Severian's sex Life

Allan Anderson · 26 Apr 2007, 00:17 · from 2007-April.txt.gz

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From: rubel at goosemoon.org (Allan Anderson)
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:17:05 -0700
Subject: (urth) Severian's sex Life
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370704251547q3aef5159p1f9d537ee64648f8 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <392816.40198.qm at web38501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<3365.67.142.130.29.1177533821.squirrel at brunians.org>
	<1f7617370704251547q3aef5159p1f9d537ee64648f8 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <462FEF81.8090007 at goosemoon.org>

These are reasonable suggestions. It's certainly a surprising revelation 
to the reader. But the account is supposed to be coming from a Severian 
who has experienced all these things and now reflects back on them, so 
it's not as though the narrator actually goes through these changes. 
Although perhaps in a sense he is, given the vivid way Severian 
experiences memory?

The moment of introduction does force us as readers to suddenly 
reconsider what we've been told. Perhaps it's a narrative device urging 
us toward that sort of critical reading.

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On 4/25/07, brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
>   
>> According to Wolfe, Severian doesn't actually lie.
>>     
>
> Meaning only that he never says something that directly contradicts the
> truth, as he sees it, at the moment he says it.
>
> I'm inclined to believe that *most* of Severian's tales of his sexploits are
> "fact-based." However, that he mentions intimacy with Thecla *only*
> after he begins carrying her around in his head strikes me as more than
> a bit suspicious; I do not know exactly what's going on here, but it
> seems significant. Perhaps both of them had intense fantasies about
> each other and, as her memories integrated into his, they began to take
> on a feeling of having actually happened? Or...?
>
>

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