Urth Digest, Vol 56, Issue 37

Jerry Friedman · 17 Apr 2009, 04:14 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:14:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 56, Issue 37
In-Reply-To: <49E7732A.7000300 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <259933.70573.qm at web50709.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

There are other possibilities.  For instance, the narrators
could have added their comments, perhaps overtly raising
the question of who they are.  That is, Wolfe could have
made them the kind of characters who would do that and who
would have interesting things to say.

They could have quoted Silk's letters, written-out sermons,
or other documents, maybe with an explanation of how they
got hold of them.  ("Take these with you.  There may be
something in them you can use for your book.")

They could have just inserted extended thoughts for Silk
into the narrative, as they did brief thoughts and
feelings.  If necessary, at the end they could have said
something like, "What we showed Silk thinking about the
soul and body is mostly what he told us sprats in the
palaestra one day."

No doubt there are more options a writer like Wolfe
could have come up, and I think it would have been to
the book's benefit if he'd chosen one.

Jerry Friedman

--- On Thu, 4/16/09, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> Doesn't the style of narration depend entirely on the
> narrator and his/her circumstances? That is, how else should
> the narrator of LS have narrated?
> 
> That scene-by scene style, without introspection, was
> certainly a shift after Severian's many-layered and
> discursive account. But Silk doesn't narrate LS.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:26:51 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Weekly blog links
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID:
> <925508.79653.qm at web50710.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And we didn't need LS to consist entirely of dramatic
> scenes, in the sense of "The Cat in the
> Starfleet's
> Attic".  I'm glad that in NS and SS, our narrators
> get to
> ruminate occasionally.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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