{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1432", "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": 1432, "subject": "Editors", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-06-09T17:26:14+00:00", "last": "2001-06-11T10:51:33+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-06-09T17:26:14+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Editors", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 6/4/01 4:49 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:\nwe know that the \neditors do not object to inserting a few obvious editorial\ncomments into the text; have they made any less obvious\ncomments? Any fictionalizing? Any tonings-down or deletions?\nCan we even begin to guess?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The editors tell us in their afterword \"These [Horn's narrative] we have\nleft as he composed them, save for correction of obvious errors, division\ninto chapters, and titling those chapters and his volumes.\" (409) Which\nraises the (unanswerable) questions: what did the editors consider to be\n\"obvious errors,\" and how frequent were they?\n\n--Adam\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": "2001-06-10T11:40:34+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Editors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The editors tell us in their afterword \"These [Horn's narrative] we\nhave left as he composed them, save for correction of obvious errors,\ndivision into chapters, and titling those chapters and his volumes.\"\n(409) Which raises the (unanswerable) questions: what did the editors\nconsider to be \"obvious errors,\" and how frequent were they?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Unanswerable\" is, of course, moot; we can have no definitive \nanswers, but we can have answers which satisfy us, individually \nif not collectively. \n\nActually, at least one question is raised prior to that: \"do you \nbelieve this statement (on the part of the editors)?\" It's worth\nnoting that there are a few cases where they don't correct some\nextremely obvious errors, or simply add a \"[sic]\" to them -- such \nas \"Horn and Hide.\"\n\nSo there's this spectrum of possibility, ranging from their having\nmade the whole thing up out of their heads to the possibility that\ntheir statement of editorial principles is strictly accurate. \nNeither of these extreme cases is either interesting or likely, \nbut they pretty much define the boundaries -- aside from the meta-\ncases, like \"someone else made the whole thing up\" (well, of \ncoures, someone _did_, and his name is Gene Wolfe, but I mean \nsomeone inside Wolfe's head), or \"yes, this is a (more or less)\ntrue statement on the editors' part, but what we're dealing with\nhere is an nth-generation hand-copied manuscript, with the usual\namount of error and editorial intrusion by later copyists\" -- \nthe latter case being, in fact, a very plausible description of\nthe ms we read in LONG SUN; the Narr several times in the course\nof SHORT SUN mentions that the Book of Silk has been copied, not\nalways accurately, and dispersed far beyond New Viron.\n\nI'm beginning to wonder just what Wolfe's _point_ is with all \nthis. \"Time of Telling\" is kind of fun in the LONG SUN and \nSOLDIER books, vital to PEACE and NEW SUN, but with SHORT SUN\nit's reached the point where it makes it bloody well difficult\nto do the first-order reading thing and just \"enjoy the story,\"\nbecause everything about the story tends to vanish under the\nsmoke and mirrors.\n\n_______\n\nTotally inapropos of which. I avoided Terry Pratchett for \nyears, then NYRSF gave me HOGFATHER to review -- for which I \nwas utterly unprepared, and which sent me out digging up old\ncopies of previous Pratchett books. Recently I picked up a\ncopy of his PYRAMIDS: lo and behold; part three is called,\nof all things, THE BOOK OF THE NEW SON. No, it has nothing\nelse particularly Lupine about it, but I just thought it was\namusing.\n\n--D\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-06-11T10:51:33+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Editors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nThe editors tell us in their afterword \"These [Horn's narrative] we\nhave left as he composed them, save for correction of obvious errors,\ndivision into chapters, and titling those chapters and his volumes.\"\n(409) Which raises the (unanswerable) questions: what did the editors\nconsider to be \"obvious errors,\" and how frequent were they?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Unanswerable\" is, of course, moot; we can have no definitive\nanswers, but we can have answers which satisfy us, individually\nif not collectively." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Theoretically, yes. In practice, I don't see how we can reach satisfactory\nanswers. Of course, we can know what they don't consider to be obvious\nerrors--what they've left stand (though with the caveat in your following\nparagraph). And we can guess that, had they found Narr's narrative too\nerror-ridden, they wouldn't have bothered to publish it. But given how\nlittle we know about the editors, I don't see how we can go much beyond\nthis." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, at least one question is raised prior to that: \"do you\nbelieve this statement (on the part of the editors)?\" It's worth\nnoting that there are a few cases where they don't correct some\nextremely obvious errors, or simply add a \"[sic]\" to them -- such\nas \"Horn and Hide.\"\n\nSo there's this spectrum of possibility, ranging from their having\nmade the whole thing up out of their heads to the possibility that\ntheir statement of editorial principles is strictly accurate.\nNeither of these extreme cases is either interesting or likely," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When you say that it is unlikely that their statement of editorial\nprinciples is strictly accurate, are you referring to the probability that\nthey introduced inadvertent errors while copying the text? Or are you\nsaying that it is almost certain they deliberately made more substantial\nchanges than they admit? If the latter, I don't see the grounds for it.\n\nAs to interest, I admit that, for those who love these sorts of\nwheels-within-wheels, the idea that the editors have added an extra layer of\ndistortion to Narr's narrative must be irresistible. Personally, I can do\nwithout it.\n\n--Adam\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": "2001-06-11T09:19:27+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Re: Editors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To my: " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "... spectrum of possibility, ranging from their having\nmade the whole thing up out of their heads to the possibility that\ntheir statement of editorial principles is strictly accurate.\nNeither of these extreme cases is either interesting or likely," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam S. asked," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When you say that it is unlikely that their statement of \neditorial principles is strictly accurate, are you referring \nto the probability that they introduced inadvertent errors \nwhile copying the text? Or are you saying that it is almost \ncertain they deliberately made more substantial changes than \nthey admit? If the latter, I don't see the grounds for it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Neither; I refer to (1) the fact that they simply do not correct\nsome errors that they themselves seem to think are obvious, \ninstead marking them with \"sic\" and so on; and (2) their having\nmissed or ignored some errors which seem obvious to us reading\nthe text \"later.\" \n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }