{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/828",
    "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": 828,
    "subject": "torturing readers",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-06-18T08:12:13+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-19T00:41:14+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0014-0046@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Paul C Duggan",
        "address": "pduggan at world.std.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-18T08:12:13+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) torturing readers",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "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."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Whether Wolfe wants to torture us or not, Severian the writer IS a\ntorturer and if he thinks that that is the kind of relationship an author\nhas with his reader it's not suprising that he messes with our minds in\nsuch a fashion.\n\nAnd after his passing the test on Yesod, he becomes much more forthcoming.\n\nhmmm..\n\npaul"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0014-0054@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William H. Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-19T00:41:14+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) torturing readers",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0014-0046@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Whether Wolfe wants to torture us or not, Severian the writer IS a\ntorturer and if he thinks that that is the kind of relationship an author\nhas with his reader it's not suprising that he messes with our minds in\nsuch a fashion."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "You can't just blame it on Severian. Most, if not all, of Wolfe's fiction\nis torturous in the same way and, in a few cases, possibly to a greater\ndegree.\n\nHis nonfiction tends to be pretty straightforward, though.\n\nWilliam Ansley"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}