Subject: (whorl) [spoiler] Narrative technique in _Return_, and trilogity

From: Dan Rabin <wolfe-lists at danrabin.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 22:35:29 +0000

This third volume in the series adopts yet another distinct set of 
techniques for interleaving two narrative time frames.

In _Blue's_ we had the Gaon story interrupt the quest story, 
eventually dominating by the end of the volume.

In _Green's_ we're mostly in the Blanko story, with the continuation 
of the quest in flashbacks and the stories in the story-telling game.

In _Return_, we pretty much get a chapter-by-chapter alternation 
between the homeward-bound story and the _Whorl_ story, told in very 
different styles.  Homecoming-protagonist pretty much continues his 
persona from _Green's_, but as Whorl-narrator he adopts a very 
mannered avoidance of identification with the Whorl-protagonist: he 
never names that person (always referred to via third-person pronouns 
or as "the man who...").  He keeps this up even when meeting his 
*father*.  It's as if he wants to claim that that guy might or might 
not have been Silk, but it sure wasn't *me*.

As a bonus, we get chapters in Hoof and Daisy's own distinct voices, 
and an afterword in which Silk is once again separated from the 
now-current narrator.
(I found Hoof's style to be rather charming.)

Oh, and the volumes are separated by interruptions in 
Horn/Rajan/Silk's supply of paper in the frame in which he is writing.

Reading this trilogy is like listening to Bach.  There's a highly 
evolved formal structure available to enhance your enjoyment, but 
you'll still come out way ahead if you just go ahead and listen.

I note in this connection Wolfe's remarks in 1982 in the essay "The 
Rewards of Authorship" in _The Castle of the Otter_, reprinted in 
_Castle of Days_, on p. 280 of the hardcover edition:

   Q: [the professor] also said that each volume in a trilogy should be a
      finished story in itself, the various parts being interconnected by a
      progression in time and overlapping characters.  You don't do that in _The
      Book of the New Sun_.  Shouldn't you have?  It's sort of all one book,
      with breaks in between.
   A: That's right.  Did you enjoy the books?
   Q: Yes, but it still seems wrong.
   A: Because your professor said so.  Did he enjoy them?
   Q: I don't think he read them.
   A: I don't think so either.  Did you like _The Lord of the Rings_?
   Q: I loved it!
   A: That's "sort of all one book, with breaks in between" isn't it?
   Q: I never thought of that.  I wish I had mentioned it to my professor.
>>A: It wouldn't have done any good--he wouldn't have read that 
>>either.  I just wanted to point out that Tolkien was a professor of 
>>Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

It seems to me that _Short Sun_ is in some measure a further argument 
in Wolfe's dispute with that imaginary professor.  One of our 
contributors who is in touch with Wolfe has reported Wolfe's glee at 
finally having written a trilogy...

   -- Dan Rabin

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---

From: Dan Schmidt <dfan at harmonixmusic.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 10:16:47 +0000

Dan Rabin <wolfe-lists at danrabin.com> writes:

| This third volume in the series adopts yet another distinct set of
| techniques for interleaving two narrative time frames.
| 
| In _Blue's_ we had the Gaon story interrupt the quest story,
| eventually dominating by the end of the volume.
| 
| In _Green's_ we're mostly in the Blanko story, with the continuation
| of the quest in flashbacks and the stories in the story-telling game.
| 
| In _Return_, we pretty much get a chapter-by-chapter alternation
| between the homeward-bound story and the _Whorl_ story, told in very
| different styles.

I particularly liked how each title referred both to the past and the
present.

In ON BLUE'S WATERS, Horn's narrating his original adventures on Blue,
and what's happening now that he's returned there.

In IN GREEN'S JUNGLES, he narrates his original adventures on Green,
and visits there again via 'astral projection'.

In RETURN TO THE WHORL, he narrates his first return to the whorl, and
then returns to the whorl again as the book closes.

-- 
http://www.dfan.org