Severian claims (no, I do not have a page ref handy --\nnot that it would do any good, I have the h/c) that his memory is\nso complete and intense that he sometimes gets lost in it, it \nbecomes as present to him as the present; given this, it seems quite\nlikely that he might simply forget(!) that he has not mentioned some\ndetail, and _especially_ an important detail, which seems perfectly\n\"obvious\" to him.\n\nSide note. Are we in fact certain that Sev and Thecla _were_ lovers?\nThe first time I read those passages I was quite convinced that they\nwere fantasies on Severian's part, or perhaps on the part of the \nSev+Thecla combined personality. While I am no longer convinced that\nthis is so, I am far from convinced that it is _not_ so.\n\nBut then, what _are_ we certain of in the Wolfean shadow(!)play...\n\n***\n\nI'm going to be away from my office and from e-mail for rather over\na month, starting this evening; so if anyone respond to this (or\nanything else I've blithered lately), don't be offended if I don't\nreply for a while...\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n| | |\n| Dan'l Danehy-Oakes | First Amendment Pop Quiz: |\n| Staff Curriculum Developer | |\n| Oracle World-Wide Education | Is it all right to shout |\n| e-mail ddanehyo at us.oracle.com | \"movie\" in a crowded firehouse? |\n| phone 650.506.0793 | |\n| | |\n---------------------------------------------------------------------" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1998-06-18T00:06:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Concerning Severian's Lacunae; also, \"Later, dudes\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " tell us about Severian? Other quirks\nin his narration have been explained by his allegedly perfect\nmemory, but I don't see how that would account for this.\n\nActually, it's pretty easy to attribute it (within story context;\noutside story context, it's Wolfe's delight in torturing the reader" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Somewhere in TBotNS there is a passage where Severian compares the\nrelationship between torturers and their clients to that of men to women\nand authors to their readers. (Maybe I am combining two separate passages.)\n\nI won't touch the men vs. women thing (though I don't buy it totally; just\ncall me naive) but I don't think that, in general, the author vs. reader\nthing holds up. A good many authors, at least among those who write for a\nliving, must be very anxious to please their readers, so they will keep on\nbuying their books. Perhaps the ones with \"artistic integrity\" don't care\nif anyone reads them, but I don't think they are trying to drive people\naway, in most cases. (Of course I realize that torture may attract as well\nas repel, at least for the sake of argument.)\n\nI also realize that just because Wolfe has Severian say something, it\ndoesn't means Wolfe himself holds it as a truth. (He has elsewhere referred\nto readers as masters to the authors' slaves.) But in the case of author\nvs. reader I do think it is true (or much more true than usual) in the case\nof Wolfe vs. us. As evidence, just look at this list.\n\nThe fact the we keep coming back for more may say something about us, but\nit definitely attests to Wolfe's skill. He is definitely a grand master.\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\nP.S. If anyone can think of a way I could have qualified my statements\nabove even *more* that I actually did, please let me know." } ] } ] }