{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/698", "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": 698, "subject": "Untrustworthy Narrators?", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-10-18T09:56:03+00:00", "last": "1999-10-18T12:35:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-18T09:56:03+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Untrustworthy Narrators?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "How much fun is a Wolfe story where you know you can\ntrust the narrator? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tSince I've been away from Urth and Whorl for months, maybe you folks have\nsettled this question, but for what it's worth, my recollection is that\nWolfe says his narrators are not untrustworthy at all. At least not\nintentionally. Since they have a limited perspective, of course, they may\nnot see or understand everything that we, the reader, may see or\nunderstand. But to assume that Latro or Severian are deliberately\nmisleading the reader is, it seems to me, quite without foundation, and\nsomething that Wolfe has denied.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-18T11:01:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Untrustworthy Narrators?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Jim Jordan wrote:\nHow much fun is a Wolfe story where you know you can\ntrust the narrator? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\tSince I've been away from Urth and Whorl for months, maybe you folks have\nsettled this question, but for what it's worth, my recollection is that\nWolfe says his narrators are not untrustworthy at all. At least not\nintentionally. Since they have a limited perspective, of course, they may\nnot see or understand everything that we, the reader, may see or\nunderstand. But to assume that Latro or Severian are deliberately\nmisleading the reader is, it seems to me, quite without foundation, and\nsomething that Wolfe has denied." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In referring to \"trust,\" I meant to include issues of error as well as\ndeception. Don't forget \"Seven American Nights,\" in which the narrator\npurposely keeps information from the reader. \n\nIf Horn made up, say, some of the scenes with Father Q and Father Remora,\nbecause he believed something like that happened, or if he put prayers in\nSilk's mouth because he believed that was the sort of thing Silk would\npray in that situation, would you consider that \"deliberately misleading\"\nthe reader?\n\nSMTIRCAHIAGEHLT\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-18T12:35:53+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Untrustworthy Narrators?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm sending this to both lists, since the general issue of narrative\nreliability seems to be coming up on both lists. I'll try to avoid OBW\nspoilers, which shouldn't be too hard--I assume everyone knows (if you haven't\nread LONG SUN don't finish this sentence :) Horn and Nettle wrote \"The Book\nof Silk.\"\n\n(1) Wolfe and his narrators make it tricky enough for the reader to figure\nout everything that's going on as it is. I generally assume Wolfe's narrators\nmay be leaving out things that I would really like to know, either because they\nare not interested in them or because they wish to avoid thinking about them\n(Severian does more of the first, Weer in PEACE does a lot of the second),\nbut that if they tell me something, it is true, although perhaps not true in\nthe sense that I originally took it to be (indeed, New Sun in general is a\nmultifoliate opening of new levels of meaning to Severian's narrative--and\nSeverian famously says (I paraphrase) \"have I said that the universe has a way\nof making all of our lies come true?\").\n\nEven Nardan (assuming it's him writing!) in \"Seven American Nights\" does very\nlittle apparent LYING to the reader--he deletes some things, of course, but\nhis fundamental narrative honesty is notable in that we _can figure out that he\nleft things out, and even what those things might have been_.\n\nIn the absense of an external source of information or massive internal\ninconsistencies, it seems to me that narrator unreliability is undetectable,\nand the safe assumption where there isn't this strong whiff of madness or \nmisleading intent on the narrator's part is that the narrator intended to\nconvey the truth. Success depends on the access of the narrator to the full\ntruth, of course, and so varies. I assume Severian is basically telling the\ntruth. Inconsistencies in Severian's narrative have always seemed to me to be\neither (A) in some cases mistakes on Wolfe's part or (B) hints that Severian is\nnot living in only one time-line. I'm curious as to instances of Severian\nactually lying (as opposed to being mistaken) that people have found? That\nDrotte/Roche thing is weird, and I've never noticed it... Maybe with \nSeverian(1) it was the other one?\n\n\"Unreliable narrator\" is tossed around too often, I think--even old Humbert\nHumbert in LOLITA tells us mostly the truth. I think Wolfe has very few, if\nany, narrators, who are not _attemtping_ to give us the straight scoop, \noccasionally failing. Severian is open to more intense questioning than most\nin that his \"perfect memory\" should give him an advantage in doing this, but\nthe fact that Severian walks the Corridors of Time, returns from the dead, has\na head full of Autarchs, and may have existed in several alternate time-lines\nwhere he failed that have some impact on his present time-line complicates the\nquestion of when he's actually mixed-up, and when he's telling the truth but\nthe truth is \"inconsistent\" or weird.\n\n(2) Sure the uncertainty priniciple is involved in the LONG SUN narrative, at\na meta-level. I agree that Wolfe is absolutely correct to leave the Dr. Crane\nhypothesis open, but hard to swallow (if we talk about these as being real\nevents, I think that if a sceptic I'd find the recurrence of so many parallels\nwith the Exodus and the Gospels in a world seemingly without either to be \npretty convincing evidence that something very strange was going on) from our\nperspective as readers--but perfectly open to those experiencing the events.\nAlso, this leaves open how much Horn and Nettle made up--and how much what\nthey made corresponds to the real deal. What I'm saying is that Wolfe is\ndefinitely making this somewhat like the composition of the Gospels/the\nExodus story. So, although you are certainly not constrained to think \notherwise by the text, I suspect that we will find, if we see Silk again (be\nquiet, people who've read OBW) that the sayings/feelings/events of LONG SUN\nmatch the Silk we see in any less suspect context very closely. And that it\nis safe to use even events/words that Horn and Nettle could not have verified\nin arguments about \"what really happened\" and what's likely to happen in OBW.\nI doubt this argument can really go anywhere, in that the only evidence we'll\nget is internal evidence from the text (unless we have another LONG SUN type\n\"revelation\" from Wolfe, but then he also squashed the Dr. Crane hypothesis\nfrom that one, as we could have forseen--the danger of revelation) and that's\nunlikely to really verify things one way or the other (unless Silk says \"Horn,\nwhat were you making up that nonsense for?\" but I'm guessing we won't see \nthat scene).\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }