{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/87", "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": 87, "subject": "groping in the dark", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-02-11T14:04:39+00:00", "last": "1997-02-13T15:26:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CoxRathvon", "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-02-11T14:04:39+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) groping in the dark", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In response to Dave Lebling's comments (about Silk sometimes being mistaken),\nJim Jordan wrote: \n\"In both the Severian Quintet and in the Long Sun Quartet Wolfe gives us a\ncentral character who is slowly working his way out of a bad beginning. In\nSilk's case, it is idolatry. Slowly he comes to understand that the Outsider\nis the only real God, and all the rest are false. After that, he comes to\nappreciate that even these false gods carry fragments of truth with them.\nIdolatry is a major interest in many of Wolfe's works, but never more than\nhere. Silk's gradual understanding of the Outsider's command to him is part\nof that process of illumination and deliverance from bondage.\"\n\nI quite agree with all of that, and at the risk of overdoing the analysis\n(but hey, what's this forum for?) I'd like to add that Wolfe has always\nseemed to me to be interested in the limits of knowledge. Many of his\ncharacters begin in darkness and work their way toward some (often ambiguous)\nassurances. Consider: the kid in \"Devil in a Forest\" who is locked in a dark\ncellar hearing the story move forward without him; the soldier Latro in his\n\"mist\" of amnesia; the mental patient Green who steps through a door into a\nparallel world; Severian who grew up in a sheltered guild; the characters in\n\"The Fifth Head of Cerberus,\" all unable to find self-knowledge; etc. \n\nThis theme has always intrigued me; in fact it's a major reason why I read\nWolfe. Vladimir Nabokov has a novel (\"Invitation to a Beheading\") in which a\ncondemned man is imprisoned in a high turret with a single narrow window;\nNabokov later confided that this tower was a metaphor for the human head,\nwhich swivels helplessly as it contemplates the universe through a severely\nlimited door of perception. In many of Wolfe's books, I find a similar\nmetaphor: knowledge being a thin splinter of light which the main character\npursues in a huge, dark world. What we can know is always so minuscule in\nthe face of what we can't know!\n\nAnyhow it's no wonder Wolfe's characters are often mistaken as they grope\ntheir way. As if in compensation, Wolfe sometimes gives them gifts: Latro's\nability to see the gods, Severian's memory, Silk's vision and/or implated\nprogram. \n\nHaving dispensed with this heavy-osity, I welcome additional mentions of\nSilk's being mistaken. It's useful to compare his misunderstandings to our\nown!\n\n--Henry Rathvon\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-02-13T15:26:00+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) re: groping in the dark", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Henry Rathvon,\n\nRe: the limits of knowledge explored in Wolfe's work, I agree with\nyou most emphatically. There is also the \"Roshamon\" quality of\nmultiple versions of events, often, as in \"Roshamon,\" events which\nthe reader does not get to see firsthand.\n\n(In LONG SUN this includes: Orpine's murder, Rose's death, the\ndeparture of the first lander, etc.)\n\nSometimes this takes the ghost story angle--yes, there is a \"rational\"\nexplanation (that branch could tap the window; that sorcerer in the\nSoldier books was only pretending to be a woman--or a woman pretending\nto be a man) as well as a \"supernatural\" explanation (the dog's hair\nturned white; that sorcerer really does seem to have been physically\ntransformed). The two explanations wrestle or chase each other\naround the reader's mind until they (or the mind?) turn into butter.\n\n=mantis=\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "CoxRathvon", "address": "coxrathvon at aol.com" }, "date": "1997-02-13T12:48:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) re: groping in the dark", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "M.driussi at genie.com (mantis) has assured me that I'm not the only reader\nintrigued by the reality-probing nature of Wolfe's books. I must say, I\nthink this aspect of Wolfe's work is underestimated. I don't read much\nliterary criticism so maybe I'm mistaken and Wolfe does have respect among\n\"mainstream\" (God, I hate to make that distinction) critics. Unabashedly, I\nrank Wolfe with my other favorite writers, who include Nabokov, Borges,\nCalvino, Beckett, and Donald Barthelme--many of whom are called\n\"post-modernists\" or \"metafiction\" practitioners. In any case, they all\nshare this quality of rendering reality ambiguous. (I appreciate mantis's\nreference to \"Roshamon\"--I see the similarity and I hadn't thought of that\nbefore.)\n\nI happen to love the ambiguity, perhaps because my world view (I should say,\nmy cosmic view) includes so many uncertainties. But I don't often succeed\nin making a Wolfe convert. The few times I've tried, people have read about\n1/3 of a book and then quit, saying, \"It's so confusing, I don't understand\nit.\" I think the average reader will have more success with the Long Sun\nseries, because the first book begins comparitively (for Wolfe) coherently:\nSilk's long, slow advance on Blood's villa is described in careful detail and\nis very absorbing in a conventional way.\n\nBut I digress. I was saying that I think Wolfe is critically\nunderappreciated. His carefully puzzled-out plots, his misdirection and\nambiguity, are to me as interesting and literarily remarkable as the\ntechniques in Nabokov, Calvino and others. See, I don't even think of Wolfe\nas an sf writer. I think of him as a modern stylist with his own very\ninteresting narrative tricks. I'm often puzzled by elements of his stories\n(and this forum is helping me a lot with the recent series), but I enjoy the\npuzzlement. It reflects life's essentially enigmatic nature. My life's,\nanyhow.\n\n--HR\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com" } ] } ] }