Truth in fiction

Craig Brewer · 08 Jan 2011, 01:14 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: cnbrewer at yahoo.com (Craig Brewer)
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 17:14:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Truth in fiction
In-Reply-To: <4D27B429.90500 at io.com>
References: <SNT123-W22C4EBA2DF177241AFB77DCF0B0 at phx.gbl>
	<4D27B429.90500 at io.com>
Message-ID: <957545.4527.qm at web37605.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

>I would be interested to know if you've read Margaret Atwood's "Death by  
>Landscape"? It seems to be
>to be a deliberately answerless and  unanswerable mystery story, for or by 
>anyone.

I've taught that story before precisely to teach the value of ambiguity. Works 
well, actually. And anyone remember "The Lady and the Tiger"? I used to teach 
that to high school freshmen. It drove them absolutely nuts, which was awesome.

So how does one determine the difference between "Wolfean puzzle" and 
"literary/thematic ambiguity" in Wolfe? That's always the most frustrating thing 
to me about reading him, and about interpreting him (and hearing others talk 
about him, both here and anywhere): when are you dealing with a legitimate 
puzzle that's meant to be solved by attention to other details in the text? And 
when are you dealing with an ambiguity that is supposed to remain ambiguous?

For example, the talk about imitation leading to truth which has come up lately: 
that only really works in a "literary" way, in my opinion, if it remains 
structurally ambiguous whether the one/thing doing the imitating actually 
becomes the thing being imitated. Severian and Christ, say: it is important to 
me that Severian look like a Christian figure and, at times (like with the 
resurrections) even *seem* to become that thing, at least momentarily. However, 
as soon as we move to either definitive statement that Severian *IS* Christ or 
Severian *IS NOT* an actual messiah, the whole interesting dynamic of 
imitation-leading-to-truth dies. It becomes a plot point rather than something 
more thematic, potential, or always-a-possibility.

That's an example where it seems to me that ambiguity (of a certain sort, at 
least at the plot level) is necessary for the more fundamental meaning to really 
work. If it just becomes a plot point of Severian either just being a dupe or 
Severian actually being some kind of true supernatural messiah (above and beyond 
the Hieros), then it's just a story about a guy who is or isn't a messiah. The 
subtlety of not revealing that directly is clever but not actually insightful. 
But if it remains ambiguous, it becomes a story that actually shows a very 
intricate and sophisticated understanding of how an a-religious society could 
become "holy" in spite of itself. And that's way more interesting, and also much 
more worthy of how Wolfe actually can say both substantial and misleading things 
about his "beliefs" at the same time.

BUT...if I push on that angle too hard, I might well lose sight of certain 
specific puzzles in the text, particularly relating to the Hiero backstory, as 
well as interesting puzzles about Sev's own possible resurrection, etc. In 
practice, then, it seems wrong to stress puzzle-truth or the value of "multiple 
interpretations" and ambiguity too much. That kind of conundrum is peculiar to 
Wolfe (and a few other writers), and it can be incredibly fun, but also 
incredibly frustrating, especially if one leans too heavily on a certain 
ambiguity for one's interpretation...when someone else may well come up and just 
point out a fact of the text that "solves" the puzzle.

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