Concerning Severian's Lacunae; also, "Later, dudes"

Dan'l Danehy Oakes · 17 Jun 1998, 14:41 · from urth-v0014.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy Oakes" <DDANEHYO at us.oracle.com>
Subject: (urth) Concerning Severian's Lacunae; also, "Later, dudes"
Date: 17 Jun 98 14:41:43
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Adam (who seems to write at my level, as opposed to some of you
folks who are waaay over my pointy bald head) wrote:

> 2) What does this quirk

...specifically, his habit of leaving out some critical detail
at the time of narration and mentioning it only later, if at=20
all...

                          tell us about Severian?  Other quirks
> in his narration have been explained by his allegedly perfect
> memory, but I don't see how that would account for this.

Actually, it's pretty easy to attribute it (within story context;
outside story context, it's Wolfe's delight in torturing the reader=20
-- "puzzling you is the nature of my game," as the Stones' Lucifer
sang) to Severian's allegedly (and that is just the right word; I
strongly suspect his memory is quite fallible) perfect memory by
noting that Severian claims (no, I do not have a page ref handy --
not that it would do any good, I have the h/c) that his memory is
so complete and intense that he sometimes gets lost in it, it=20
becomes as present to him as the present; given this, it seems quite
likely that he might simply forget(!) that he has not mentioned some
detail, and _especially_ an important detail, which seems perfectly
"obvious" to him.

Side note.  Are we in fact certain that Sev and Thecla _were_ lovers?
The first time I read those passages I was quite convinced that they
were fantasies on Severian's part, or perhaps on the part of the=20
Sev+Thecla combined personality.  While I am no longer convinced that
this is so, I am far from convinced that it is _not_ so.

But then, what _are_ we certain of in the Wolfean shadow(!)play...?

***

I'm going to be away from my office and from e-mail for rather over
a month, starting this evening; so if anyone respond to this (or
anything else I've blithered lately), don't be offended if I don't
reply for a while...


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