{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1380", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 1380, "subject": "Denial as a Literary Structure", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-04-20T10:14:07+00:00", "last": "2001-04-20T11:17:50+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Patrick O'Leary", "address": "poleary at cecom.com" }, "date": "2001-04-20T11:17:50+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re:Denial as a Literary Structure", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam wrote:\n\n\n--------------- MESSAGE whorl.v012.n107.9 ---------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Adam Stephanides \nSubject: \"Dangling\" plot threads\nSo, if I'm correct, TBOTSS takes its place with PEACE as a radical\nexperiment with narrative: in this case, a psychological drama which must be\nlargely inferred from what the narrator leaves out.>>" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A stunning post, that may provide a clue to the various vaguely unsatisfied\nreactions that several here have expressed about RTTW : \"muddled\", \"hurried,\"\n\"Senile\" \"Sloppy.\" I think this may have something to do with its difficult and\nfrustrating narrative structure.\n\nWhile we shouldn't worship of the text, (Torah, Torah, Torah) I think we have\nto give Wolfe the benefit of a doubt. (In my considered opinion\nthe man does not make aesthetic mistakes. He makes philosophical/ narrative\nchoices which we may or may not agree with, may or may not like, may or may not\nbe moved by. And, of course, he makes typos. Errors of a different order.)\n\nI agree with Adam because what's most striking to me about RTTW (and a great deal of Wolfe)\nis what is missing. I muse at length about this defining literary tactic in my essay on Wolfe\n\"If Ever A Wiz There Was\" which appears in my latest book: OTHER VOICES, OTHER DOORS.\n\nI think it may be important to ask: \"What is missing from the text of the short sun books?\"\n\nHere are, to me, some provocative missing scenes. There must be more.\n\nSilk/Horn's conversation with Chenille.\n\nSilk/Horn's final confrontation with Sinew.\n\nSilk/Horn's reunion talk with Nettle.\n\nMost of Silk/Horn's adventures of Green.\n\nHyacinth's death.\n\nAs Adam said, each of these imply a level of psychic torment\nthat cannot be borne by the narrator.\n\nSo we have a story founded on a search for Hero/Saint by a very human man,\nwho becomes the Hero/Saint he sought.\n\nThe story is told after his transformation. He spends the bulk of the narrative\noddly, in denial and guilt. Haunted by his new identity and his old sins--His failure.\n\nHe is Horn denying his is Silk.\n\nBut, finally, we discover that he is Silk denying he is Silk.\n\nWhat we take to be a story of a sinner who has reincarnated a Saint\nand cannot bear the contrast between his soul's knowledge of goodness\nand his failure to live up to that model--is actually a sleight of hand,\na narrative trick , a portrait of denial.\n\nThe Short Sun books (it occurs to me that Horn is Silk's \"Shorter Son\")\nare actually the story of a Saint who is tormented by Sin, running from his\nmission, denying his vocation, fleeing his Sainthood, who finally accepts his sinful nature,\nwho embraces his humanity.\n\nHorn saves Silk.\n\nJust some thoughts.\n\nPatrick O'leary\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-04-20T10:14:07+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Re:Denial as a Literary Structure", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Patrick O'Leary wrote:\nWhile we shouldn't worship of the text, (Torah, Torah, Torah) I\nthink we have to give Wolfe the benefit of a doubt. (In my\nconsidered opinion the man does not make aesthetic mistakes. He\nmakes philosophical/ narrative choices which we may or may not\nagree with, may or may not like, may or may not be moved by. And,\nof course, he makes typos. Errors of a different order.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you. This was pretty much my point a few days ago when I \nsuggested that we need to live with SHORT a while (I said a year,\nothers exaggerated it to 'years') before rushing to judge it as\na failure. \n\nIf we've learned one thing about Mr Wolfe's books over the last \ntwenty years or so, it's that they do not yield themselves to a \nsingle reading, or to quick analysis. We are still learning \nimportant things about 5HC, NEW, and (especially?) PEACE.\n\nGiven that, it seems to me that a book by Mr Wolfe which seems \nunsatisfactory on the first reading -- and, by the by, that was \nmy reaction: I was disappointed by RttW -- should probably be \nshelved and read again some time later. (Certainly this has \nworked for me with CASTLEVIEW; I admit I can't answer all the\nquestions some have asked about it, but I feel confident that\nthey are in some sense answerable.)\n\nCertain things have become much clearer to me about SHORT in \nthe course of these discussions, most of which I've already \nstated in brief at one point or another. Thanks to this, I\nthink I'll be ready to reread SHORT much sooner than I was\nready to re-tackle PEACE or CASTLEVIEW. \n\n(I'm still not quite ready to revisit PANDORA, though...)\n\n--Dan'l\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }