Wolfe's Attitude toward his Readers

Gerry Quinn · 15 Aug 2010, 10:03 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:03:41 +0100
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's Attitude toward his Readers
References: <SNT123-W3357051532538312747CC7CF990 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <97E73DA3D69A41E2B03E9CE9CF304B61@jill>


From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>Gerry Quinn- But again - verisimiltude!  Would Pas's engineers and 
>>quartemasters have
>>used strings of numbers, or a panoply of teratoid icons?  I expect that
>>somewhere in Mainframe is a big list of what all vaults on the Whorl
>>originally contained, indexed by number.  In a more controlled
>>disembarkation, instructions would be passed down regarding which were to 
>>be
>>opened.

> Still having trouble with your verisimiltude. We understand that Wolfe 
> shows us certain
> symbols that Severian or Silk is incapable of understanding.  My gut 
> feeling is still that
> if Wolfe wanted to depict a number sequence that WE also cannot understand 
> then he would
> describe it that way: "He saw the Seal of Pas and it had a block of 
> incomprehensibly organized
> numbers". From this description we just as easily can figure out they are 
> vault container
> index numbers or whatever.
>
> By actually giving us the numbers, organized in sequence, I feel Wolfe is 
> expecting us to be
> able to figure them out, even if Silk can't. In similar fashion I don't 
> think Severian really
> knows what teratoid or gnostic symbols are. But WE can interpret that they 
> mean there is
> something akin to monsters in Father Inire's wing of the House Absolute 
> and that Witches deal
> in mysterious, arcane knowledge. If he called the symbols an ankh or a 
> swastika, I think
> we would be expected to come to different conclusions.
>
> As the numbers are organized into 9 groups of four digits, and each group 
> of four digits adds
> up to a number which is less than 27, my best guess is that it is a 
> cryptogram. Perhaps it
> lists the initials of the 9 gods of the Whorl. Perhaps the cryptogram 
> solves to the 9 letters-
> Typhon-Pas. Or perhaps it spells out the 9 letter name of the true monarch 
> and creator of the
> Whorl, GENE WOLFE. We need more hidden wolves in Long Sun, don't we?

But that raises a question.  Suppose we convincingly solved such a 
cryptogram.  Now, how do we explain the fact of that particular vault under 
Viron having a number with this secret meaning?

I think that we cannot, just because Wolfe is the author, assume that some 
elements of a story are not merely 'colour'.  It would be very restrictive 
for Wolfe.  Every time a character booked a hotel room, Wolfe would be 
constrained from saying "he was given the key to room 167", for fear that 
readers would waste time searching for some numerological clue.

- Gerry Quinn

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