torturing readers
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 18 Jun 1998
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/828

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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

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William H. Ansley — 19 Jun 1998, 00:41
  follows, by subject match 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

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