# torturing readers *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 18 Jun 1998* > 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. --- ### Paul C Duggan *18 Jun 1998, 08:12* > Somewhere in TBotNS there is a passage where Severian compares the > relationship between torturers and their clients to that of men to women > and authors to their readers. (Maybe I am combining two separate passages.) > > I won't touch the men vs. women thing (though I don't buy it totally; just > call me naive) but I don't think that, in general, the author vs. reader > thing holds up. A good many authors, at least among those who write for a > living, must be very anxious to please their readers, so they will keep on > buying their books. Perhaps the ones with "artistic integrity" don't care > if anyone reads them, but I don't think they are trying to drive people > away, in most cases. (Of course I realize that torture may attract as well > as repel, at least for the sake of argument.) > > I also realize that just because Wolfe has Severian say something, it > doesn't means Wolfe himself holds it as a truth. (He has elsewhere referred > to readers as masters to the authors' slaves.) But in the case of author > vs. reader I do think it is true (or much more true than usual) in the case > of Wolfe vs. us. As evidence, just look at this list. Whether Wolfe wants to torture us or not, Severian the writer IS a torturer and if he thinks that that is the kind of relationship an author has with his reader it's not suprising that he messes with our minds in such a fashion. And after his passing the test on Yesod, he becomes much more forthcoming. hmmm.. paul --- ### William H. Ansley *19 Jun 1998, 00:41 · follows Paul C Duggan* > Whether Wolfe wants to torture us or not, Severian the writer IS a > torturer and if he thinks that that is the kind of relationship an author > has with his reader it's not suprising that he messes with our minds in > such a fashion. You can't just blame it on Severian. Most, if not all, of Wolfe's fiction is torturous in the same way and, in a few cases, possibly to a greater degree. His nonfiction tends to be pretty straightforward, though. William Ansley ---